Justice after 30 years for woman raped as her daughter, 3, hid behind the sofa

Andrew Longmire, 54, has been a category A prisoner for the last 22 years, after being jailed for life in Manchester in 1988 for 11 rapes, three attempted rapes and a range of other offences.

However, he was never linked to the rape in Sheffield until South Yorkshire Police's cold case review team reopened the files earlier this year.

The victim and her daughter sat watching in Sheffield Crown Court as Longmire appeared by video link from Whitemoor maximum security prison in Cambridgeshire.

He admitted the rape, which took place on September 7 1981.

Sentencing him to life, with a minimum tariff of two years, Judge Alan Goldsack QC told him: "These victims in these other cases have known now, for very many years, that their attacker has been safely locked up behind bars.

"The victims in this case have had to live with the uncertainty of whether they would ever come face to face with you again.

"You remain a life prisoner, for the protection of the public, long-term." Prosecuting, Fiona Swain said the victim was 26 years old and living with her husband and three-year-old daughter when a masked Longmire broke into their home, armed with an industrial screwdriver, and raped her.

Mrs Swain said the victim told police, following the attack: "I really thought he'd come to kill me at first and, in a way, he did take a part of my life." Samples of semen were taken from the victim's jeans, but the technology to extract DNA from them has only been developed in the years since the offence was committed.

The woman was "frightened to death" following the attack, Mrs Swain said, and would pile stacks of furniture against her doors to prevent people getting in.

Following the sentencing the victim, now in her mid-50s, said: "He's too dangerous to be let out.

I wouldn't want it happening to anybody else.

"I'll never, ever forget it. I think you just learn to live with it.

"I hope this makes more women come forward and do what I've done." Judge Goldsack heard how Longmire was diagnosed as having a personality disorder as long ago as 1975 when he was described as a "delinquent psychopath".

He was more recently diagnosed as having an anti-social personality disorder.

Ray Hooley, from South Yorkshire Police's cold case review team, said he was "delighted" with the sentence.

He added: "What's happened will now allow the victim to properly bring closure to this.

"She's carried on with her life, thanks to the support of her husband and her family, but all that time she has never known if the person sitting next to her on the bus, or the person who passes her on the street, is the man who raped her."