Queensland man jailed over ‘humiliating and degrading’ rape of Perth woman 31 years ago
A single mother who was raped at knifepoint by a teenage intruder who broke into her home more than 30 years ago has finally received justice.
The man, now 48, was sentenced at the Perth Children’s Court on Friday after harrowing details were revealed about the shocking incident and how police used DNA to track him down on the other side of the country.
The court heard the woman, then 24, was asleep at her home in Embleton, Perth, in the early hours of Good Friday 1992 when the balaclava-clad teenager climbed through a kitchen window.
The woman woke up to find the teenager straddling her before pressing a towel into her face and over her mouth, making it difficult for her to breathe.
She was instructed to roll onto her stomach while the teen tied her hands behind her back with shoelaces. WA Today reported.
A Queensland man extradited to WA by police earlier this year over a 1992 rape will spend the next four years behind bars
The teenager held a 12-inch knife to her throat as she begged him not to hurt her.
The court heard he then raped her before he ‘tied a shoelace around her head’ and ‘put a sock in her mouth’
He then left the home after stealing money from her wallet.
The woman, now 55, managed to free herself and grab her unharmed daughter before running to a neighbor’s house to get help and call police.
Her DNA was collected, frozen and stored by police who did not have the forensic technology at the time but were confident that a breakthrough would come in the future as technology improved.
The woman recalled the harrowing lifelong impact the rape had on her life in a powerful victim impact statement read out during Friday’s sentencing.
“I don’t think there are words to describe how for over thirty years this has been the monster in my closest environment, the evil in the shadows, without knowing if he is around to watch me,” the man heard. court.
The woman was a young single mother 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 premeditated and planned. He held a knife the size of my forearm to my throat.
‘I was tied up. Tears flowed down as I begged him to please close the door because I didn’t want my daughter to find me like this.’
She has suffered from insomnia, depression and anxiety in the 31 years since.
“I never feel safe,” 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 occurred at the end of 2020 when a partial DNA link was made to a family member of the perpetrator.
The man became a suspect and six months later he was interviewed by Queensland Police, who obtained a DNA sample from the man that matched the profile of the woman’s attacker.
The man claimed in his police interview that he had no memory of the night in question or the rape because he was heavily using meth and drinking alcohol at the time.
He had been in custody for the past five months when he was extradited to WA on charges of burglary, assault and deprivation.
He has since pleaded guilty to the charges.
The man (pictured extradited in May) had lived with his family in Queensland for the past seven years
His lawyer told the court his client was ‘remorseful for his offending’ and that the incident had ‘replayed in his mind over and over again for the past thirty years’.
The court heard that the then teenager was “a troubled young man” who suffered from mental health problems that were “unusual and untreated after being sexually abused by older men as a young boy.”
Judge Wendy Hughes described the incident “humiliating and humiliating” in her sentencing remarks as she praised police for their work to secure a conviction three decades later.
“People can rest assured that their cases will not be forgotten,” she told the court.
“People prone to committing these types of offenses should be alert, these cases will not be forgotten, the police will work tirelessly to ensure justice is served.”
The man was sentenced to four years and four months in prison.
The man (pictured extradited to WA in May) recently pleaded guilty to charges of burglary, assault and deprivation