The number of suspected suicides was provided to the Parole Board by Neil Harding when he explained why his sexual abuser, former Dilworth housemaster Ian Wilson, should remain in prison.
Wilson, 73, has been in prison since 2021 and was turned down for parole for the fifth time on Tuesday.
“He is a monster,” Harding said in a statement he read to the Parole Board and also made available to NZME.
“Originally, I mentioned that nine of the boys who were allegedly sexually abused at Dilworth School had subsequently committed suicide,” he told the board on his fifth appearance to oppose Wilson’s release.
“I then learned the number of suicide victims was 15, then 26, then 36.
Survivor Neil Harding's statutory name suppression has been waived. Photo / NZME
“The impact of [Wilson’s] abuse and the role he played is incalculable,” he said.
“He has not only irreparably damaged the lives of at least 10 of his own victims, destroying their innocence, he has contributed to the sexual abuse of hundreds of other boys in his 25 years at Dilworth School, one of the worst institutions in New Zealand’s history — thanks to him.
Harding told the board he believed “none of this has been reflected in his [prison] sentence”.
Wilson is currently serving back-to-back jail terms totalling five years and six months for indecently assaulting 10 boys between 1975 and the 1990s.
Questioned later about his comments on the suspected suicides, Harding, who has waived his statutory right to name suppression as the victim of a sexual crime, said the number was based on “hearsay” and he could not verify it with a list of names.
However, he added: “Each time I hear that number it seems to be growing.”
He said many of the old boys from the independent boarding school in Auckland disappeared. They didn’t just leave the school, they left New Zealand.
The body of one of his friends was later discovered in a dumpster in London. Another’s sole aspiration was to live in a shed in rural Australia.
The Parole Board confirmed on Tuesday Wilson’s latest bid for release had been declined.
He is next expected to appear before the board in August.
Harding said he was “extremely happy” at the decision to keep Wilson in prison.
“I’m very happy that New Zealand’s children are safer,” he told NZME.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care heard from 126 former Dilworth students who were sexually abused at the school, and said it was aware of another 49 — making a total of 175 victims.
The royal commission found “sexual abuse was committed consistently at Dilworth from the 1950s until 2005″.
Another independent inquiry, led by Dame Silvia Cartwright, described the historical abuse at the school as a “catalogue of damage and injustice”.
Wilson, who has health conditions including prostate cancer and diabetes, worked at Dilworth from February 1971 until his resignation in December 1996.
He was arrested in 2020 as part of Operation Beverly, a long-running investigation into historical sexual abuse by several staff members at the boys-only school.
Wilson, a former housemaster and scouting volunteer, was jailed in March 2021 for three years and seven months for indecently assaulting five students between 1975 and 1992 — some of them more than once and over several years.
Harding said that in addition to being a “prolific paedophile”, Wilson had played a significant role in covering up abuse by other staff.
“He was also sadistic and inhumane towards many other boys that he did not personally sexually abuse,” Harding said.
Ian Wilson photographed as a Dilworth teacher in 1975.
He also said that Wilson had previously lied to the Parole Board when he said he did not know of other victims than the five for whom he was originally sentenced, and that he stopped doing it after he got married.
Subsequently, in August 2023, he received more jail time for abuse of another five boys.
“One of them was abused three times a week for six years from 1988, well after he was married,” Harding said.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.
