Gas Works Unley boss Phil Andrews jailed for eight years for sharing child abuse material online

An Adelaide business owner has been given a huge jail sentence after sharing hundreds of “truly shocking” child abuse material files online to other pedophiles.

A prominent businessman will be behind bars for several years after sharing hundreds of disturbing child abuse material files online with other pedophiles.
Philip David Andrews, 53, sobbed as a judge described his perverse collection as “truly shocking” and “disgraceful to the extreme”.

During sentencing, the District Court heard an undercover police officer was communicating with a man selling child exploitation material on the Telegram app in September 2023.

After providing his PayPal details to the officer, Andrews was identified as the seller.

The court heard police attended Andrews’ address in November and analysed his devices.

Adelaide businessman Phil Andrews was jailed for possessing child exploitation material. Picture: 7NEWS

“To say the material is confronting would be the grossest of understatements,” Judge Anthony Allen said.

“For human beings to treat small children in such a way really beggars belief.”

Police found 2451 child exploitation files in a cloud storage attached to Andrews’ work email account.

The court heard Andrews disseminated 395 child exploitation videos to other online pedophiles and received 697 in return, and searched terms such as “pre teen videos”.

“If what was depicted in your perverted collection was not enough the fact that you would perpetuate misery to innocent children by disseminating this material is disgraceful to the extreme,” Judge Allen said.

Andrews pleaded guilty to knowingly accessing and disseminating child exploitation material.

The court heard Andrews’ offending was contributed to the failure of his marriage, difficulties with work and deterioration of his mental health.

However, Judge Allen said Andrews had shown a “distinct lack of insight” after saying he didn’t have a sexual attraction to children, with a psychologist determining he met the diagnostic criteria of pedophilic disorder.

A court previously heard Andrews, a father-of-three, had been running Gas Works Unley for ten years and made several appearances on advertising videos.

A blurb for the company describes the business as family-owned, specialising in a range of services.

He was also a prominent figure in the Unley community – chairing the Unley Rd Traders Association’s monthly meetings and coaching junior sport, the court heard.

Judge Allen determined Andrews should be sentenced as a serious, repeat offender, meaning he must serve four-fifths of his sentence before seeking parole.

Andrews was jailed for eight years, with a non-parole period of six years and six months.

The sentence was backdated to August 1.