‘Betrayed your trust’: Dilworth School apologises for decades of abuse

A formal apology to students, staff, and their families has been issued by a school embroiled in the inquiry into abuse in care.

Incoming Dilworth School trust board chairman Jonathan Mason apologised to survivors, to others who had died, to their families, to all past and present students and staff and to the founders of the school who have endured child sexual abuse and the associated stigma on Saturday.

The apology was made during a private event for survivors, former staff and other students that was closed to media, but livestreamed.

“We hope to make clear that the abuse you were forced to endure was not your fault, it was the fault of some people at Dilworth who betrayed your trust and the trust of your mothers, fathers and whanau,” Mason said.

“It failed to put the needs of the boys in their care above the reputation of school.”

Some of the boys were ridiculed and punished, including caning, for speaking out, Mason said.

Mason said the school had failed to investigate abuse, and in some cases the abuser was permitted to depart the school free of punishment or sanction – and “with a reference that did not tell the truth about his actions”.

Dilworth School and its community was rocked by the historical sex abuse. Photo / Dean Purcell

Mason said a “culture of silence” existed where survivors were left to endure a militaristic and homophobic environment.

“Today we are saying to all of you, from the depths of our heart, we are sorry.”

The wellbeing of survivors was “paramount,” and he and the board were taking responsibility for the apology on behalf of the school, Mason said.

He said while the school had apologised in 2019, since then the Royal Commission into abuse in care, the independent inquiry and the various prosecutions of past staff had taken place.

Discover more

• Dilworth victim tells inquiry some of his abused classmates took their own lives
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He thanked survivors for sharing their testimony.

“We want to say: Never again. Never again can we ignore, or turn our eyes away from the abuse or block up our ears from the cries...”

He acknowledged some survivors had taken their own lives, others had turned to drugs and alcohol and been imprisoned.

For years, abuse was covered up at Dilworth and at times a child abuse ring operated.

One in the early 1980s involving the now-imprisoned Wayne Gillman Moonie and also allegedly involving the late Dilworth scout volunteer Richard Galloway and the late Ken Wilson.

Multiple child molesters from Dilworth have been jailed since the police revealed the existence of the Operation Beverly investigation in 2020.

“The Dilworth Trust Board of today will give the apology, taking ownership for the failings of the school’s leadership and governance of the past,” the Dilworth Response page says.

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