The former Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell has given evidence in front of a packed room at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

During his first day giving evidence at the Royal Commission, Cardinal Pell, who has just taken on a new senior role in the Vatican’s financial department, said he should have pursued mediation in the high profile case of a victim who tried to sue the church and lost.

The case of John Ellis, who was abused by Sydney priest Father Aidan Duggan in the 1970s, was in the spotlight today, with Commissioner Gail Furness trying to establish Cardinal Pell’s involvement in the case.

Mr Ellis sued the Trustees of the Church, but he lost his case in the NSW Court of Appeals when it ruled the Church was not a legal entity that could be sued. It’s come to be known as the “Ellis defence” and some claim it has insulated the Catholic Church from further action.

During the case, Mr Ellis was cross-examined by barristers on behalf of the Catholic church for days. In a witness statement tendered at the Royal Commission today, Cardinal Pell says the “legal battle was hard fought, perhaps too well fought by our legal representatives”.

Cardinal Pell’s private secretary, Dr Michael Casey told the Commission last week that Cardinal Pell had directed the legal team to be aggressive in its cross-examination.

In his witness statement given to the Commission today, Cardinal Pell says, “I would now say, looking back, that these legal measures, although effective, were disproportionate to the objective and to the psychological state of Mr Ellis as I now better understand it.”

“I realise I should have exercised more regular and stringent oversight through my chancellor(s).”

Cardinal Pell told the Commissioner he wasn’t involved in discussions about how much to compensate Mr Ellis, which goes against the claims of Chancellor at the time, Monsignor Brian Rayner.

“I certainly did not nominate any amount of money. There’s a whole lot of things wrong with that account. There was no cap,” said Cardinal Pell.

When asked whether he understood mediation was the normal, preferred means of providing compensation when relationships and well-being are at stake, particularly in corporate cases, Cardinal Pell said, “We usually did that and I very much regret we didn’t try to do it more than we did in that case.”

Pushed by the Counsel Assisting the Commissioner to explain why he rejected mediation, Cardinal Pell said it was “because we were so advised”.

Asked by Counsel Assisting the Commissioner whether he thought the Commission should make a recommendation that Priests take out insurance in case they are sued in the future, Cardinal Pell said it “might be a very useful development”. He also said the church should, in future, be able to be sued via a ‘corporation sole’, set up for the purposes of paying out victims.

When it was put to him that the church had not met its moral responsibility, Cardinal Pell agreed, but stressed that the Catholic Church be assessed like any other community or sporting organisation, and not singled out for mistreatment of victims. He said it was up to the church itself to apply its own high moral standard to its practices, not the state.

“I would agree with that, but I would qualify it by saying two things: that in this future system there has to be equality across communities and institutions. And the other thing I would say … at least we’ve got something in place. We were trying to do something. We took the best advice at the time. We were probably more generous than government—that might be inaccurate, but we’re keen to do better in the future.”

Cardinal Pell will appear at the Royal Commission to give evidence again on Wednesday. You can watch the proceedings here.