Melbourne-based firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, recently named Australian Law Firm of the Year in the 2022 Chambers Asia Pacific & Greater China Region Awards, says they are refocusing their direction and resources.

Corrs confirmed it would no longer represent the Church, saying it was "transitioning away from undertaking personal injury work" to focus on its core areas of commercial legal practice.

"We will be working with the clients affected by this decision to ensure the orderly transition of such matters to new legal advisers. In particular, the firm is committed to ensuring that we protect the interests of our clients and the interests of all parties involved in these matters through this transition," the firm said in a statement.

"Corrs is working with all clients affected by its decision to transition away from personal injury work. This is an ongoing process which will take some time."

The firm declined to comment further. However, the Australian Financial Review reported that the firm's lawyers were increasingly uncomfortable with its work defending the Church against historic child abuse compensation claims.

Sources said Richard Leder, a veteran Corrs partner, was also leaving the firm. Leder and Cardinal George Pell established the Archdiocese of Melbourne's response to complaints of sexual, physical and emotional abuse by priests 20 years ago.

The "Melbourne Response" was heavily criticised for its paltry payments which did not reflect the severity of the life-long damage inflicted on victims. In addition, it did not consider the Church's ability to be financially accountable to victims, given that the value of its assets in Australia alone is estimated at around $30 billion.

In 2020, the Supreme Court of Victoria overturned a deed of release signed by a victim of child sexual abuse. The child was paid $32,500 by the Catholic Church in 1996 in exchange for his silence and no further legal action.

The landmark decision paved the way for victims to set aside previous agreements made with the church and sue for damages.

There are estimated to be about 500 victims who signed similar deeds of release, often for small financial payouts under the Catholic Church's controversial "Melbourne Response".

Corrs is one of Australia's top-10 law firms by size, with 145 partners and 749 non-partner fee earners in its ranks according to The Australia Financial Review's latest law partnership survey.

Sources

Sydney Criminal Lawyers

Law.com International

Australian Financial Review

The current plan was designed to limit financial damage to the Church by having clergy sex abuse survivors sign away their rights to sue the Church.

Known as the Melbourne Response, compensation payments were initially capped at $50,000 when Cardinal George Pell devised the scheme in 1996.

Payments were later raised to $75,000. However, victims had to to sign a deed of settlement waiving their right to take civil action against the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

A spokesperson for the archdiocese says, despite this deed, the archdiocese has provided "additional redress payments totalling $11.07 million based on a cap of $150,000 to 233 survivors of child sexual abuse".

These survivors include those whose claims were previously accepted by the Melbourne Response and who received compensation under previous caps.

Although the deed of settlement has not so far been challenged in the state of Victoria (of which Melbourne is the capital), some victims in other Australian states have received hundred-fold increases in payouts after judges set aside their deed of settlement with the church.

But that number could increase. Victoria's state government is considering following the states of Queensland and Western Australia in providing blanket relief to survivors who have signed so-called releases from liability for the Church.

If it were to do this, survivors would be free to sue for further damages, which would in turn see payouts from the archdiocese climb considerably higher.

Observers have noted in some other states, these payments have increased one hundred-fold.

Australia's Royal Commission into Child Abuse recommended a maximum payout to victims of $200,000. The National Redress Scheme currently limits payouts to $150,000, but a parliamentary inquiry has recommended this be changed to $200,000.

The Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference backed the $200,000 figure in its submission to the parliamentary inquiry.

Source

• Crux
• Image: Irish Times

The Melbourne Response, which was created in 1996 by then-Archbishop George Pell, capped payments to victims at $A50,000 and then $A75,000.

But a Sunday Age analysis of data compiled by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse showed the cap potentially saved the Church up to A$62 million.

Victims paid compensation under the Melbourne Response received an average payout of A$46,000, compared to an average A$270,000 settlement for those who attempted to sue the Church.

The disparity comes despite no victim ever winning a lawsuit against the Church due its policy of fighting all claims regardless of merit and the use of the "Ellis Defence" that prevented the Church from being sued successfully because it does not technically exist as a legal entity, the Sunday Age stated.

It is understood these average A$270,000 payments were made as a result of negotiated settlements after victims had obtained independent legal representation.

The figures show the Church has paid out a total of A$14.8 million in compensation to victims of sexual abuse by priests in the archdiocese of Melbourne.

Francis Moore, executive director of administration for the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne, said they rejected the A$62 million payout figure.

"The proposition is based on the flawed assumption that victims who have been compensated through the Melbourne Response wanted to go to court and would have succeeded if they had.

"The Melbourne Response provides redress and free counselling without having to prove anything in court," he said.

Mr Moore said the archdiocese also "absolutely rejects" allegations it fights every legal case regardless of merit and noted it does not rely on the Ellis defence.

But earlier this year the Archdiocese of Melbourne was one of many religious institutions and orders around Australia that refused to officially renounce the Ellis defence.

The Sunday Age also reported repeated warnings by senior religious leaders in Melbourne in the 1980s and 1990s that attempts should be made to prevent written records from being used against the Church in future legal proceedings.

A representative of the archdiocese said the bid to avoid legal discovery was "part of the larger story about the culture of secrecy and something nobody in the Church at the time could be at all proud of".

Sources

• Sunday Age
• Image: Delicious Food and Travel

Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse issued a case study this week into the programme instituted by then-Archbishop George Pell in 1996.

The study identified 12 systemic issues.

One issue was the role of the Church in determining its own redress.

Another was the "relationship between those delivering or coordinating counselling and pyschological care and those making decisions about the abuse and compensation".

The commission noted that the Church's own law firm was instructing both an independent commissioner and the archdiocese about the same cases.

This raised "a clear potential for conflict. It also raises difficulties with confidentiality".

The commission was also concerned that the independent commissioner who has run the Melbourne Response since 1996 gave victims advice about whether or not it was worth telling police about the abuse with a view to laying criminal charges.

It also berated the commissioner's decision to interview victims in his own offices after survivors told the commission they found the room's size and furnishings intimidating.

The Melbourne Response was designed for an independent commissioner to make inquiries "into allegations of sexual abuse, determine their credibility and make recommendations about action to be taken against those accused of abuse".

It was also to cover the cost of counselling and support, and recommend ex gratia payments to victims.

However, the method by which payments to victims were determined were opaque and should be known to all and consistently followed, the case study noted.

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart said he will carefully examine how the scheme's independence can be enhanced and potential conflicts of interest be avoided.

Other aspects of the programme will also be reviewed, the archbishop said.

The royal commission also recommended a national redress scheme be established for victims by mid-2017, with institutions where the abuse happened doing the funding.

The Church supported the establishment of such a scheme, which would offer compensation, counselling and psychological care.

Sources

• Sydney Morning Herald
• ABC
• Associated Press
• Image: ABC

The Sunday Age reported that a warning was issued by a church insurer to the nation's bishops as early as 1988.

This was more than seven years before the Melbourne Response and Towards Healing protocols for victims were set up.

The Sunday Age investigation was based on internal Church documents.

A proposal for a dedicated abuse victim compensation scheme was made by Catholic Church Insurance Limited in 1990.

CCI set some money aside itself as Australia's bishops debated a course of action.

The bishops ultimately approved the creation of a "special issues" insurance policy and compensation pool in 1991.

The allowed for cover increased from A$5million to $A15million in two years after that.

CCI then issued the Church with a special one year policy that increased coverage to $A25 million, but excluded payments for abuse prior to 1976.

The Church would have to pay directly for claims from before this date.

CCI was experiencing problems in the early 1990s having its insurance exposure to sexual abuse claims underwritten by reinsurance operators.

According to The Sunday Age, the move also came despite the Church's hierarchy continuing to publicly downplay allegations in the early 1990s that the Church was facing a massive sexual abuse scandal.

An internal Church document noted that a "significant number" of claims for damages for sexual abuse had already been received in the early 1990s.

Last year, Cardinal George Pell testified before a royal commission that he was aware of "dozens of complaints" when the Melbourne Response was created in 1996.

Catholic Church authorities have paid more than A$43 million to victims in total since 1997, it is estimated.

The Sunday Age understands CCI has earmarked up to another A$150 million to potentially settle all outstanding and anticipated sexual abuse claims.

Sources

• The Sunday Age
• 9 News
• Image: News.com.au

Archbishop Hart told Australia's Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that a conviction was often not sufficient to have a priest defrocked.

"There was a leaning in favour of a priest who might have been accused of something," he said.

"We found that a conviction was not enough to have a priest laicised by Rome."

Since 2001, Archbishop Hart said he had the power to suspend priests and recommend their being removed from the clerical state.

"Every living priest who has been convicted of sexual misconduct has been referred to Rome for laicisation," he said.

But he admitted he only began directing suspended priests to cease wearing clerical garb in 2011.

Archbishop Hart also admitted that purportedly heartfelt letters to victims sent by himself and his predecessor then-Archbishop George Pell for a decade, were, in fact, form letters drafted by staff in consultation with lawyers, with only the names changed.

Archbishop Hart said he had been unable to know confidential details.

In the past year, he had tried to get at least some minimal information about victims' cases so the letters could be more personal.

"It was never indicated to me that this was unhelpful. Had it been, I would have certainly acted sooner," he said.

The letters were sent as part of settlements under the Church's Melbourne Response, set up in 1996 to handle allegations of clergy sex abuse in the archdiocese.

Since 1996, Melbourne archdiocese has paid out about A$10 million to 326 victims without accepting liability for their child abuse claims.

Archbishop Hart said there had been a tendency to minimise sexual abuse by priests in the past.

"I would have to admit that with what we have been doing now shows that there was too much of a tendency to minimise the seriousness of the matter, and I repudiate that totally," he said.

A controversial cap on payments to victims by Melbourne archdioceses is being reviewed by a federal judge appointed by Archbishop Hart.

The archbishop also said he regretted telling a family whose daughter had suffered horrific abuse at a Melbourne school that their civil claim would be "strenuously defended".

The girl subsequently committed suicide.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Herald Sun
• The Age
• The Age
• Image: The Telegraph

Last week, Cardinal Pell used a "trucking company" analogy before Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Speaking by video link from Rome, the Cardinal likened the Church to a trucking company that refuses to take responsibility for a driver who molested women.

"It would not be appropriate, because it's contrary to the policy, for the ownership, leadership of that company to be held responsible," Cardinal Pell told commissioners.

"Similarly with the Church and the head of any other organisation.

"It is, I think, not appropriate for legal culpability to be foisted on the authority figure."

Victims' groups were quick to condemn the remarks.

Adults Surviving Child Abuse president Cathy Kezelman called his comments "outrageous", and said they denied the experience of victims.

Nicky Davis, from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told ABC radio that Cardinal Pell had made a "highly offensive" comparison.

"He shows that he really has absolutely no conception of what is appropriate or inappropriate behaviour and what are appropriate or inappropriate things to say to survivors," she said.

Cardinal Pell also expressed support for the Vatican's refusal earlier this year to turn over documents requested by royal commission about every abuse case Rome had dealt with in Australia.

These had been requested by chairman Justice Peter McClellan.

Describing these documents as the internal workings of another sovereign state, Cardinal Pell said the Church has provided 5000 pages of documents, which he deemed sufficient.

Cardinal Pell also outraged victims by saying he hadn't been following the royal commission, because he had been busy in Rome.

This brought forth audible gasps from victims watching his evidence.

The cardinal was made the Vatican's first economic prefect by Pope Francis earlier this year.

The commission is looking at the Melbourne Response for abuse victims, set up by Pell in 1996.

The approach has been criticised for its cap on compensation and for discouraging victims from going to police.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• The Tablet
• Herald Sun
• Image: Daily Telegraph

This came after Cardinal George Pell told parents of two victims that he would make moves to remove the cap and revisit 300 existing claims against the Church.

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Cardinal Pell said this in giving evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse in Sydney.

The Melbourne Response, which Cardinal Pell instigated in the 1990s, had a $50,000 cap on payouts.

It gave the Church control over how much compensation a victim could receive when its liability could not be established.

Cardinal Pell said he had set up the Melbourne Response in 1996 after the Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett, told him "Now you clean this thing up and there won't be a Royal Commission".

The cardinal's moral choices in dealing with sex abuse cases have come under sustained challenge at the Royal Commission.

He said his instructions when Archbishop of Sydney to "vigorously" and "strenuously" defend claims by abuse victim John Ellis were intended to discourage claimants.

This was so they would "think clearly" before litigating against the Church.

The cardinal had defended disputing in court whether Mr Ellis was really abused.

Cardinal Pell said his lawyers assured him it was a "proper" legal tactic and Mr Ellis was a senior lawyer who would have understood he was not disbelieved.

The cardinal admitted he accepted Mr Ellis' allegations, just as the Church's own review had done.

But even so he gave the instructions which resulted in Mr Ellis being subject to four days of gruelling cross-examination in court on whether and how he had been abused.

He said he had "moral doubts" about it, but he didn't think his lawyers would have suggested anything "improper" to him.

He said that from a Christian perspective, Mr Ellis had not been treated fairly.

Mr Ellis was abused by the priest Aidan Duggan in the Bass Hill parish from when he was a 13-year-old altar boy.

Mr Ellis lost his landmark damages case against the Sydney archdiocese, which established a defence which has shielded the Church from damages claims in similar litigation.

The litigation finished up costing the Church A$1.5 million, including A$568,000 in ex gratia payments to Mr Ellis.

Sources

• Sydney Morning Herald
• ABC
• Image: Herald Sun

"Time is up, the Church has had more than a fair chance. The Melbourne Response and Towards Healing have lost all credibility and are beyond repair," said Father Kevin Dillon.

He said the Church response to abuse had been heartless, adversarial, and showed "a culture of denial" about the impact on victims.

Father Dillon, parish priest of St Mary of the Angels parish, Geelong, was appearing at a sitting of the inquiry in Geelong. His testimony drew a standing ovation from an audience of about 100 people.

A campaigner within the Church on behalf of victims, Father Dillon said he had consistent contact with 30 victims.

"Sadly but importantly, I have yet to hear one victim speak positively of their experience with either Church process" (Melbourne or national), he said.

Father Dillon said the Church should be forced to set up a pastoral fund for victims, administered by an independent committee. A compulsory contribution from each parish of $20 to $50 a week for two years would raise up to $400,000.

"We can run raffles. We Catholics are pretty good at raising money," he said. Asked by an inquiry member whether the Church would pay, Father Dillon replied it should not be given a choice.

He said he suggested the idea to several diocesan leaders but was ignored.

Father Dillon criticised Church leadership for "not once" contacting former victims to see how they were getting on, and advocated a support group similar to Alcoholics Anonymous.

He criticised a speech by Cardinal George Pell of Sydney in 2011, in which the cardinal said the Church realised in 1996 it would have to act or "the scandals will bleed us dry".

Father Dillon asked, "Does that mean it really is all about the money?"

He said the Church had focused on denial and protection of material assets rather than protection of human assets.

Sources:

The Age

Geelong Advertiser

Image: Geelong Advertiser