A former staff member at a Hutt Valley boys school described as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” has been sentenced to home detention for historical sex offending against children.

One of the victims told the Herald he hadn’t realised he had been groomed by Anthony Derek Francis until he unearthed an old, handwritten letter from the man decades later, which he realised was “predatory”.

The man said the letter, which was signed off with a request to “please throw this away”, prompted him to go to police 25 years after the sexual abuse happened.

Francis is the second staff member of Hutt International Boys School (HIBS) to be sentenced for sexual offending against children.

Anthony Derek Francis, 78, has pleaded guilty to doing indecent acts with young boys. Photo / Melissa Nightingale

Former teacher and cricket coach Kevin Fraser Keys was given home detention and ordered to pay $5000 emotional harm reparation in 2012 for two charges of indecent assault of a boy under 16.

While Keys was still employed with the school when he was charged, Francis had long since retired from HIBS by the time he was charged.

Now 78 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, Francis appeared in the Wellington District Court today for sentencing on charges of doing indecent acts on boys aged over and under 12.

According to the summary of facts, the victim was about 14 when he began attending HIBS, and Francis, described as a “general member of staff” was about 50.

He befriending the victim and his parents, and “on the surface” appeared to be helping the victim settle into his new school.

The victim was being bullied by other students at the time and was struggling to make friends. He would hang out with Francis at school, including during lunchtime, and Francis would give him lunch money in secret, and send him letters and birthday cards.

Multiple times between 1998 and 1999, Francis touched and performed sex acts on the victim, once during a camping trip he took the boy on, and other times in a storage room at the school.

Judge David Laurenson said the offending against the other victim happened when the child was 11 and had been attending a camp. Francis took the boy from the camp and had him stay at his home for a week.

During that time he touched the boy multiple times, exposed himself, and masturbated beside the child at night.

“I don’t want my kids growing up thinking they can’t get justice”

One of the victims, who has permanent name suppression, said before he got married he sat down with his now-wife and laid his cards on the table, explaining about “what I did when I was a teenager”.

“She stopped and looked at me and was like, ‘You were abused.’ I said ‘Sorry, let me explain, I don’t think you get it.’”

It took the man decades to realise it was true, and reading old letters from Francis helped him fully comprehend what had been done to him.

“I was cleaning out my childhood belongings at my parents’ place and came across this handwritten letter addressed to me,” he said.

“When I read the letter, I guess I realised how predatory it was.”

The letter included lines such as “[I] want to get to know you even better, also in every way” and “I hope you wouldn’t be afraid to say if I ever say or do anything you don’t like. I do like to have fun and I’m willing to do lots, so you must say so.”

Another line read “I know that we will have many happy and fun times together and maybe even more if you’re willing, please say if you are not.”

It was signed off “please let me know what you think and throw this away.”

Anthony Derek Francis sexually abused students during his time on staff at Hutt International Boys School in the 90s.

“I think being back at home with my wife and two young kids, realising in that moment what had actually happened 25 years earlier sent me into this kind of state of shock. At that point I went inside and said to [my wife] ‘I think we have to go down to the police station.’”

He said finding the letters had “made me realise that this person I had thought of as a friend and a mentor was clearly not that. [ I w,s just], was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

The thought of anything similar happening to his children was “beyond horrifying”, and he realised “it’s not going to change if we don’t do anything”.

“I don’t want my kids growing up thinking they can’t do that or they can’t get justice or they should just be quiet . . . it’s really about making sure our kids know that we’re just going to do the tough stuff as a family,” he said.

The man wanted to get the word out about Francis’ offending in case he wasn’t the only victim, and let others know “they’re not the only ones and they should speak up. Honestly, even if they don’t, that he’s been brought to justice and got caught and he got what was coming, he didn’t get away with it.”

In his victim impact statement, which he read in court today, the man said Francis “made himself feel like the one place that I could breathe” among severe bullying issues he was subjected to elsewhere at the school.

“I believed he was there to protect me ... he deliberately made me feel special, only to exploit me.”

The second victim said the person he was before the sexual abuse no longer existed, and that Francis had “irrevocably changed me in countless ways”.

Trust was an “almost impossible concept” and his grades and career had suffered due to his inability to trust people.

“You stole my innocence [and] inflicted unimaginable mental pain,” he said in his statement to the court.

“I hope you get locked away where you cannot hurt any more young boys.”

Age and poor health helped the defendant avoid prison time.

Judge Laurenson adopted a starting point of three years and 7 months in prison, and allowed a 45% discount for mitigating factors.

These included the fact Francis was elderly and suffered from a host of medical conditions, including Parkinson’s Disease. The judge said he accepted these factors would make prison a more severe sentence for Francis.

While Francis had pleaded guilty to the charges, he did not accept responsibility for the offending against the younger victim, but had expressed remorse for the offending against the older victim.

He told a pre-sentence report writer it was the “most shameful and regretful decision he had ever made”, the judge said. He said he felt ashamed throughout his life for his actions, and wished he had sought help for his own childhood trauma, suggesting he might never have offended if he had done so.

Judge Laurenson allowed small discounts for remorse and Francis’ lack of previous convictions.

The discounts brought the sentence down below two years imprisonment, which the judge commuted to a sentence of 12 months’ home detention.

He said the pre-sentence report recommended a community-based sentence and assessed Francis as having a low risk of reoffending.

Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 12 years.