Former St Peter’s teacher Geoffrey Coker on trial for historic indecency allegations

Former St Peter's School staff member Geoffrey Coker, 75, is on trial in the Hamilton District Court defending historic indecent assault charges against young boys. Photo / Belinda Feek

Warning: This story contains content some may find disturbing.

A former St Peter’s School teacher is alleged to have encouraged students to bath together and asked for naked piggyback rides at hot pools.

Geoffrey Owen Coker is also accused of spanking a young boy on his naked bottom six times and holding his hand, briefly, on the complainant’s buttocks each time.

The 75-year-old is defending nine charges; four of doing an indecent act on a boy under 12 and five of inducing a boy to do an indecent act between 1975 and 1976 around Waikato, including in Hamilton, Matamata, and at his staff apartment at the school near Cambridge.

In her opening address to a jury of nine women and three men in Hamilton District Court today, Crown solicitor Rebecca Guthrie said the allegations also involved Coker rubbing his naked body against the naked body of a complainant, asking two boys to bathe together naked and show each other their genitals while he watched them, and indecently touching another boy over his clothes.

Defence counsel JD Dallas, in a lengthy opening statement, took the jury on a trip through life in the mid-70s, discussing how telephones had just been introduced into people’s homes, seatbelts were new to the front seats of cars, and teachers at St Peter’s were known as “master” and addressed as “sir”.

He said Coker himself would give evidence and talk of a time when there were “nude morning swims in a pool 25 yards long”, and corporal punishment was still employed.

“These are all the differences that we ask you to bear in mind,” he told them, adding that “it’s of New Zealand in the 1970s, not 2024″.

The “damning” allegations were refuted and he urged the jury to keep an open mind.

Guthrie said the complainants knew what Coker was doing was wrong, and it was conduct they were not comfortable with and they’d all carried it with them over the intervening five decades.

She outlined how the charges came about; when in September 2021 St Peter’s School issued an apology after an investigation revealed historic cases of abuse against former pupils at the school by a former staff member.

Police then investigated the allegations and Coker, who taught at the school between 1974 and 1976, was identified and charged.

At the time it was an exclusive boys’ school and Coker lived on-site alongside other teachers, in private living quarters.

The first complainant, A, would tell of how Coker told him not to take his togs on a trip to hot pools at Matamata, and when they arrived, Coker took the boy to a private hot pool, on two separate occasions, and directed that he get in the pool naked, before rubbing his naked body against the complainant, Guthrie said.

He would also tell of another incident where he was again told not to take his togs but when they arrived, all the other boys had their togs on.

Former St Peter's School staff member Geoffrey Coker arrives at the Hamilton District Court to defend historic indecent assault charges against young boys. Photo / Belinda Feek

On another occasion, it’s alleged he told Coker he did not have his togs on him as he drove to the hot pools.

Coker said if he had his togs he couldn’t come, so the boy got out of the car and walked back to the school, Guthrie told the court.

Another boy is expected to talk of having his pants and underwear pulled down as he was put over Coker’s knee and spanked six times. Between each smack, Coker allegedly held his hand on the boy’s bare bottom.

The boy managed to get off him and allegedly yelled at Coker that he was “a creep” as he left, pulling his pants up.

He would also talk of another time when a group of boys was invited to Coker’s room and told to remove their clothing and play naked in front of each other, and telling his father about it sometime later.

Another complaint will talk of a trip to hot pools with other boys where Coker instructed them to swim naked, and asked him to give him a piggyback ride.

The boy, however, struggled with the size imbalance. Coker is also alleged to have given piggyback rides to other boys.

The complainants were aged between 9 and 12 at the time, and are now in their late 50s and early 60s.

‘Speedy Geoff’

In a DVD interview played to the jury this afternoon, the first complainant, A, said how at the school “we all knew there was something off with him, which I think manifested itself”.

“He was there for two years and then he suddenly disappeared. He was suddenly gone.”

At the pools, he recalled there being himself and another student on two occasions.

Coker wasn’t forceful, and would occasionally walk up to him in the pool, sidle up against him, and then walk away again.

“He was testing things out perhaps, it wasn’t all the time,” adding that they would otherwise just chat.

He couldn’t be sure how many times Coker didn’t have togs on but recalled once.

Asked by the officer if it was normal for a teacher to take pupils to the pools, A said he couldn’t recall any other teacher doing that.

“Obviously, getting out of school was a cool thing to do. It was supposed to be a bit of a perk.”

Complainant A added that after a while Coker got teased and lost control of pupils in his classrooms, and “he would storm out”.

“We’d put chalk on the seat, crazy pictures on the desk.

“We used to call him Speedy Geoff because he used to drive the car around a lot, fast.”

The trial, before Judge Tini Clark, is set down for two weeks.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for nine years and has been a journalist for 20.