Sex abuse victim calls out justice system after high-profile footy fan avoids jail time

The victim of historical sexual abuse by Jeffrey 'Joffa' Corfe, a former high-profile Collingwood cheersquad member, has waived his anonymity in order to call for changes to Victoria's court system. 

Today, Corfe was given a 12-month prison term, wholly suspended for two years, for the abuse which occurred in 2005.

Alex Case was just 14 years old when he was groomed over email and MSN Messenger by a then 44-year-old Corfe, who was pretending to be a 30-year-old man by the name of David Winston.

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"I was obviously at an age where I was questioning my sexuality," Case told A Current Affair.

"I was just literally after someone to talk to."

In emails seen by A Current Affair, Corfe invited the schoolboy over.

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"You're only down the road from me, so any time you want to meet, you can come to my place or I can meet you some place in the evenings," Corfe told Case, under the pseudonym of Winston.

Case walked to where Corfe was living in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg. 

"Straightaway, the description he'd given me did not line up with the person that I saw," Case said.

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"The main thought that was going through my mind was, 'I can't walk away because it'll upset him. It's rude'."

It was then that oral sex occurred.

Case left distraught.

"All I knew was that I didn't feel that I deserved anything good and that I wasn't a good person," Case said.

In 2020, Case came across the emails and made the decision to report the incident to police.

It was then that his abuser was identified as Corfe, known in the AFL world as Joffa - Collingwood Football Club's well known fan. 

The 62-year-old was living in Fiji at the time, before moving to Queensland. 

But in May 2021, he returned to Melbourne for a football game and was subsequently arrested and charged.

In November 2022, Corfe pleaded guilty, after a sentence indication hearing deemed he would not receive time in prison for the offence.

"It's a justice system, but the sentences being handed down are not just," Case said.

"I honestly do question why I bothered."

Sentence indication hearings are designed to shorten the legal process by providing the accused with an expected punishment if a plea is entered before trial.

But the victim impact statement becomes evidence and can be used to cross examine. 

Victoria's Victims of Crime Commissioner Fiona McCormack declined to comment specifically on the case but said victims need more access to legal representation.

"There needs to be ways found to protect the victim impact statement from being used by the defence to attack a victim's credibility," McCormack said.

"It's one of the things I'm looking at as part of the systemic inquiry I'm conducting."

McCormack also believes victims should be entitled to their own legal representation during proceedings.

"The fact that we ask victims to navigate this really complex system on their own, they don't have legal qualifications, they come in traumatised, it's completely unrealistic," McCormack said.

Craig Hughes-Cashmore is a co-founder of the Survivors & Mates Support Network (SAMSN).

"One in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18," Hughes-Cashmore said.

"Men on average take between 25 and 30 years before they feel comfortable to disclose or seek help.

"Most survivors feel a level of shame. They've been groomed by perpetrators and made to feel complicit."

Hughes-Cashmore believes the current court system should be revised to consider victims of sexual abuse.

"To be cross examined, potentially for days on end, about the most minute details of those crimes, to say it's traumatising is an understatement," Hughes-Cashmore said.

"If I can help someone out there feel that, or realise they're not alone and not to blame, that would make it worth it," Case said.

Case is now calling on the Office of Public Prosecutions to appeal his abuser's sentence.