The recent death of well-known city puppeteer, circus performer and set designer Keith Anderson has blown the lid off an alleged child sex scandal.
Anderson died in his sleep at a Salvation Army old age home on May 3, aged 76, but yesterday two of his alleged victims, now in their early fifties, spoke out publicly for the first time, charging that the accolades for Anderson had left them enraged and upset.
The two men, who were adamant they were not the only two to suffer at Anderson’s hand, both told Weekend Argus independently that young boys were sexually abused, not only by Anderson, but also by a group of paedophiles – his friends – to whom they were “passed around”.
Following his recent death, Anderson was hailed for his contribution to the performing arts industry in South Africa, which was described as “considerable”.
A UCT graduate, he joined John Wright’s Marionettes while still in his teens, before going on to create his own marionette theatre company. He also founded the Circus Osler circus school in Cape Town and designed productions from ballets to musicals and operas for all the former national arts councils and major independent theatre companies.
It appears that none of the boys who were allegedly abused by Anderson laid any charges at the time, because they said they were afraid to lose the relative security of the circus school he ran, which had taken them away from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Dieter Sanger, speaking from the Netherlands yesterday, said he hadn’t understood Anderson’s first advances, which came during costume fittings at the Circus Osler, when he was just eight.
“Yes, I was abused sexually for a long time,” he said. The “touching” progressed to the stage when Anderson asked him repeatedly to stay overnight at his Constantia home. For many years, Sanger said, he was at the house “virtually every night”.
“(Anderson) would click his fingers and you had to run. I had no control. He had all the power. And you can’t bear to tell anyone because you’re so scared.”
Sanger explained that he did not want to go back to his problem home, or leave the circus.
But now he wishes he had laid charges.
“I think I hoped at the time the abuse would stop, but in the nearly 12 years I was with the circus, I was sexually assaulted repeatedly, tied up, beaten and lent out to Anderson’s friends for a good time.
“And I wasn’t the only one. There were many other boys,” he added.
Another man, visibly traumatised, disgusted and angry, said at his Cape Town home yesterday that he, too, had been one of Anderson’s victims as a little boy, being raped repeatedly while he was in the Keith Anderson Circus Festival of Youth.
The man, who spent 10 years in Pollsmoor Prison for having sex with a 15-year-old girl, said that while he was awaiting trial Anderson even offered him R50 000 to exclude details of the rapes, which were to have been included in his mitigation plea.
“My sister thought to advise my lawyer about what happened to me (for mitigation). Somehow the papers got wind of the fact that my lawyer was going to include what happened to me in his presentation to the court.
“One day I got called for a visitor, an old man with a walking stick and a young man in a suit came through the doors. The lawyer opened a suitcase and pulled out a document for me to sign. The old man said ‘hello’. Suddenly, I recognised him. It was Keith Anderson. I went apes*** and I tried to throttle him,” the man said.
He said he was 12 when Anderson and his friends raped him and the other boys in Anderson’s caravan.
“I know for a fact that there were other boys because I was there. I saw a lot of other boys from outside the circus. Sometimes there were more than one of us at a time in Keith Anderson’s caravan. He was raping us, him and his sick friends,” he said, adding that the abuse continued until Anderson left to go overseas.
Both men named others allegedly involved in the rapes. In one instance they both named the same man independently.
Asked why he had not laid charges, he said he had been naive and “didn’t know better”.
“Sometimes a child gets into a situation where there are rewards and promises, and you believe it won’t affect you as an adult. And then you grow older and you’re suddenly faced with guilt, and it’s very destroying.”
Another man, who was part of Circus Osler with his brother and worked closely with Anderson, said he had refused to believe “all the rumours”, despite his brother’s claims of abuse.
Since Anderson’s death, he said, “at least 15 boys” (now men) had claimed they were sexually abused by Anderson.
“We used to joke about being one of Keith’s bumboys… (Anderson) even called me about 15 years ago and asked me to get (my brother) to stop blackmailing him,” he said.
In 2005, Anderson’s life was featured in a film, The Flyer, by director Revel Fox.
Fox, who was also trained by Anderson, said yesterday he knew him very well, and had never seen him as anything other than honourable.
“I never had anything dishonorable happen between me and Keith.
“But I heard people talk and never understood why people didn't come forward.
“I have wonderful memories of him being absolutely amazing, but I don’t know about the other stuff. He made such an impact on my life that I actually went and made a movie about it.”