A convicted sex offender who abused multiple young boys at Dilworth School has died shortly after being granted compassionate release from prison.

Robert Wynyard, 76, was sentenced to six years and three months in prison in February 2023, for historical abuse spanning 20 years. That sentence was later quashed on appeal and reduced by five months.

However, he served just over a third of his sentence before the New Zealand Parole Board considered a bid for compassionate release on January 10. He was released three days later.

The Department of Corrections confirmed to NZME today that Wynyard had since died and his eight registered victims had been informed.

One of those victims told NZME he was contacted just before Christmas and told Wynyard would likely be released on compassionate grounds.

“I had to go for a long ride on my motorcycle,” he said. “When I ride it that’s all I can think about.”

This week he received another call to say Wynyard had died shortly after being released.

But, the news didn’t bring him much closure.

“I wanted him to have time to be punished, now that he’s dead he can’t be punished and made to realise that he’s an evil person...because a lot of them don’t realise that.”

Wynyard, a senior housemaster at the school between 1977 and 1983 used his position to groom his eight student victims who were aged between 8 and 15 years old.

He pleaded guilty to nine charges of indecency between a man and a boy and two charges of indecent assault on a person under 12 just two weeks before his trial was scheduled to begin.

The Parole Board does not generally release its decisions for compassionate release and declined NZME’s request for access on privacy grounds.

Robert Wynyard died just a few days after being released from prison. Photo / Jason Oxenham.

Dilworth School has come under fire in recent years after historical sexual offending against more than 100 former students. More than a dozen former staff were involved in the abuse which spanned nearly 70 years.

A recent independent inquiry found the school’s board knew about abuse dating back as far as the 1950s but didn’t investigate complaints properly, didn’t report most of it to the police and allowed known abusers to quietly leave the school with their careers intact – sometimes with a glowing reference.

Wynyard is the fourth former Dilworth teacher accused of abuse who has died since police laid charges. Some died before they could stand trial.

The first of those was Richard Charles Galloway, a former scoutmaster at the school, who was charged with indecently assaulting a boy under the age of 16 in the 1970s, but died of cancer in 2021.

Rex Clarence McIntosh in the dock at the Auckland District Court on charges of indecent assault before he died. Photo / John Weekes

Rex Clarence McIntosh was facing seven charges of indecent assault in relation to five boys between 1972 and 1980 but also died in hospital while awaiting trial.

Former MacMurray House tutor Keith Dixon died suddenly in May 2021.

The most-recent of the former staff to be convicted and sentenced was Ian Robert Wilson, a former scout and housemaster at the school, who was imprisoned for three years and seven months in 2021 for abusing five students at the school. In 2023 a further one year and 11 months was added to his term after he admitted to abusing a further five students at the school.

Ian Wilson was sentenced to three years and seven months at Auckland District Court. Photo / Michael Craig

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.