A former Dilworth Trustee asks that his response to our article be posted. He wonders (below) whether I've any connection to these issues - a colleague of mine for many years in the Business School has been Jonathon Mason - incoming Chair of Dilworth - who is quoted by OneNews as apologizing to survivors, ''acknowledging it had "buried, blocked, ignored and denied" horrors over decades' and had “failed to put the needs of the boys in their care above the reputation of school.”
Dr MacCulloch,
I was a trustee of Dilworth for much of the time covered by the horrible and unforgiveable abuse. If you Google the Royal Commission on Abuse for my evidence (which is not very long) you will see another side of part of the story.
One of the bases for your article is the tirelessly repeated falsehood about covering up the abuse. This is simply not true, as I have tried to point out in my submissions to the two inquiries, the media and to others.
The allegations of cover up are almost as bad as those of the abuse itself. Every substantiated allegation of abuse but one was reported to the police as I demonstrated to both inquiries in a tabular form. It was the case of the first chaplain abuser Peter Taylor in 1978 when the only allegations at the time were of inappropriate touching. The trustees on the advice of the then Chair and myself were concerned that the (fewer then than now) victims would not be believed in a threatened trial. (Taylor was dismissed and reported to the Bishop. He was subsequently reported by a victim, tried, imprisoned and has since died.)
I am sure that if you were accused of abuse towards a colleague or student you would expect it to be investigated and found to have prima facie merit before the University would decide to report you to the police.
May I emphasise that the recent allegations against Taylor are more numerous than originally and much more serious including rape. The allegations at the time were from few victims and of a much less serious nature. This is not a criticism of the victims. I understand it can be the nature of these sad issues.
When the allegation of cover up first emerged (some years after I had retired) I urged - begged - the trustees to publicly state the above explanation but they refused and as a result the issue has festered ever since like an un-lanced boil. I included this in my evidence to both inquiries. The Cartwright Inquiry simply believed the dozens of victims who firmly believed this false assumption.
Incidentally, the terms of the Cartwright inquiry (available on the Dilworth web site) were strictly to be a forum in which the victims could tell their stories and the inquirers were expressly told not to apportion blame. This setting in which the victims were encouraged to tell their stories was then totally abused by those inquirers.
I do not know if you have any connection with former Dilworth students or anyone else relevant to the issues but assume not or you would surely have made an appropriate disclosure.
You may or may not be aware that a small hard core of Old Boy critics (not all of whom were abused) have been calling for the school to be closed and the proceeds of the trust to be distributed amongst the victims. They are not supported by a majority of victims.
As for your suggestion that compensation should be proportionate to the assets of the organisation which employed the abusers, I do not hear you say that of the Catholic Church or the NZ government or the Australian government or the Canadian government. Why single out Dilworth for such a suggestion?
You may be interested to know that another former trustee is an admirer of your pieces on economics but, like me, wonders why you have chosen to write on Dilworth.
Yours faithfully,
Derek Firth