AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Tuesday 11 March 2014
A survivor of child sexual abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest has told a royal commission he felt “beset” by the church’s response to his litigation.
The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has also heard the former head of the church’s NSW Professional Standards Office delayed appointing an independent assessor to examine the abuse claims despite church protocols stating otherwise.
The commission is examining the treatment of John Ellis, who unsuccessfully pursued civil litigation against the church and Sydney archbishop Cardinal Pell for the abuse he suffered at the hands of Bass Hill priest Father Aidan Duggan as an altar boy.
During a meeting in February 2009 with Pell and John Usher, chancellor of the Catholic archdiocese of Sydney, Ellis said Pell used the term “legal abuse” to describe the treatment of his litigation.
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