The 46-year-old former Awamoa School pupil, who now lives in Australia, told the Otago Daily Times at the weekend, he was disappointed by the sentence handed down to Paul Herrick.
Herrick (70), now of Linton, was sentenced on Friday in the Palmerston North District Court to four years nine months in prison for sexual offending against children as young as 9 years old, when he taught at the school, south of Oamaru, in the 1980s.
Herrick's offending against him left him damaged, the man, one of seven victims which the court heard evidence about earlier this year, said. He was left unable to form meaningful relationships with males and with a raft of trust issues, even with his own family.
"He was my teacher. He was a person who showed interest in me. What he's done goes right through your whole life and you try and pick up the pieces.''
He believed Herrick picked him because there was trouble at home and he was vulnerable.
The sentence was not long enough and Herrick should have been sentenced to today's justice system requirements for such offences, as opposed to what occurred for offenders in the 1980s.
"There's a huge amount of people who he's affected. He's ruined so many people's lives.''
The offending was something he would live with until he died, he said. "But with the help of my counsellor and family I'm making strides and getting better.''
Herrick was sentenced on Friday on 15 offences against seven children, but was also imprisoned for five years in the 1990s for similar offending between 1968 and 1987, and given nine months' home detention in 2015, for offences he committed against other children around the same time.
The victims from his most recent sentencing all came forward after reading about his 2015 sentencing.
The man told the Otago Daily Times he believed Herrick's previous convictions for similar offending should have equated to a longer sentence, especially as he had not come forward himself about other offending.
The man believed Herrick was still capable of offending against children.
Awamoa School closed in 2000, but he was still angry with the school and the Awamoa School committee who he said were informed by another parent about issues concerning Herrick's treatment of another child, but did nothing about it.
"If something happened, then a lot of those cases wouldn't have happened.''
The man believed there would be more victims in the community and he encouraged them to contact police.
"Come forward. I know that it's difficult.''
He also had advice for today's families and that was if their children came home and said something had happened to them, they needed to be listened to.
From the sentencing on Friday, Fairfax reported that the husband of one of the victims read a victim impact statement to the court, explaining how Herrick's offending had not just affected his wife, but their whole family.
"Your actions, your crimes, have ripped through time to her children, her partner. It fills us with disgrace and hatred for you.
"We are all here today because you have no place in our world. We are here today to witness your removal from decent society. This is our day of justice.''
Another victim, who was 10 at the time she was abused, said she told people what had happened at the time, but nothing was done because Herrick was held in such high esteem by parents.
"When I read about your offending to others in the newspaper, I felt relieved, because I knew it was real.''
Herrick threatened to hurt her brothers who attended the school if she told anyone.
"There was always an underlying fear he would do something more to me, and that's the fear I carried to school every day.''
Judge Jim Large said the time for remorse and apologies was after Herrick was charged in the 1990s or 2015. Herrick went through sexual offender rehabilitation in the '90s, but never spoke about his other offending at that time, Fairfax reported.
