A FORMER soldier has been jailed for a rape committed more than 20 years ago after he was identified by his DNA.

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

He threatened to kill the hysterical victim and, in the dark, forced her into her bedroom, where he raped her.

He then 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.

The court heard that a court martial in Berlin in 1984 acquitted him of raping a German woman only four months after the York rape.

His DNA matched with evidence found at the York rape scene after he was arrested last year for hitting a 12-year-old girl.

Rome, of 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."

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

Richard Mansell, defending, said Rome 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 in Berlin.