Dilworth: Has it done enough to address abuse, and is it a school worth saving?

The Dilworth Trust Board chair says he’s open to considering wraparound support for abuse survivors which could last years. He acknowledges some survivors unhappy with the school’s redress scheme might take a class action. Has the school changed enough to protect students, respect old boys, and honour its founder’s legacy? John Weekes reports.

On Saturday March 1, old boys drifted into Dilworth. Some hadn’t been there for decades. A few watched cautiously before going in.

One was told by security he hadn’t completed the necessary paperwork to enter. His anguish, and his contempt for Dilworth, were clear as he swore and stormed off.

Inside the school grounds, there was a walk up to the dining and assembly hall. Former students and a few support people gathered near a room where posters celebrated famous alumni.

Dilworth has produced sports stars, a Governor-General, Cabinet minister, entertainers and others who’ve achieved fame, success and power. It has also produced victims of abuse, survivors with broken lives, addiction and dysfunction.

Some survivors refused to attend that day, not wanting a return to the scene of New Zealand’s worst-known school sexual abuse scandal. Others believed the apology scheduled for that day was a whitewash.

One month earlier, Jonathan Mason had agreed to seek election as chair at the annual general meeting when it was announced his predecessor Aaron Snodgrass would not run again.

Mason, a native of faraway Michigan but experienced corporate leader in New Zealand, spoke on a stage, trust board members seated behind him.

He acknowledged the abuse, known to have spanned from the 1950s to as recently as 2018. The cover-ups. The gaslighting. The betrayal of trust. The damage done to men who entered Dilworth as vulnerable boys, some orphans, some from poor backgrounds promised a better future.

“It was one of the toughest days as a leader of my life,” Mason told the Herald.

“And it wasn’t really the apology because that’s delivering words on a page. I mean, you want to do it well, and I prepared quite extensively for it, but then we had about a three-hour Q&A session after and you really hear from aggrieved people.”

Mason during the apology also spoke of damage to innocent people tainted by the scandal - staff, students past and present, others who still loved Dilworth.

At some points during the apology, audience members interjected. One said Dilworth was yet again trying to control the narrative. Another said his life was wrecked, and a financial payout he received was quickly squandered.

Some of those alluded to what Dilworth old boy and survivor Neil Harding terms “institutional narcissism”, a perception the school’s wealth, power, and desire for self-preservation make it incapable of letting survivors drive reforms and redress.

Nearly four months after the apology, Mason said new trustees should help drive a meaningful change to school culture.

The Dilworth board this week announced two new appointments, including of old boy and property expert Aaron Hockly.

Mason said every school board in the country would likely have an old boy, old girl, or alumnus on the board.

“It’s having the experience of the school, passion for the school.

“We’re not appointing trustees because of who they are in a narrow sense. Let’s take Aaron as an example ... He’s had another 10 to 15 years of executive experience, CEO experience, in charge of property management.”

The school’s wealth is without peer in New Zealand.

Economist Robert MacCulloch has argued the trust should be dismantled and have its assets confiscated after amassing a fortune over the years while abuse was covered up.

Mason said some in the community thought Dilworth was a great place and others wanted it closed down.

“As a trustee you have different groups that you listen to and that you’re accountable to. We’ve worked hard on getting an independent redress programme up and running. We also think about James Dilworth’s will,” he adds, referring to the school’s philanthropist founder.

“Is there still enough worth preserving, enough good worth preserving?”

Dilworth School in Epsom, central Auckland. Photo / Dean Purcell

Mason said much of the board’s work involved reviewing school performance.

“Over my time there in five to six years, we’ve had the top scholar in New Zealand in music, drama, English, different subjects ... we had one of our graduates win the Rhodes scholarship.”

He said Dilworth’s NCEA success rate was close to 100%, one of the country’s best. The school roll had evolved and was now about 75% Māori and Pasifika, with many boys from South Auckland excelling.

“If I thought we were really straying from James Dilworth’s vision, then it is legitimate as trustees to say, you know, what are we doing here?”

Redress

Mason said even some old boy survivors who wanted change in the redress scheme and financial counselling did not want the school shut down.

A key issue for survivors relates to redress, generally understood to include compensation, recognition of past wrongs, appropriate apologies and steps to mitigate chances of abuse happening again.

For some advocates, trauma and maladaptive behaviour often attributed to abuse require ongoing counselling - the wraparound support for years after compensation or other redress components are addressed.

Counsellor Tommy Livingston, a former crime reporter who in his current career has worked with abuse in care survivors, said a generic approach did not work, as victims had varying needs which must be understood if society was serious about survivors leading fulfilling, healthy lives.

“Trauma has a very long tail and everyone reacts differently to their trauma because their nervous systems are as unique as their fingerprint.”

Livingston said trauma research showed people who’d experienced sexual abuse required long-term therapeutic support.

“That does not mean they will be in therapy every week of their life. But at different points in their life they are likely going to need the therapeutic support to help them process and make sense of their trauma. Some people actually do not call on that support for many years.”

Mason said Dilworth had heard from survivors on this theme and had included payments for counselling in one-time payments.

“But we have this ongoing committee led by survivors. Some don’t need any counselling at all. Others, the one year to two years is probably fine, but there’s others who need more, so we’re working with survivors to respond to that.

“Just watch the space where we haven’t landed yet and we’re trying to get survivor input.”

Mason said since the apology he’d learned more about nuanced needs of survivors and the desire many old boys had for the process to be survivor-led.

“I was told the whole idea of a community apology came from survivors. There were varying reactions, all the way from deep disappointment at the apology occurring, the apology being at the school rather than some third-party site.”

Others found the apology cathartic and some found it painful, he said.

“It’s not a monolithic community.”

The money

Mason said the cap for payouts to old boy survivors was $200,000, and in extraordinary cases $300,000.

Dilworth has described the redress panel as an independent entity with three members. They are Dame Judith Potter, a judge, the clinical psychologist Professor Ian Lambie, and former Waikato-Tainui chair Rukumoana Schaafhausen.

Mason said the redress panel examined two factors - the severity of abuse and the impact of abuse.

“Two people can have the same thing happen to them and for one it doesn’t affect them much and for the other it’s wrecked their life, right?”

He said if an allegation of sexual abuse was made today, an investigation would start immediately. And he said multiple channels existed for students to raise concerns, including about emotional abuse or inappropriate behaviour.

Student-run committees addressed topics around boarding and school culture.

“And there’s zero tolerance for any form of bullying.”

Many old boys have said in decades past, cover-ups were partly enabled with a culture that punished potential whistle-blowers by accusing them of “pimping” or narking.

Asked how confident he was of no further prosecutions or arrests by people currently or previously staff or contractors at Dilworth, he said: “You don’t know what you don’t know, right?”

But he believed after the police Operation Beverly investigations and Dilworth Independent Inquiry into abuse, the likelihood of previously unreported abuse of this nature emerging was probably low.

“One of the criticisms from the inquiry was you had commercial people, but you weren’t really strong on educational oversight so you didn’t have education heavyweights on your board and so we’ve tried to work on that.

“John Morris out of Auckland Grammar came on the board two years ago this October."

The board had also appointed Ngaire Ashmore, the Auckland Girls Grammar School principal.

According to Dilworth’s annual report for 2024, five trustees earned a combined $534,000.

That pay package has drawn criticism from the economist MacCulloch, who argued senior management and bankers running Dilworth’s share portfolio were earning handsomely while compensation to survivors was relatively small.

Mason said each year there were usually 10 official trust board meetings but added: “You would meet as often as you need to. Trustees have to be conscious that you’re not running the school. You have oversight, not management.”

He said as with many organisations, a board with confidence in leaders or managers did not have to micromanage.

Mason said anonymous surveys conducted nowadays found boys felt safe, and comfortable in making complaints.

“I wouldn’t say everything’s perfect. One of the issues that we still struggle with is hierarchical bullying. A Year 12 boy will bully a Year 9.”

The school was introducing horizontal boarding, where boys boarded with peers in the same school year, to lessen chances of this age-based bullying.

And Dilworth will next year trial day school places at Year 9.

“We have a bottleneck in boarding. And we want to give students also different options.”

Mason said another recent reform was to introduce exit interviews after students graduated.

Jonathan Mason, Dilworth Trust chair. Photo / Dean Purcell

Mason said key outstanding issues were whether a memorial was needed, and to what extent survivors wished to keep interacting with Dilworth.

“A big theme from the survivor community is: I want to be sure this isn’t happening today.”

On the fringes

Last October, it became clear the redress scheme excluded the victim of a drug-peddling paedophile ring linked to jailed child molester Wayne Moonie and allegedly to the late Dilworth scout volunteer Richard Galloway.

In that early 1980s conspiracy, boys were groomed, trafficked for sex, plied with drugs or alcohol, and abused.

“I’d been introduced to the Dilworth boys who’d hang out at Richard’s place, which was a Dilworth-owned place on the school grounds,” survivor Roger Allison previously told the Herald.

Auckland Grammar School old boy Allison queried why he was excluded from redress, and some survivor advocates said his struggles showed Dilworth’s scheme lacked transparency.

Mason said Allison was not a Dilworth student, the perpetrator was not on Dilworth’s staff but a volunteer, and abuse occurred on Dilworth-owned property but not on school grounds.

Mason said the trust board examined what was in the redress scheme’s scope and Allison’s experience did not meet the criteria Dilworth had.

“We spent some time on that and made a decision on it. I would think it’s unlikely that that decision changes.

“Roger’s talked to us in the last two months, threatened legal action, which he has every right to do.”

Allison said the board had only corresponded with him by email, and had not met with him.

A class action is also possible from survivors unhappy with Dilworth’s prescribed redress scheme.

“When you go to the redress panel, you have two choices. You can either settle and get a payment, but that’s called a full and final settlement so that undermines your ability to go to court because you’ve settled,” Mason said.

He said the vast majority of survivors who engaged with Dilworth’s redress scheme had settled.

Liz Tonks, Network for Survivors of Abuse advocate and spokesperson, said Dilworth should re-examine its redress approach, especially relating to trauma counselling.

“The evidence all out there is survivors don’t benefit from short-term counselling. PTSD and related mental health issues are long-term problems that don’t go away. They arise from time to time and they need support.”

And she said the trust board should have more separation from the rest of school management.

Tonks added: “We would’ve hoped that they would not have put a member of the old boys on the board.”

Tonks felt the board and Dilworth establishment had “shut down” the likes of Harding and of Steve Brown, a former Dilworth Old Boys Association president who attended many court hearings but lost his role after showing support for survivors.

Mason said the Old Boys Association was independent of the trust board.

“What I’ve done in my two months as chair is to just listen. I’ve met with Neil, met with Steve to listen to what they have to say and take that in...”

Dilworth hosted the apology event earlier this year. Photo / Dean Purcell

Brown said he planned to meet Mason again after a positive earlier meeting.

He said issues remained relating to abusive former Dilworth teachers who left the school without police being alerted, received positive references from Dilworth, then abused boys at other schools.

“Does Dilworth not have a moral obligation to these people?”

Harding, perhaps the most outspoken among old boys critical of how Dilworth handled abuse and the redress scheme, has considered joining a class action.

“I have seen significant inconsistencies in awards, so there is no process to question consistency.

“The concerns that I have had with the redress programme I expressed at my personal redress hearing that actually, after 15 minutes, I left in tears.”

He said his hearing with the three-member panel was a disaster.

“There wasn’t a complaints process, there was no moderation ... There was no respect or compassion shown to me as a victim, and so this was in around June last year.”

Harding said he met with Mason since, and received assurances the board would be more transparent. But he was unconvinced his experience would be much different a year later.

He said the trust board should handle complaints from survivors more seriously.

“For them to demonstrate that they should still be in the business of education, they would need to follow best practice and do everything in their power to demonstrate that they are an institution that can be trusted with today’s children and tomorrow’s children.”

He is not convinced the board changes will be enough.

“If the trust board aren’t confronting the issues of the past with best practice and doing the right thing, and continuing to cover up the school’s role in the sexual abuse of hundreds of boys over 50 years or 70 years, then as a society, we have to question, should they be taking boys on?”

Former Dilworth School student Neil Harding. Photo / Dean Purcell

Back on Saturday March 1, some of the old boys at the hours-long apology event went on a tour of the grounds. A few sat on benches smoking cigarettes.

They heard from headmaster Dan Reddiex on how the school had changed. One said he was impressed with Reddiex. Another was unconvinced.

The last old boys from the event, some now in their 60s, walked back down to the gate where Erin St curves and turns into quiet Clyde St.

The gate was closed. A few old boys went off to get drunk with friends they hadn’t seen for decades.

John Weekes is a business journalist mostly covering aviation and courts. He has reported on Catholic Church abuse and the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry since 2019 and on Dilworth survivors since 2021.