More arrests in Dilworth case
Two more men have been arrested for alleged indecency towards students at Auckland’s Dilworth School.
A 70-year-old Palmerston North man has been charged with three counts of indecent assault and one charge of inducing a boy to do an indecent act. A 71-year-old Levin man will face three charges in relation to indecency with boys.
Both men have been bailed to appear in the Auckland District Court onmarch 1.
Detective Senior Sergeant Geoff Baber said more than
100 former students had complained of alleged sexual abuse while attending the school, since Operation Beverly was announced in September.
Police made the latest arrests after a large volume of calls were made by members of the public to investigators.
The all-boys boarding school, in Epsom, was pushed into the spotlight as charges of alleged historical sexual offending came to light last year. The alleged offending occurred as far back as the 1970s and as recently as the early 2000s.
To date, a total of nine men in their 60s and 70s have been charged with a number of sex and drugs charges, including alleged sexual violation, indecent assault, sexual exploitation and supplying drugs.
In December last year, former deputy headmaster Ian Robert Wilson pleaded guilty to a string of charges. The 69-year-old, from Maraetai, south Auckland, admitted indecent assault, inducing a boy to do an indecent act, and on 12 separate occasions doing an indecent act on another boy.
Dilworth’s former chaplain Ross Douglas Browne, former Dilworth teacher and housemaster Rex Mcintosh, and two other men who have name suppression are also set to go on trial. They deny charges that include alleged indecency with boys under 16, inducing a boy under 12 to do an indecent act, indecency with a boy under 12, unlawful sexual connection with a male under 12, and indecent assault.
Anyone with information can contact the Operation Beverly team on 09 302 6624 or by emailing Operation.beverly@police. govt.nz.