Christopher Andrew Anderson: Telephone stalker who harassed multiple women jailed for less than five years

A Geraldton stalker with a “telephone fetish” has been jailed for less than five years for sexually harassing multiple women over a nine-year period using payphones and possessing “abhorrent” and “disturbing” child exploitation material. Business owner Christopher Andrew Anderson, 59, was sentenced in Geraldton District Court on Friday after previously pleading guilty to 28 charges, including 17 counts of using a carriage service to harass, three counts of obscene acts in public and one count each of possessing child exploitation material and stalking. Anderson’s reign of harassment spanned from 2013 until his arrest in 2022. The court was told that most of the targeted calls were made to the victims’ workplaces. Anderson would say his name was “Peter” and request the women by name. The calls would quickly turned sinister, with Anderson making sexually explicit and lewd remarks to the victims. One victim received 10-15 phone calls over a nine-year period. Many of the victims had been targeted and stalked, with Anderson having personal information about them — such as the name of one woman’s best friend and what car another woman drove — which left the victims feeling unsafe and scared they were being watched. In one instance, Anderson pretended to be a client who had lost the woman’s personal phone number if they were not available at work. Police launched their investigation in early 2022 and pinpointed the calls were coming from a payphone in Geraldton’s West End. Police surveillance of the phone box began on March 29 of that year when he was seen and recorded on the same day entering the box and performing an obscene act while making phone calls. Anderson was captured on police surveillance acting obscenely in public another two times before he was arrested on June 15, 2022. It was then police raided Anderson’s home, finding three cannabis plants, cannabis oil and 20gs of cannabis, which he said were for personal use. Later that day, Anderson accompanied police to his marine spray painting business so officers could search his office. The court was told Anderson quickly went to his desk, picked up a USB and tried to throw it out the door into a car. Police quickly retrieved the device and after obtaining the password for it from Anderson via a warrant, it was discovered it contained 38 images and 11 videos that Judge Amanda Burrows described as “abhorrent” and “disturbing”. The photos and videos showed girls as young as six being abused and exploited, as well as instances of bestiality. The court was told that Anderson’s criminal record included a conviction in 1992 for making sexually explicit phone calls to a nine-year-old girl. Anderson’s bail was revoked after his partner no longer wanted him staying at her house following the discovery on the USB that he had filmed her adult daughter in the shower, without her knowledge, by leaving a watch on a towel rack. Anderson has been in custody since. Judge Burrows said the victim impact statements from six of the harassed women indicated they felt unsafe to be at work as well as a general sense of fear and anxiety. Women told about feeling anxious to go outside, with one victim deleting her digital footprint and changing jobs due to receiving multiple calls, only to receive a call at her new workplace from Anderson saying “remember me”. In a psychological report, Anderson admitted he felt sexually attracted to girls under the age of 13 but he went back on that statement in a later psychiatric report, saying that he didn’t feel comfortable with child exploitation material. However, Judge Burrows was satisfied to conclude Anderson was sexually attracted to girls under 13. “He was diagnosed with paedophilia, zoophilia and telephone fetish during a psychiatric report,” she told the court. Judge Burrows condemned Anderson, saying he was only concerned with his own sexual gratification and not how his actions affected his victims. She said the seriousness of the crimes meant “a term of immediate imprisonment is the only appropriate outcome”. Anderson was sentenced to four-and-a-half years behind bars and made him eligible for parole. He was also fined $1800.