Ex-King’s College teacher jailed for child abuse supervised by paedophile, mother says

Paul Dodd, now 64-years-old, worked as a history teacher and rugby coach at King’s College between 1988 and 1994.

He is currently serving a four-year prison sentence for his abuse in the UK, while the New Zealand Police have been called in to review his time in Aotearoa.

Dodd’s supervisor at the college was convicted paedophile Peter Liddell who had a history of sexual offending against prepubescent and adolescent males, including 17 offences against boys while he was a counsellor at King’s College and a social worker in the Auckland health system.

Liddell’s offending included molesting a cancer patient’s children after he was placed in their home to support their dying mother.

Dodd had previously taught at Whitgift School in the UK, where he was found to have abused three schoolboys aged between 10 and 12. But despite being placed on List 99, a list of teachers deemed “unsuitable” for teaching children in the UK, Dodd moved to Aotearoa to continue teaching.

Stuff has previously reported that Dodd allegedly used to force Kiwi kids to shower naked in front of him while he watched. Now, thirty years on, one mother of a former King’s College student – who did not want to be named to protect her son, has spoken out about confronting the school about Dodd’s inappropriate behaviour for the first time. “I went to pick up my son but when I entered the building I couldn’t see anyone, so I called out – and that’s when Dodd came out of the shower room, followed a couple of minutes later by my son and three other boys. “Straight away, the boys gathered closely around me, which is pretty unusual for boys who are 13 or 14-years-old and would not normally behave in that manner with someone they didn’t know,” she said.

She also noticed that the boys were carrying their shoes and socks, with their shirts clinging to their backs still wet and not tucked in.

On the way home, she asked her son what had been going on.

“And that’s when I found out that Dodd was making the youngsters – not the senior boys – shower with no clothes on in front of him.”

Initially, she approached a support staff member at the school about Dodd’s behaviour, who said he would raise her concerns with management.

But when she didn’t hear anything, she re-approached the staff member, who told her while he did raise her concerns, he “was not at liberty to discuss it with her,” she said. By this point, Dodd had been placed on leave by the college, pending the publication of TVNZ’s 60 Minutes documentary about his past offending. The woman and her husband then went to see a senior staff member at the time. She said the senior staff member they spoke to, “tried to reassure us by saying that he hired Dodd on the condition the school counsellor would supervise him,” she said. This school counsellor was Liddell – a man now commonly referred to as one of New Zealand’s worst serial paedophiles

Earlier this week, King’s College confirmed they are aware of a third male teacher at the school at the same time as Dodd and Liddell, who they say has been accused of being involved in “highly inappropriate incidents” with students.

King’s College added that since Dodd’s offending in the UK made headlines in September, they had been approached by “several former students and parents of former students”.

“They have related acts of abuse or voyeurism involving Mr Dodd during his time at King’s that were completely unacceptable for a person in a position of trust,” Wilson said.

King’s College did not answer Stuff’s questions about whether they had ever received any complaints about Dodd’s behaviour during his time at the school.

Stuff attempted to contact the former staff member who spoke to the student’s parents at the time. He did not respond.