AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph
Lawyers acting for Church run up $1.5m bill against victim who wanted to settle for just $100,000
MATTHEW BENNS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MARCH 10, 2014
LAWYERS representing Cardinal George Pell and the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney helped run up bills of $1.5 million against a victim of sexual abuse who had originally been happy to settle for just $100,000.
The Royal Commission into child sex abuse heard how the lawyers — acting on the church’s instructions — “vigorously” fought John Ellis through the courts despite his second wife Nicola writing to the church to warn of his “fragile psychological state”.
The NSW Court of Appeal ruling eventually gave the Catholic Church its notorious “Ellis Defence” — that it could not be sued as a legal entity and could not be held liable for abuse committed by a priest.
Cardinal Pell gave the legal action the green light at the time. But in a part of his statement read today he back flipped and said: “My own view is that the Church in Australia should be able to be sued in cases of this kind.”
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