Victorian Coles area manager fiend Peter Phibbs pleads guilty to child abuse material charges

Find out how anti-pedo cops snared a Coles area manager — who manages 22 Victoria stores — with sickening child abuse videos.

Coles Victoria area manager Peter Phibbs pleaded guilty to child abuse material pictures. Coles pictured is not managed by Phibbs.

A Victorian Coles area manager has been exposed as a sex fiend after he was nabbed with vile child abuse material.

Peter Phibbs, 47 was sentenced in the County Court on Friday to a 15-month suspended jail term after pleading guilty to possess and make available child abuse material.

Phibbs used ‘Fastmeet’ to make available child abuse material.

The court heard Fastmeet is a “gay chatline” which provides an “anonymous, safe and fast way to meet other like-minded guys”.

Phibbs engaged in communication via Fastmeet and made available child abuse material in December 2020.

Judge Peter Rozen said Phibbs and another male had a 40-minute discussion about having “penetrative sex with children as young as eight”.

Federal anti-pedophile police nabbed Phibbs with sickening child abuse videos on October 12 last year.

The vile material depicted adult men and pre-pubescent boys.

Phibbs, who the court heard manages 22 Coles stores across the state, told investigators he didn’t “know the name Fastmeet” but used a chatline a “couple of times a week”.

Phibbs also said “maybe someone had sent him something that would be CAM (child abuse material)”.

Police played an audio clip of the Fastmeet phone message which Phibbs admitted “must be me”.

The court heard Phibbs, who has no priors nor committed subsequent offending, expressed “genuine shame and remorse”.

Phibbs, a former avid cricketer and footballer, grew up in the NSW town of Corowa, the court was told.

Phibbs later shifted to Victoria where he was employed for the Geelong Football Club at a Point Cook hospitality venue.

Phibbs later worked for Tabcorp, Jewish Care and most recently as an area manager for Coles.

Judge Rozen said Phibbs' conversation was conducted on “explicit and abhorrent” terms.

Phibbs, who must be of good behaviour for three years, was convicted and made a registered sex offender for 15 years.

[e-mail]