Phillip Bruce Ray Bannan, 36, appeared in the Dunedin District Court yesterday on eight counts of criminal harassment, an indecent assault and wilful damage.
In November 2020, the defendant went on a groping spree in Christchurch, indecently assaulting four women in the space of an hour.
Since being sentenced for those crimes, Bannan moved to Dunedin where his sexual preoccupation continued.
One of the victims from 2020 began receiving phone calls from a withheld number in November 2023.
Bannan had found her contact details on a work website and when she answered the phone, he made explicit comments and "sexualised groaning sounds". She hung up, but the man was back at it a week later.
This time Bannan made lewd comments about her bottom, prompting a call to police from the woman’s manager.
And yet it went on.
The defendant persisted, making 48 calls to various branches of the business, asking for the victim by name and making threats of sexual assault.
She was not alone.
Throughout November 2023 and beyond, Bannan targeted seven more women — some from a law firm — all of whom he had found through their work websites.
His fixation on the women’s bottoms became a theme of his phone calls, and he variously outlined his desire to "smack" or "slam" them.
The "strange grunting/breathing noises" continued and Bannan ominously asked a couple of the victims: "Are you ready for your appointment?".
The defendant also used his previous contact with a counsellor as a platform for his abuse.
The woman had worked with Bannan before so when he called, his name and number were displayed on her phone.
Despite that, the defendant claimed it was not him, then made comments about "the way you used to shake your a... in front of me".
There were repeated follow-up calls as Bannan sought to contact the victim and when she avoided him, the defendant directed his inappropriate outbursts at the company’s receptionist.
In December 2023, he showed he was capable of more than just words.
Bannan began following a woman in Albion Lane.
When she noticed him, he fell back but once her attention was diverted he again closed in, reached out and grabbed her bottom.
His final crime came in December 14 when he tried to buy beer at a Dunedin supermarket.
After being refused service over a lack of identification, Bannan kicked a glass door on his way out, breaking it in two places.
Duty lawyer Kelly Beazley, who stepped in yesterday after the defendant fired his previous counsel, said the man put his offending squarely down to his alcohol use, which had been rampant since the age of 10 or 11.
Bannan wrote a letter of apology to the court and conceded that had his mother been on the end of the sort of abuse he dished out, he would be horrified.
His claim to Probation that the indecent assault was accidental was disregarded by Judge Mark Callaghan.
Bannan, who had spent 10 months behind bars on remand, was sentenced to two years and one month in prison.
