A single mum who raped at knifepoint by a teenage intruder who broke into her home more than three decades ago has finally received justice.
The man, now 48, was sentenced in Perth Children’s Court on Friday as harrowing details about the shocking incident and how police used DNA to track him down on the other side of the country were revealed.
The court heard that the woman, then 24, was asleep in her home in Embleton, Perth, in the early hours of Good Friday 1992 when the balaclava-clad teen clambered through a kitchen window.
The woman woke to find the teen straddling her before he pressed a towel into her face and over her mouth, which made it diffifcult for her to breathe.
She was ordered to roll onto her stomach as the teen bound her hands behind her back with shoelaces, WA Today reported.
A Queensland man extradited by police to WA earlier this year over a 1992 rape will spend the next four years behind bars
The teen held a 12-inch knife to her throat as she pleaded with him to not hurt her.
The court heard he then raped her before he ‘tied a shoelace around her head’ and ‘stuffed a sock in her mouth’
He then left the home after stealing money from her purse.
The woman, now 55, managed to untie herself and grab her unharmed baby daughter before running to a neighbour’s house to get help and call police.
Her DNA was collected, frozen and stored by police who didn’t have the forensic technology at the time but were confident there would be a breakthrough in the future as technology improved.
The woman recalled the harrowing lifelong impact the rape has had on her life through a powerful victim’s impact statement which was read out during Friday’s sentencing.
‘I don’t think there are words to describe how for over 30 years this has been the monster in my closest, the evil in the shadows, never knowing if he’s around watching me,’ the court heard.
The woman was a young single mum when the then-17-year-old broke into her Perth home at Easter in 1992 (stock image)
‘This man raped me, in my own bed, it was pre meditated and planned. He held a knife, the size of my forearm, to my throat.
‘I was tied up. I had tears streaming down as I begged him to please shut the door because I didn’t want my daughter to find me like this.’
She has suffered with insomnia, depression and anxiety in the 31 years since.
‘I don’t feel safe, ever,’ her statement added.
The man eventually had a family of his own and moved to Queensland with his partner and four children in 2016.
A breakthrough emerged in late 2020 when a partial DNA link was made to a relative of the offender.
The man became a suspect and six months later was interviewed by Queensland Police who obtained a DNA sample from the man, which matched the profile of the woman’s attacker.
The man claimed in his police interview he had no recollection of the night in question or rape as he heavily used meth and drank alcohol at the time.
He’s been in custody for the last five months when he was extradited back to WA to face charges of burglary, sexual assault and deprivation.
He has since pleaded guilty to the charges.
The man (pictured being extradited in May) had been living in Queensland with his family for the last seven years
His defence lawyer told the court his client was ‘remorseful for his offending’ and that the incident had ‘played on his mind over and over in the last three decades’.
The court heard the then teen was ‘a troubled young man’ who battled mental health issues that were ‘unusual and untreated after he was sexually abused by older males when he was a young boy.
Judge Wendy Hughes described the incident ‘humiliating and degrading’ in her sentencing remarks as she praised police on their work to get a conviction three decades later.
‘People can have confidence that their cases will not be forgotten,’ she told the court.
‘People who are inclined to commit offences of this type should be on notice, these cases will not be forgotten, police will work tirelessly to make sure justice is served.’
The man was sentenced to four years and four months behind bars.
The man (pictured being extradited to WA in May) recently pleaded guilty to charges of burglary, sexual assault and deprivation
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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