SA man accused of child sex offences was sex worker, AIDS councillor

A mother has admitted offering her 14-year-old son to an alleged pedophile infected with HIV in exchange for drugs, a court has heard.

Two alleged sexual abuse victims of a man infected with HIV were in state care when he propositioned them for disturbing sex acts, a court has heard.

The court heard the two boys, aged 13 and 14 at the time, were “street kids” regularly reported missing by police after they left their state care premises.

Adelaide man Mark Vernon Anderson, 54, who lived in a block of units in the Adelaide CBD, stands accused of supplying the two young boys with drugs and sexually abusing them.

In a startling cross examination, a mother of one of the boys who told the court she was a “full blown alcoholic”, was accused of offering her 14-year-old son to Mr Anderson for sex in exchange for drugs.

Under questioning from Angus Redford, for Mr Anderson, the woman admitted she had offered her son to Mr Anderson as an elaborate ruse to “see what he’d say”.

“You went to (Mr Anderson’s) thinking he was a paedophile and said, ‘here’s my son, he’s for sale’,” Mr Redford suggested.

“Yeah, to see what he’d say, and then he copped it,” the boy’s mother said.

“He offered (drugs) up, he handed it over, so he got it (punched in the face).”

The court heard over two days Mr Anderson was considered a “creep” or “paedophile” by the boys who also spoke about his “diseases”.

The CBD apartment block where Mark Vernon Anderson lived. Picture: Dylan Hogarth

Mr Anderson, known as “Max”, is also charged with indecently assaulting the boys, asking the them to defecate on him and possessing child exploitation material.

An investigating officer, acting as a witness, told the court she had found four examples of child exploitation material on his laptop.

She said there were a further about 100 videos on his phone and laptop which consisted of coprophilia - the arousal from faeces.

Mr Anderson had allegedly asked both boys to give him their poo at various times so he could use it for sexual acts, the court heard.

The court on Monday heard Mr Anderson was acting as a counsellor for the older boy, a bisexual teen, when he asked him to sell him his underwear.

He told police he had previously acted as a counsellor for the Victoria and NSW AIDS Councils and considered 13 an adequate age for children to discuss their sexuality.

He also told police he had been a sex worker for almost two decades and would “try anything once” when asked if he had a poo fetish.

“I did sex work for 19 years, there’s not a lot I haven’t done and not a lot of people I haven’t done,” he said during a police interview in late 2020.

Mr Anderson has pleaded not guilty to all charges upon which he is facing the court.

The Child Protection Department was asked when it became aware of the allegations, but a spokeswoman said they would not comment given the matter was still subject to the court proceedings.

The trial before Judge Emily Telfer continues.