David Russell Bond (70), of Cromwell, appeared in the Dunedin District Court this morning where he pleaded guilty to 20 charges – all indecent assaults and doing indecent acts on boys between 12 and 16 - spanning 14 years.
Today’s pleas by the ex-Otago Boys’ High School teacher brought to an end a lengthy legal proceeding and counsel Anne Stevens QC made no application for bail.
However, she requested a report on Bond’s behalf that would assess the possibility of home detention.
The defendant has twice received electronically-monitored sentences for similar crimes.
In December 2020, he got four months’ home detention for indecent assault, committed while he was employed as a teacher at Otago Boys'.
Bond offended on numerous occasions, between 1997 and 1999, while the victim was watching or playing basketball at the school gym, the court heard.
He would stand ‘‘really close’’ to the boy, who was between 13 and 15 at the time, and deliberately brush his hand against the victim’s shorts.
In 2014, he was also sentenced to four months’ home detention over molestations from the 1970s, while teaching at a different school.
During a camping trip in the Mt Aspiring area, Bond slept beside the victim, who was woken by the teacher persistently pressing against his bottom and back.
The boy rolled away but was again woken by Bond, who had put his hand inside the sleeping bag.
Mrs Stevens asked Judge David Robinson to withhold the summary of facts because of vigilante attacks on her client’s property which she said occurred every time his name was published.
There would be less incentive for people to throw things at Bond’s home and graffiti his fence if the details of the case remained under wraps, she argued.
The judge declined the request.
Bond will be sentenced in June.
