A FORMER soldier was today starting a jail sentence for the brutal rape of a York woman more than 20 years ago - after he was traced using DNA techniques.

Andrew William Rome, now 40, burst into the young woman's flat in Heworth on January 18, 1984, a court heard.

He threatened to kill the hysterical victim, and in the dark, pulled off her clothes and forced her into her bedroom, where he raped her on the bed.

Then he dressed himself and went back to his regiment, the Prince of Wales's Own, in Berlin, Simon Kealey, prosecuting, told York Crown Court sitting at Teesside yesterday.

Later, a court martial in Berlin acquitted him of raping a German woman only four months after the York rape. Mr Kealey said that subsequent evidence from Rome's then wife revealed that that court may not have heard the truth.

Only when he was arrested last year for hitting a 12-year-old girl in England was his DNA matched with DNA found at the York rape scene in 1984.

Rome, now of Princess Avenue, Withernsea, East Yorkshire, who was discharged from the army in 1989, admitted raping the York woman and was jailed for six-and-a-half years and placed on the sex offenders' register for life.

"You may have thought you had got away with it," the Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, told him. "She has been living with it every week, every day."

In a statement to the court, the woman said: "I feel as if I have suffered a life sentence."

Mr Kealey said that because of the rape, the woman had been terrified of answering her own door, scared of associating with strangers or in crowds and suffered from bulimia and other medical conditions.

In a letter to the court, Rome apologised to the woman, saying: "I have ruined her life plus my own family life. I have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life. I am sorry for the hurt I have caused."

Mr Kealey said that Rome, then 19, was visiting his first wife's parents in Osbaldwick on leave in January, 1984, and often went out running.

Wearing his regimental tracksuit, he followed the woman home and knocked on the door. She was in her early twenties.

Thinking he was a friend of a friend, she opened the door. Despite her attempts to close it again, he forced it wide and pushed her back against the hallway stairs.

"She was hysterical and screaming," said Mr Kealey. He told her he would hit her and kill her unless she shut up and hit her across the mouth.

Rome's barrister, Richard Mansell, said he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of his experiences in the Army, including seeing explosions in Northern Ireland, bullying, and being sexually and physically abused while in custody awaiting trial for the alleged Berlin rape.

He had been seeing a psychiatrist for ten years, self-harmed himself several times, and only last month he ate six razor blades.

But the judge said that there was no connection between his medical condition and the York rape.

Detective Inspector Alan Carey, who led the investigation, today labelled the attack as "the worst rape I can think of".

After the sentencing the Judge commended Det Insp Carey and his team of five detectives for their inquiry, and highlighted the work of three scientists at the Forensic Science Service in Wetherby.

:: The cases that are never closed

ADVANCES in DNA techniques and the police rule that they never close certain cases put rapist Andrew Rome behind bars.

In January, 1984, forensic scientists found DNA evidence against the then 19-year-old soldier on tissues at his victim's flat.

They kept the evidence for years. DNA "finger-printing" was then in its infancy. In the 20 years since, scientists have perfected their techniques so that they can match partial samples and very old samples, as when they convinced the Court of Appeal that James Hanratty was the A6 murderer last year.

By 2004, police were routinely taking DNA samples from arrested people, which were being compared with samples from unsolved cases.

In May last year, Rome was arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm to a 12-year-old girl and his DNA was taken.

It proved to be a one in 133,000 match with the rapist's. Using details from the 2001 national census, police experts calculated that of the 22 million males in the UK over the age of 16, only 166 would match the DNA.

Of the 70,000 males over 16 in the York area, only one would match it.

On October 18 last year, police arrested Rome in Hull for the York rape. He denied ever visiting a young woman in east York in January, 1984, but police charged him with rape.

They were not content with the DNA evidence. They even approached the German woman he is alleged to have raped to see if she would give evidence against him at his trial for the York rape.

They also matched his maroon Prince of Wales's Own regimental tracksuit with stripes down the side with the red tracksuit with stripes worn by the rapist.

Yesterday, Rome pleaded guilty and was jailed for seven-and-a-half years.

The murderer of schoolgirl Caroline Dickinson was jailed last year after her parents pushed prosecutors to use DNA testing which linked Francisco Arce Montes to the crime. The sexual predator killed 13-year-old Caroline in 1996 after sexually assaulting her at a hostel in Brittany.

Last July, Andrew John Bailey was jailed for a brutal rape on a 20-year-old stranger in Flaxley Road, Selby, with the help of an innovative DNA technique, which was being used for only the second time in a criminal case.

In November, Paul Logan, 45, admitted raping a woman in Newcastle city centre 24 years earlier, after Northumbria Police launched a reinvestigation into unsolved sex crimes called Operation Phoenix and found his DNA profile on the national database.

A four-year investigation into the rape and murder of student Sara Cameron as she left a Metro train in Newcastle was solved last year through a cheek-swab sample taken from her killer Michael Robinson when he was involved in a minor disturbance.

Updated: 10:07 Tuesday, February 01, 2005