Mr Ellis came away from a pivotal meeting with then Archbishop Pell in 2009 with the impression that the litigation had been “a runaway train with nobody at the wheel”. This was after years of legal action that had crippled Mr Ellis mentally and financially. Cardinal George Pell. Credit:AP Mr Ellis told the royal commission he would have settled for an acknowledgement, and apology and a payment of $100,000 in 2004, and he made repeated offers to settle subsequently. Each approach was rejected. So far the archdiocese or its insurers have spent $1.5 million on defending the case and on ex-gratia payments to Mr Ellis. In the February 2009 meeting and in a letter afterwards, Cardinal Pell apologised and made extraordinary admissions, the commission has heard. He said that the treatment of Mr Ellis had been “legal abuse”, which should not have happened and mistakes were made that the cardinal didn't want repeated, according to Mr Ellis' evidence. The cardinal also said, "I had no idea that you had sought an ex-gratia payment of only $100,000. I was told that your claim was for millions and needed to be defended,” Mr Ellis said.

"I don't know why you would have been told that. Even my offer of compromise was for less than the legal costs your lawyers say you incurred," Mr Ellis responded at the meeting, according to his witness statement. "I find that hard to believe. If I knew that, there is no way I would have spent more on legal costs than you were asking for. That wouldn't make any sense," the cardinal is alleged to have replied. Royal commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan asked Mr Ellis whether he got the sense that Cardinal Pell ultimately made the decisions about conduct of the litigation against him. “No, it left me with the impression that Cardinal Pell was completely out of the loop on all of that decision making,” Mr Ellis said. Even so, the meeting gave him “immeasurable comfort” for its frankness, openness and willingness to acknowledge what had happened, Mr Ellis said.

The commission heard that two internal investigations in 2005 into the handling of Mr Ellis' complaint under the church's Towards Healing protocol, including one done by former NSW ombudsman David Landa, were highly critical of the lack of transparency and delays in handling his case, which led to an “absence of justice”. It was recommended that the church should apologise to Mr Ellis for these failings. But Corrs Chambers Westgarth, brought in by Cardinal Pell to run the litigation, advised against an apology. Mr Ellis was shocked to be informed the church intended to “vigorously” resist the proceedings, which included disputing that the abuse occurred, even though its own assessor's report accepted on the balance of probabilities that it had. Days of cross-examination challenging his credibility were “extremely distressing”, Mr Ellis said. The case, which he lost, had the effect of insulating the church from legal action by sexual abuse victims because it established that the trustees who held a diocese's assets could not be held responsible for the actions of priests in the diocese.

The church offered to waive Mr Ellis' legal costs if he agreed not to go to the High Court. His application for leave to appeal to the High Court was rejected in 2007. He then suffered a “severe psychological decline” with the “devastating” realisation that his decision to litigate had “created further barriers to other victims of abuse seeking justice”. After the meeting with the then archbishop, the archdiocese abandoned its three-year pursuit of Mr Ellis for more than $750,000 in legal costs, which had continued even though it was informed of his extremely fragile mental state. It began making ex gratia payments to help with the cost of repairs to his house, ongoing counselling and a trip to New York. Loading In mid-2012 Mr Ellis gave an interview to the ABC about his abuse, his case and the archdiocese's response. In October 2012 he was informed the archdiocese had decided to stop making payments for his house repairs. The work remains incomplete, Mr Ellis said.