Imagine crawling 70 metres underneath Black Hill Reserve through a potentially 60-year-old mining tunnel, the only thing surrounding you is deathly silence and the only thing lighting your way is an old, unreliable flashlight.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This is not a an episode of your favourite crime drama. This is not a bad dream. This was reality for Ballarat Senior Sergeant Peter Anderson as he tried to rescue a 16-year-old girl from a near 20-hour nightmare.
It’s been 20 years since one of Ballarat’s worst serial sex offenders, Anthony James Pitt, formerly Leslie Norman Pitt, committed a crime that wouldn’t be foreign in a Hollywood horror movie.
Ballarat Senior Sergeant Anderson says he can never forget the horrendous events that transpired on November 27 and 28, 1998.
Watch Senior Sergeant Anderson’s gripping interview here.
“I thought I was past it, but just running it through my mind I could barely sleep last night,” he told The Courier this week.
While it was Senior Sergeant Anderson who ultimately rescued Pitt’s victim, he could never have found her without two gruelling days of hard work by his colleagues.
“It was a genuine team effort – I've never forgotten that. There was some very special work done over those two days that led to Mr Pitt being caught.”
It all began days prior to the kidnapping, when Pitt locked in on his victim at a shopping centre before grooming her into trusting him.
“He was an intelligent, cunning person, who spent a considerable amount of time planning this crime.
“He picked a person that didn't hang out with a lot of other people and was someone that he could befriend without raising alarm bells.”
Pitt offered his victim work, picking wildflowers for some extra money. When they went to Black Hill in the afternoon, he set his evil plan into action.
He grabbed his victim, threatening he would kill her if she yelled for help and forced her into a disused mineshaft that he had previously explored under the auspices of looking for gold.
Police first began looking for the victim after she was reported missing by her parents later that afternoon.
“She was a teenage girl – teenage girls do from time to time go off with friends and don't let people know where they are, but the family thought that was really out of character for her,” Senior Sergeant Anderson said.
“One of our senior constables just didn’t have a good feeling about this particular incident.”
After an initial search of the victim’s home came up empty, detectives returned later Friday evening for a secondary search of her bedroom, eventually finding a business card Pitt had made up to give to this girl.
“Right then was when the team knew they were dealing with something pretty serious.”
The card led them to Pitt’s Ballarat East home where he was renting a room.
Upon entering his room, investigators were shocked at their discovery.
“They opened up his room and inside what they found was like something out of a movie,” Senior Sergeant Anderson said.
They opened up his room and inside what they found was like something out of a movie.
- Senior Sergeant Peter Anderson
“There were photos of children around the walls and really strange things around the room and right then they thought 'we're in a bit of trouble.’
Speaking with Pitt’s landlord, they were able to discover he had expressed an interest in mining as a way to make his fortune.
The owner said he had expressed interest in one particular mine in the Ballarat area he could lock up.
Through this information, police contacted the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), which would later become DELWP, to help locate the mine in question. Only one mineshaft was equipped with a lockable latch.
“What an ideal spot if would be if you wanted to get someone out of the way.” See Acting Senior Sergeant Anderson talk about when he found himself approaching the mineshaft.
About 8am on Saturday morning, police arrived at the mineshaft with the DSE where they discovered that a new padlock had been put on the latch.
After opening the shaft, Senior Sergeant Anderson bravely raised his hand to venture into the darkness.
“I was the senior officer. I guess I made that decision because I wouldn't ask anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself. So I just said I'd zip down and have a look.
“At that time, we believed that going down into the mine was just to eliminate it as a place of interest. I don't think anyone really believed we were going to find the two people.”
His mind raced as he travelled through the darkness.
“It probably sounds a bit crazy, but I've got a torch and the first thing I'm thinking is 'Don't let me down torch. Don't go out now.' I'm looking around hoping that there's no one here. I'm hoping that I don't come across a deceased person.”
As he reached the end of the 70-metre tunnel, the path veered off in two different directions.
“There were two drives going out in either direction. I shone my torch to the right and I could see a blank wall that only went in about 10 or 15 feet.
“I swung my torch across to look in the other side and that was when I twigged that something wasn't right.
“I brought the torch back to the centre and I'm looking at two sets of eyes blinking at me about 10 feet away up an incline.
“They were both silent and both just sitting there, blinking in the torchlight.”
Senior Sergeant Anderson was understandably shocked, letting out a loud expletive before kicking into action.
“He was rustling around and I couldn't see his hands because he was over the lip of this incline and I just started to yell at him to get down and get his hands where I can see them.
“I remember he said to me ‘What do you want me to do? Get my hands up or get on the ground?’ and I just said ‘Don't be a smartarse, get down on your guts.”
After apprehending Pitt, Senior Sergeant Anderson turned to help the victim who was still silent.
“I asked her ‘Are you okay?’ and she just asked ‘Who are you?’ When I told her it was the police she just burst into tears. She thought I was a co-offender that Pitt had invited in.
“We got her out first. I remember one of the police women that was with her asked ‘Is there anything we can do for you?’ She said ‘I'd really like to go to McDonald’s, because I never thought I'd get to taste it again.’ Those words have stuck with me ever since.”
Pitt was only 10 weeks removed from his release from prison when he committed this offence, something which Senior Sergeant Anderson said would have been difficult to avoid.
Horrifically, he had been repeatedly raping the girl in the mineshaft over about a 20-hour period.
Years later, in 1996, Pitt was found guilty of another two rapes – one of a 15-year-old girl in Mildura in 1987 and a 17-year-old in Frankston in 1988.
“I believe the police and the courts do their best. There is certainly no one to blame for Mr Pitt's offending rather than Mr Pitt himself.”
Senior Sergeant Anderson’s efforts were recognised in 2005 when he was awarded with a bravery medal.
“That was pretty special, for me and my family. But that is almost a downside. When someone is recognised in that way, there were so many other people involved in that event who don't receive the bravery medal.”
He believes that this incident is a lesson in vigilance.
“We should always take things seriously. If someone goes missing or falls off the radar, you never quite know what is going on behind the curtain.”
Pitt has spent 24 of the past 29 years in prison for a collection of sexual offences.
He was due for parole in 2016 but was convicted for a further 17 years after DNA evidence linked him to the other two rapes.
Pitt will be eligible for parole in 2033 at the age of 75.
Coming on Friday: Just who was Anthony James Pitt?