It was a public street in Charnwood and a brazen, daylight attack on two teenage girls. Even though a suspect could not be identified, the crime was never forgotten.
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Not by the 15-year-old girl who saw the man grab her 16-year-old friend and ejaculate onto her pants, and not by the police systems that collect forensic evidence in the hope of matching it to an offender.
Now, more than 15 years later, Benjamin James Morgan has been identified, found and just last month jailed for his crimes against the girls the evening of February 25, 2001.
"I remember the incident as clearly as the day it happened," the girl who witnessed the crime wrote to a Canberra court. "His face, the smells, the noises, the feelings of helplessness, the fear on my friend's face, the tremble in her voice as she asked for help and the fear consuming my body, unable to move, talk and breathe."
The friends had been walking home when they sensed the man close behind them. They quickened their pace, but at the sound of steps right behind her, the 15-year-old turned to see him grab her friend from behind and pull her close.
She yelled at him to let her friend go but he held on, and used his right hand to masturbate himself even as girl trapped under his left arm cried and begged for help.
When the man was done he released his grip and the girls fled home. The police were called and seized the girl's tracksuit pants for forensic analysis, but the tests, while identifying a male DNA profile, were unable to identify a suspect.
They were 23-year-old Morgan's first reported crimes. But they were not his last.
In 2015 police received an interstate DNA match report suggesting the semen profile from that 2001 evening was consistent with a profile captured from Morgan in the years since for unconnected crimes.
They tracked down Morgan, 40, subjected him to a buccal swab, then analysed his sample with reference to the 2001 semen.
The results said it was 100 billion times more likely the 2001 sample profile came from Morgan than another unrelated Australian Caucasian individual.
Police picked up the phone.
The woman who had seen her friend assaulted said conversations with police had intensified the nightmares while also providing some relief.
"However, the thought I may finally have some closure after so many years and the person responsible for this hideous crime will finally be brought to justice for his disgusting actions that day, is absolutely indescribable and feels like DREAM, not another nightmare!"
She had lost contact with the friend who had been like her sister, because of the emotions, the trauma and the guilt she felt by not being able to help after she froze from fear.
"This not only meant I lost my friend, but also the one person who undoubtedly understood how I was feeling and my thoughts," she said.
The ACT Supreme Court heard, as it prepared to sentence Morgan last month, that the man had claimed no recollection of the offences against the two girls and said he had been living in Perth at the time.
Morgan eventually pleaded guilty to assault with intent to commit an indictable offence, an act of indecency without consent and an act of indecency in the presence of a young person between 10 and 16.
Although Morgan had committed more sex crimes in the intervening years, Justice John Burns said because the crimes against the girls were his first in time, he had to be sentenced on that basis. But the man's subsequent criminal history was still relevant, the judge said.
"That history demonstrates that the present offences were not an uncharacteristic aberration on your part and also that criminal history is relevant in terms of determining your prospects for rehabilitation."
The judge said Morgan had been assessed at a high-risk of sexual reoffending and he considered the man's prospects at rehabilitation "guarded, at best".
He was jailed for 15 months, with a non-parole period of eight months, making him eligible for release in October.
