A WOMAN who was driven from her home near Redditch by "doubters and cynics" wept in court as the man who raped her 28 years ago was finally jailed for the crime.

Professional burglar Steven Hearl, now a balding and bespectacled 63-year-old, was sentenced to six years and four months at Worcester Crown Court for the sex attack he carried out in an Alvechurch cornfield when he was 35 and she was 16.

Hearl, who had a long list of convictions for theft offences, was caught in July when a "cold case" review matched his DNA and he confessed to rape, indecent assault and attempted buggery.

In a letter read to the court, he said what he had done was "disgusting and wicked" and hoped his conviction and sentence would allow the woman to move on.

Paul Whitfield, prosecuting, said Hearl was in the area looking for houses to rob and grabbed her as she walked home. He pushed her through a hedge into a cornfield, blindfolding her with her own clothing, sexually assaulted her and raped her while she shouted at him to stop. He then lay alongside her and told her not to move for 30 minutes so he could make his escape.

She went home and told her mother but her ordeal did not end there, the court heard.

Rumours in the town and the fear she might come across the stranger - whose face she had not seen - forced her to leave.

Judge Nicolas Cartwright said "for reasons he could not begin to imagine" she had not been believed.

He said the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had to leave her job, her relationship with her family was damaged and she is still suffering from the emotional harm.

"All of that because of what you did to her," he told Hearl. "She was criticised, insulted and accused of lying. Twenty eight years too late those doubters and cynics have been proved wrong."

He said Hearl was remorseful but if he had not been caught by the DNA he would have "simply carried on with his life" without confessing.

Abigail Nixon, defending, said Hearl had turned his life around since his last prison sentence in 2001 and had been working as a carer in the sheltered accommodation in Hunters Walk, Birmingham, where he is living.

She said he had carried out the attack on the spur of the moment and could not offer an explanation for why he had acted so out of character.

Hearl was given six years and four months for rape. He was given three-and -half years for both attempted buggery and indecent assault and two years for the second indecent assault, all to run concurrently.

He was ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Police used innovative and groundbreaking technologies to reinvestigate the crime which had remained undetected until now.

The crime was reported to police but Hearl was never identified due to a lack of forensic evidence. Officers from the alliances' Major Crime Review Team meticulously trawled through years of evidence in unsolved sexual assaults and rapes in order to identify outstanding offenders. This work resulted in a DNA match and successfully identified Steven Hearl as the offender for the rape in 1987.

Detective Sergeant Sharon Avery leads the Major Crime Review Team. She said: "We have been able to utilise the latest in scientific technology and apply these techniques to archived evidence in relation to undetected rape and sexual offence cases.

"In a number of cases, some of which were reported more than 30 years ago, the scientific expertise of forensic providers has assisted us in securing full DNA profiles of suspects. This has subsequently led to the conviction of offenders who have previously remained unidentified or outstanding."

Detective Inspector Paul Hardman worked with the Major Crime Review Team and facilitated the arrest of Steven Hearl. He said: "This was an opportunist attack on what was a young teenage girl at the time. Steven Hearl never came forward and consciously allowed his victim to endure over 25 years of suffering in the knowledge that her attacker was still at large, and more worryingly, unidentified.