Dilworth abuser got away at 1978 meeting, allowing more boys to be hurt, two former students say

Rampant child abuse at Dilworth School could have been curtailed at a 1978 meeting, two former students say.

More than 120 former students have reported being abused over the course of many decades at the school.

Some of that sexual abuse and culture of bullying was outlined in The Lost Boys of Dilworth, which aired on TVNZ earlier this month.

Steve Brown, former Dilworth Old Boys’ Association president, said a complaint about chaplain Peter Taylor was made to then-headmaster Peter Parr in 1978.

Brown said the 1978 meeting involved Taylor, board chairman Bill Cotter and trustee Derek Firth, where Taylor was given the choice to resign, and police were not contacted.

“That was the big opportunity to clean it out.”

Brown said Dilworth, until that point, may have either not realised how rife the abuse was, or been wilfully blind to it.

“Perhaps they had some inkling but clearly they did not do a proper investigation and they should’ve involved the police.

“It set a precedent - that if you get caught, you were just allowed to leave.”

Cotter, Taylor and Parr are no longer alive.

Firth, a former Dilworth Trust Board chair, told the Herald he stood by evidence he’d previously provided.

“I don’t really want to depart from that because that’s 100 per cent true, which is quite different from all the inferences that have been going around,” he said on Thursday.

Firth told the Dilworth Inquiry that, given his legal experience, especially with criminal cases, he took the lead in the 1978 meeting and confronted Taylor with the allegations.

“He told [Taylor] that if he returned with a written admission, he would be able to leave immediately and would not be reported to police,” the Inquiry report added.

“Mr Taylor duly returned after 15 minutes with the written admission and resigned with immediate effect.”

Firth told the inquiry the board understood complaints to be of only “inappropriate touching” and if he’d known the complaints were more serious, police would have been alerted.

In 2022, Firth told the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry: “I was concerned, having conducted a number of sexual abuse cases as counsel in court, that there was a reasonable possibility that the young victims would not be believed by a jury”.

On Thursday, Firth maintained police would have been alerted if the full extent of Taylor’s behaviour was known at the time.

“Absolutely, no question about that at all ... And indeed what I’ve constantly said is that I specifically asked the head[master] to investigate if there had been penetration, or rape ... and he reported back to us that he had specifically asked all of the victims that, and was satisfied that it had only been inappropriate touching.”

Firth also told the Herald: “They might not have described it correctly to the head at the time but all we could go on was what was being described to the head at the time.”

Asked what he’d do differently today, he said: “If it was exactly the same situation with exactly the same complaints I would do exactly the same”.

Asked if inappropriate touching today would also not be referred back to police, he referred again to his evidence.

“The boys reported one thing and are now saying something else, which happens. Look, this happens with sexual abuse. I’m not being critical of them. I’m simply saying that is what happened.”

He added: “They might have exactly described what happened and have a different view now. I don’t know.”

He sent a text later saying media coverage had created more indirect victims who were the thousands of happy and grateful old boys, as well as staff and Dilworth supporters.

Firth said he did “not wish to take anything away from the horror of the abuse and the terrible harm to the direct victims but the breadth of the attack on Dilworth generally has had this regrettable side effect”.

The Dilworth Inquiry said Taylor abused 35 students and was a serial rapist.

The inquiry also said former staff members told of documented investigations into sexual abuse allegations against Taylor, as well as Rex McIntosh in 1979, a staffer known as “Staff Member UE” in 1981, Wynyard in 1983, and Leonard Cave in 1984.

Mark Staufer in 'The Lost Boys of Dilworth'. Photo / TVNZ

McIntosh died while awaiting trial in 2021. He had denied seven charges of indecent assault in relation to five boys between 1972 and 1980.

In 2022, Cave was sentenced to eight years in prison for indecent assault, indecency between males, sexual violation, and supplying cannabis and LSD to students.

Wynyard was sentenced last year to six years and three months imprisonment for historical abuse which spanned 20 years against eight victims.

Robert Howard Gladwin Wynyard pictured outside the High Court in Auckland in 2021. Photo / John Weekes

Dilworth survivor Neil Harding said it was disastrous that the school let Taylor go in 1978 without contacting the police.

“If they had done something then, they would have stopped decade after decade after decade of abuse.”

He told the Herald that Parr used to approach parents in “fishing expeditions” on the pretext of being concerned for student welfare.

Harding said if the parents did not relay any concerns, then Parr would be satisfied they did not know about abuse.

“The more you look at this, the more you see how complicit the school was.”

John Weekes, online business editor, has covered court, crime, politics, breaking news and consumer affairs.