A portrait of a drug taking, woman bashing, fraudster and coward as a young man
Matthew ‘Matt’ Anderson is a drug dealing violent offender who once bashed and choked a woman he claimed to love, leaving her covered in bruises and cowering in fear of her life.
In June 2020 he was convicted of assault and intentionally impeding breathing by strangulation after a judge-alone trial, and was sentenced to three months’ community detention and 12 months’ intensive supervision. In the same year he was discharged without conviction after admitting possessing the party drug MDMA for supply, and two charges of supplying MDMA.
Anderson – real name Matthew Van Der Kley (more of that in a moment) – was banned from harness racing after being convicted of the offences, but this week he made his reappearance in the sport at the NZ Yearling Sales, where he outlaid a six figure sum. It was not the auction house NZ Standardbred’s fault – Anderson was allowed under the terms of his suspension to be there and to buy – but he should not have been, and wouldn’t have if his friends in high places at Harness Racing NZ had done the proper thing and banned him for life.
You see, the assault for which Anderson was convicted was not the first time he had launched a cowardly attack on a woman.
He’d done it twice before.
The other two victims were covered in bruises too, and seriously hurt, just like the poor woman he was convicted of beating. For reasons of their own these victims of this gutless bastard’s assaults did not report them, but they are known to people at senior levels of HRNZ.
We are talking about a serial woman basher here, not a misguided young man who made a terrible mistake.
We are also taking about a fraudster.
When Matt Anderson was known as Matthew Van Der Kley – before he changed his name to avoid his past – he was a roofer, or pretended to be one anyway. He would quote on jobs and take full or partial payment, and then never complete the work.
Anderson was exposed by the Fair Go program, a New Zealand version of A Current Affair that focuses on fraudsters. When a reporter with a camera man in tow door knocked him, the then Van Der Kley told them that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after the Christchurch earthquakes three years before, and used that as his excuse for ripping off innocent Kiwis, including old ladies and pensioners.
The whole of Canterbury was suffering from PTSD after the horrific quakes, including his victims, a number of whom needed their roofs repaired for that very reason. What sort of sick fuck uses that as an excuse for robbing people blind?
After his mother saved him from criminal charges by repaying the victims of his fraud, and after he was exposed on the widely watched prime time TV program, to try and hide from his past Matthew Van Der Kley changed his name to Matthew Anderson , taking the surname of a man who married into his family.
I have some bad news for him though.
The past follows you, and your sins come back to haunt you, especially when you repeat them over and over and never learn.
This bloke is just no good.
He should be banned from harness racing for life.
An item on Fair Go investigated a Christchurch roofer who had failed to complete a number of jobs for which he had already taken payment from customers. A number of these customers were interviewed, and the reporter approached the roofer at his home to get comment on the allegations made against him. The roofer sought to explain his conduct by disclosing to the reporter that he had suffered from mental health issues following the Canterbury earthquakes. The item aired on TV ONE on 14 May 2014.