Alex Case’s search for an old MySpace login unlocked a dark secret and led to an AFL figure’s sexual abuse conviction
Bored at home one night, Alex Case thought he’d try his luck logging into his old MySpace. Instead, he found a sickening cache of long-forgotten messages.
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Late one night, bored while stuck at home during one of Melbourne’s Covid lockdowns, Alex Case stumbled across a cache of long-forgotten emails from when he was a child.
The discovery would open the lid on heavy trauma the software engineer had buried deep inside when he was 14, after being sexually assaulted by a 44-year-old man.
And the sickening correspondence would eventually lead to the conviction of a prominent “cult icon” in AFL.
But Mr Case, now 34, is speaking out again about what he endured to shine a light on the fact that he is still serving a life sentence of pain while Jeffrey ‘Joffa’ Corfe is roaming free in the community.
In 2022, Corfe pleaded guilty to sexually penetrating a minor, but his 12-month prison sentence was wholly suspended, meaning he walked free from court and returned to a carefree life in suburban Brisbane.
The conviction prompted a subsequent allegation from another teenager that was deemed credible by a tribunal, although police were unable to lay charges due to a lack of evidence and Corfe, now 64, has strenuously denied those allegations.
“When I spoke out initially, waiving my right to anonymity, I did so because the court process was such bull s***,” Mr Case told news.com.au.
“When it comes to these sorts of cases, there’s no justice. In some ways, I felt like I had no choice but to speak out. I needed to show how things are. I hoped that maybe I could make some positive change.
“But the fact the many systemic issues in the justice system have been spoken about again and again, and nothing has changed, is so frustrating.”
A predator disguised as a pen pal
When Mr Case was 14, he was in the early process of coming to terms with his sexuality and felt uncertain about the world and his place in it.
“I was pretty certain I was gay, but I was trying to understand what it all meant,” he recalled.
“I was worried about being judged. I was scared. I had a few pen pals online, people like me, that I talked to about it all.”
He received a ping on MSN Messenger one day in 2005 from someone he didn’t know – a man who said his name was David.
“I can’t remember how we came to be connected in the first place. It could’ve been a chat room or a message board or something. Maybe he randomly added me.
“But he contacted me on MSN and then moved things to email. He wrote to me multiple times over the space of at least a few months.”
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The man lied about being 30, fit and athletic, and gay. From the start, despite knowing Mr Case was just 14, his messages to the boy were sexually explicit and graphic.
“He was pretty full on from the start. He went straight into it. It was pretty explicit. But I was naive and young, so I ignored it.
“I hadn’t met or spoken to many people who were gay before, which is one of the major reasons I was open to chatting.”
The man pushed him to catch up in person and one day, without really thinking about it, Mr Case agreed and went to a home in Coburg.
When the front door swung open, the teenager froze.
“Straight away, it was obvious he wasn’t who he said he was. He was old, he was not slim. He was unkempt.”
David didn’t exist. The man who had been emailing the boy was Corfe, a father and Salvation Army welfare officer, who was 44 at the time.
“Everything inside of me was screaming to get out of there. But I didn’t want to offend him. I didn’t want to be rude. I was a kid.
“It was dark inside. The bedroom was right beside the front door, he guided me straight there.”
After being sexually assaulted, Mr Case stumbled home in a horrid experience he compared to an “out-of-body experience”.
“I completely dissociated. All I could think was: ‘You idiot. Why did you do that? Why?’ Then, when I got home, I was so distraught. I just broke down.
“I messaged him and said: ‘Why did you do that? You shouldn’t do that to young people.’ He replied and agreed.”
A secret kept for 16 years
In order to survive, Mr Case suppressed as much of the horrific experience as he could, feeling like he couldn’t ever tell anyone.
“If I told my parents at that point, it would mean also telling them that I was gay. I would have to explain how I went to a stranger’s house, and he did something to me.
“It would’ve been a double whammy to tell them, which made it so much harder. And on top of that, I was so embarrassed, and I felt such shame and guilt.”
Sixteen years on, during a Covid lockdown, Mr Case tried to find the login details for the MySpace account he had as a teenager.
Keen for a nostalgic walk down digital memory lane, he accessed his very first email account and sorted the messages from oldest to newest.
There were countless emails from Corfe.
“They were pretty horrifying to read. Looking at them as an adult, not a kid, it was so clear that I wasn’t seeking out any of that stuff.
“He was manipulating me. I was taken advantage of because I was so young. When you go through them, it’s pretty clear it was one-sided.”
Their disturbing sexual nature made him feel sick. It also brought back deeply painful memories that had been kept mostly at bay for years.
“I had suppressed so much of it. I put it in a glass box and buried it. Over the years, I looked at it but it was like it was filled with fog. I processed a few little bits of it, but most of it was still there.
“When I saw the emails, it opened the box. Or really, it was like someone picked it up and smashed it against a wall.”
The more he read, the more distressed Mr Case felt.
In one email, Corfe had disclosed his mobile phone number, which it turned out he was still using.
“I Googled it and his Instagram profile popped up. He had his number in his bio on Instagram, weirdly. I saw a photo of him and instantly recognised him. It was him.”
The stranger who abused him had reinvented himself as Joffa, the loveable larrikin dubbed Collingwood’s number one superfan and the leader of its boisterous cheer squad.
He was a regular in the media, providing endless amusement thanks to his penchant for outrageous costumes, including a gold sequins jacket, and quirky hats.
“It didn’t feel real,” Mr Case recalled.
First thing the next morning, he went to Coburg Police Station with the trove of compelling evidence.
Corfe was eventually arrested and charged.
Mustering the courage to confront his past and come forward to police was one thing, but telling his mum and dad what had happened was unspeakably difficult.
“It was awful. I didn’t know how to tell them. I couldn’t find the words. But what I struggled with the most was them blaming themselves.
“It wasn’t their fault at all. I knew that.
“But I had to start coming to terms with that same fact for myself. It wasn’t my fault. I was 14. He was the adult. He should’ve known better. And he did know better – it was wilful. He knew exactly what he was doing.
“I believe it now, that it wasn’t my fault and I’m not to blame. It took a long time to get there though.”
Long-term pain and trauma
While the worst of what happened might’ve been hidden away, it festered in Mr Case’s subconscious from the day he buried it.
It was not without consequence.
“I had this core belief that I was an idiot, that I had done something really bad, and I didn’t deserve anything good in my life. I didn’t deserve happiness. I deserved a lifetime or stress and misery.
“It was this horrid feeling 24-7. Anything good that happened in my life, it was like I removed myself from it. A lot of negative self-talk. Constant anxiety. I think I ran on anxiety.”
His trauma affected his relationships. He self-sabotaged anything remotely good in his life. There was a lot of constant negative self-talk.
“I felt like it was all I deserved,” he said.
But coming forward in 2021 marked a turning point and he was able to finally address some of the root causes of his suffering.
Mr Case believed real and lasting closure would come from enduring the court process and witnessing justice served.
That was a scenario that never eventuated.
Retraumatised by a broken system
In late 2022, almost 18 months after first being arrested, Corfe’s lawyers asked the judge presiding over his case for a sentencing indication.
Put simply, the defence requested an idea of what punishment he might face if he was to plead guilty.
“I asked to give a victim impact statement before that happened, so the judge might take it into account what I had gone through and what I suffered,” Mr Case explained.
“But I was told the statement could be cross-examined if [he didn’t plead and] it went to trial. That stopped me from being as candid as I otherwise wanted to be.
“I held back a lot. In a way, it felt like I was being silenced by the system. I couldn’t say what I wanted to say.”
The declared indicative sentence was 12 months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended, which set the ceiling for what could ultimately be delivered.
Mr Case felt like his muted statement had contributed to the outcome.
“At the actual sentencing, I gave a different statement. I didn’t hold back. After I said my piece, the judge said he needed to go away to consider it.
“He had been planning to hand down his sentence that day but he [adjourned] for a week.”
In the end, the sentence was what had been expected, but the judge made note of the significant impact of Corfe’s offending on Mr Case.
“His life was one of anxiety, depression and low self-esteem,” the judge said.
“You were the adult, and you should not have exploited the victim’s immaturity. You put your own sexual gratification above all else.”
However, the court also took into account a series of glowing character references tendered by Corfe’s lawyers, among them one from beloved community figure Father Bob Maguire.
In sentencing, the judge described those letters as “powerful testimonials” and an “impressive” illustration of Corfe’s “lifelong commitment to helping others”.
“It is more than saying he has good character and without any real blemish, before and more importantly, since this offending,” he said.
The fact that the so-called ‘good character’ of someone who sexually assaults a child even matters is “appalling”, Mr Case said.
“There are so many systemic issues that you can’t even wrap your head around it,” he said.
“I was hoping that by going to the police and going through the courts, he would be held accountable, and I could move on with my life. That never happened.
“It retraumatised me. Legitimately, in some ways, it was more traumatising than what happened to me when I was 14.”
That’s why Mr Case spoke up at the time, dropping a cloak of anonymity afforded to him as the victim of a violent crime against a child.
“I don’t have any regrets. It definitely helped me to accept what had happened, at least a little bit. But it wasn’t easy. It took a toll on me.
“If the system had done its job, I wouldn’t have had to take all of that on.
“It shouldn’t be up to victims to speak out to gain some form of closure. The justice system should offer that. It’s in the name – ‘justice’.”
Originally published as Alex Case’s search for an old MySpace login unlocked a dark secret and led to an AFL figure’s sexual abuse conviction
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