Jeffrey Andrew Carlin avoids jail over 1999 indecent assault of university student

A 61-year-old man has avoided jail for indecently assaulting a young woman while he was a mature-aged university student in 1999, with a South West magistrate expressing disappointment that the charges were not pursued by police at the time. Jeffrey Andrew Carlin appeared in Bunbury Magistrate’s Court where he was handed a 10-month jail sentence that was conditionally suspended for 12 months after previously pleading guilty to three counts of unlawful and indecent assault. The court was told Carlin and the victim were both studying at the Edith Cowan University Bunbury campus in 1999 and were neighbours while living in student accommodation on campus. Carlin was 38 years old at the time of offending and the victim was 19. During the early hours of a morning in January 1999, the victim was sleeping in her accommodation when she was woken by loud banging on the door. She answered the door to Carlin and another man who offered her to come over to their accommodation to socialise, which she accepted. Upon arrival at Carlin’s accommodation, the other man and another woman were present until they left the room to get some sleep. While they were alone, Carlin started forcibly kissing, licking and biting the victim, and also touched her breasts and forced her to touch him. After touching her, Carlin told the victim he “wanted to lick her all over” before they moved to the driveway of the accommodation where he pulled down his track pants and pressed his naked self against the victim’s body. When a car drove by, he yelled at the driver to “f... off” before completely removing his track-pants and running around the lawned area yelling “f... off” multiple times. Although the victim reported the incident to police and Carlin said he was drunk and could not recall the incident, police found there was “insufficient evidence” to press charges at the time. The matter was reinvestigated in late 2021, resulting in Carlin’s arrest, when he maintained that he could not recall the incident due to being drunk. In submissions, the court was told Carlin had a problem with alcohol abuse, leading to a stint in a rehabilitation facility, and expressed remorse for his actions despite not recalling the incident. It was also submitted that Carlin had not committed any criminal offending since the incident. Carlin’s defence counsel Michael Joubert also submitted that it was “unusual” that the matter was investigated but then dropped by police. In sentencing, Magistrate Linda Keane described the offending as a “continued assault” with “numerous acts encompassed” in the offending. Ms Keane also noted a victim impact statement, which she described as “one of the most extreme victim impact statements I’ve read”. “You left this young woman devastated,” she told Carlin. “It is very clear that those events continue to affect her in a serious and damaging way.” Ms Keane also expressed disappointment that the charges were not pursued when police were first notified of the incident in 1999. “It’s extraordinary that nothing happened in 1999,” she said. “It was an appalling decision on the part of the police.”