The Voice singer, 31, found guilty of performing a sex act in his car, in view of a 12-year-old girl

A reality star turned sex offender has been found guilty of exposing himself in front of a 12-year-old girl.

Jeffrey Anderson, 31, of County Down, Northern Ireland, appeared on BBC One’s The Voice in 2014, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Superstar.

The singer was released on bail ahead of sentencing after being convicted of committing a lewd act and outraging public decency.

Belfast Crown Court heard that on June 20 2018, he had exposed himself and rubbed his penis while sitting in his mother’s blue BMW Z4 car.

He claimed that he had been strumming a miniature guitar, not performing a sex act in his mother’s sports car.

The jury rejected this claim.

A girl, who is now 16, testified in court on Tuesday that she noticed the sports car and the man caught her eye as she walked past in St Jude’s Parade, south Belfast. 

She said: ‘His seat was completely rolled back and I could see his bottom half, which was naked.

‘He had his pants down and he was rubbing his penis.’ 

The barrister representing Anderson suggested that the schoolgirl had ‘put two and two together and come up with six’ when cross examining her.  

The teenager rejected this idea: ‘I know what I saw and I saw the lower half of his body.

‘I saw his hand and I saw him [performing a sex act].

‘I know I saw that.’

Anderson says he was parked on the Parade that afternoon in the hopes he would meet a friend who was rehearsing for a production in the Lyric Theatre.

He said he was sat in the car speaking to friends on the phone, getting out and smoking a cigarette, then got back in to play his Baby Taylor guitar that he got from the boot. 

The 31-year-old said that playing mini guitar would have produced a ‘similar motion’ to the sex act.

He said: ‘The bottom line is that I know for a fact I was not exposed and I was not [performing a sex act] in my mother’s car on that day.’

When questioned about what the girl could have seen, Anderson said he had a hair bobble which he kept wrapped around the top of his thumb because of his longer hair at the time.

He said: ‘I believe the bobble around the thumb would have made the top of my thumb a redder colour and I believe that’s what could have been mistaken for a penis.’ 

The 31-year-old was handed a three-year suspended sentence after admitting secretly recording 11 women over an eight-year period from 2005 to 2013. Anderson said these offences happened when he was immature, saying they were ‘selfish mistakes’.

Due to a reporting restriction, the media was banned from covering the case until a verdict was reached.

After the trial started on Monday and concluded on Friday 29 October, the jury handed him a guilty verdict after deliberations lasting just over two hours.  

Judge Neil Rafferty QC told Anderson he is to be sentenced on December 3, adding that he should prepare for the possibility of prison.

He said: ‘I will be thinking about a custodial sentence as a disposal in this case.’ 

The schoolgirl said the ordeal made her feel ‘worried and uncomfortable’, and went home to tell her mum what she had seen after leaving her friends at a bus stop. 

Her mother drove to St Jude’s Parade to take a photo of the BMW, which was still parked in the area, and informed the police.

Anderson was questioned by police the following day and again in September 2018.

Anderson found fame on TV talent shows The Voice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Superstar, gaining the nickname ‘Baby Jesus’ while touring with Jesus Christ Superstar.

When he was called to the witness box on Thursday, Anderson described himself as a ‘musician and writer’ and said he always had a guitar with him.

He described himself as a ‘musician and writer’ and said that he always had a guitar with him when he was called to the witness box on Thursday. 

The jury was told Anderson had previous convictions for voyeurism just before he gave evidence.

The Crown argued that because of this, Anderson had indicated that he ‘had a tendency to engage in criminal acts for his own sexual gratification.’ 

Last July, he was handed a three-year suspended sentence after admitting secretly recording 11 women over an eight-year period from 2005 to 2013.

Anderson said these offences happened when he was immature, saying they were ‘selfish mistakes’. 

He said in court: ‘I was naive and I made mistakes and I admitted my guilt for those charges. I certainly learned a lesson from that.

‘I admitted my guilt, which was set in stone, but I’m not going to admit guilt for something like this, that I haven’t done.’