SEX OFFENDER
FORMER reality TV star and convicted sex offender Jeff Anderson says he has forgiven himself and is “not hiding away anymore” – 18 months after being released from jail.
Anderson, 33, was sentenced to nine months in 2021, to be served at Northern Ireland’s high security prison, HMP Maghaberry. He was also placed on the Sex Offenders register for 10 years.
But now he has released a two-minute “comeback” video on social media for the public, saying he has been “through quite a lot”.
Anderson from Kircubbin, Co Down, was convicted by a Crown Court jury for exposing himself and masturbating in front of a 12-year-old schoolgirl while he was sitting in his mother’s BMW sports car in Belfast.
On December 16, 2021, Judge Neil Rafferty QC imposed “nine months immediate custody” for the offence of committing an act of a lewd, obscene and disgusting nature outraging public decency on St Jude’s Parade on June 20, 2018.
Judge Rafferty said: “The time has long since passed when women and girls going about their business in public should be confronted by men like Mr Anderson.”
This was the second Crown Court conviction for Anderson, who was given a three-year suspended sentence in July 2020 after he admitted secretly recording 11 women over a period spanning eight years, from 2005 to 2013.
In his personal video broadcast on Instagram on Sunday, October 8, 2023, he is seen speaking to a camera while walking in a field understood to be in Co Down.
Anderson opens by saying: “Hey Instagram, so first story ever with me in it. I’ve obviously been through a lot over the past number of years.”
His long black hair has been cut, but he has retained his beard and is wearing a white vest and a zipped sports top and appears to be holding the camera himself as he is recorded.
He said: “I made a lot of silly, immature mistakes when I was younger and I got punished for it.
“And then in more recent years I got accused of something . . . and I went to prison for it.
“But that then forced me to hide away and be depressed, and today’s the day I put all of that behind me.”
He thanks people for their “support and love” and acknowledges “many people don’t like me out there” and that he is subject to “a lot of hate”.
Anderson explains that he hopes anyone who vents hatred about him, experiences “some sort of release” and adds: “I understand that”.
He said he had to forgive himself before he forgave other people, and added: “The people who I’ve hurt in the past, I’ve had to be fully sincerely apologetic [to].
“I’m not hiding away anymore, I love you all. Peace and love.”
Anderson found fame on TV talent
Time has long since passed when girls in public should be confronted by men like Mr Anderson
shows The Voice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Superstar, and gained the nicknamed Baby Jesus while touring as an understudy in the UK production of Jesus Christ Superstar. He performed in front of The Voice judges Ricky Wilson, Sir Tom Jones, Kylie Minogue and will.i.am in 2014. In 2013 he was the special West End guest in Peter Corry’s entertaining annual The Music Box at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. And in 2012 he had appeared on Superstar, a TV reality show where he competed for the part of the