NEW ZEALAND
The Dominion Post
A teacher accused of abusing boys he taught in Tasmania in the late 1960s, has been found living in the Manawatu more than four decades after he evaded arrest and quit Australia.
Ronald Thomas, 77, has retired after teaching in New Zealand for four decades, The Australian newspaper reported.
The New Zealand Teachers’ Council confirmed he had taught here, and was seeking his file.
New Zealand police were also investigating whether he had been the subject of complaints.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse was told he habitually and violently abused boys when he was a young music teacher at Hobart’s elite Hutchins School in the late 1960s.
Police had given evidence he confessed to child abuse in 1970, but fled to South Africa days before he could be arrested, ending the investigation.
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