A SEX attacker who forced his way into his victim’s home before indecently assaulting her was yesterday given an extended sentence after being branded a danger to the public.

Carl Cannell was jailed for five years for groping the middle- aged stranger after knocking on her door in the early hours.

Cannell, of Jesmond Gardens, Hartlepool, will be on supervised licence for three years following his release to monitor his behaviour.

He had only been out of prison a matter of hours for an offence of violence when he carried out what a judge described as the “shocking”

sexual assault in March.

During his three-day trial at Teesside Crown Court last month, Cannell smirked as his victim was put through the trauma of reliving her ordeal in public.

The 25-year-old claimed to have been miles away at his brother’s house at the time of the attack, and then insisted he was gay, but was convicted on an 11-1 majority.

Judge Peter Fox yesterday said Cannell had shown “not a flicker” of remorse, and suggested that he enjoyed seeing his victim having to give evidence.

“This was a shocking experience to which you subjected her in her own home in the early hours of the morning, for which you continue to bear no flicker of remorse,”

he told Cannell.

“Indeed, as I remarked when adjourning sentence, you were smirking throughout her evidence which was an additional trauma for her but which you appeared to enjoy.

“I, therefore, conclude on the facts of the case and from your continuing attitude, that you pose a real danger to women in particular for the foreseeable future.”

The court heard that Cannell forced himself upon the woman after calling at her home at 4.30am on March 20, hours after he had visited with his brother to buy drugs.

He asked for a cup of coffee and pushed his way into the house when the woman refused, made a series of lewd remarks, stripped off, and forced his victim down.

The jury heard that Cannell – released half-way through a 21-month sentence for violence the previous day – started kissing and biting her neck, saying: “I haven’t had a woman for ten months.”

Lorraine Mustard, mitigating, said: “It is right to say that Carl Cannell has previous convictions, but this offence was out of character.”