AUSTRALIA
ABC News
[with video]
Cardinal George Pell’s private secretary has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse the Catholic Church’s vigorous cross-examination of a victim during litigation was wrong.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining allegations made by altar boy John Ellis, who was abused by Father Aidan Duggan in Sydney between 1974 and 1979.
Mr Ellis failed in his attempt to sue the Catholic Church in 2007, with the Supreme Court ruling the church was not an entity that could be sued.
Dr Michael Casey, who is Cardinal Pell’s private secretary, was the main contact point for lawyers defending the church against the compensation claim from Mr Ellis.
Though a church-appointed assessor concluded Mr Ellis had most likely been abused, when the case came to trial, the church decided to fight him on that.
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