AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
February 11, 2015
Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter
The Catholic Church vigorously fought a legal claim from a sexual abuse victim to discourage other potential claimants from mounting their own litigations, according to a report released by a royal commission on Wednesday.
A report into how the Catholic Church dealt with John Ellis’s complaint of horrific abuse at the hands of a priest found serious flaws in the church’s response.
It found that former Sydney archbishop Cardinal George Pell’s edict to church lawyers to not accept that Mr Ellis had been abused by Father Aidan Duggan was based on incorrect information.
“The archdiocese [of Sydney] wrongly concluded that it had never accepted that Father Duggan had abused Mr Ellis,” the report says.
“This conclusion allowed Cardinal Pell to instruct the archdiocese’s lawyers to maintain the non-admission of Mr Ellis’s abuse. The archdiocese accepted the advice of its lawyers to vigorously defend Mr Ellis’s claim.
“One reason Cardinal Pell decided to accept this advice was to encourage other prospective plaintiffs not to litigate claims of child sexual abuse against the church.”
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