AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 11, 2014
CARDINAL George Pell was “completely out of the loop” during the running of a highly controversial legal case against him, which effectively established that the Catholic Church in Australia cannot be sued for child sex abuse committed by a priest.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the former Archbishop of Sydney was given misleading information about the case, which was brought by a former Sydney altar boy, John Ellis.
The case was ultimately decided by the NSW Court of Appeal in 2007, which found that neither the archbishop nor the trustees of the archdiocese could be sued over abuse committed by a priest.
During a subsequent private meeting in 2009, Cardinal Pell apologised to Mr Ellis for the way the case was handled, saying he did not know Mr Ellis had previously offered to settle for a fraction of the amount the archdiocese ultimately spent on the case.
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