A man has been jailed for 15 years for sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend twice, then trying to intimidate her into dropping the charges.

His victim told a judge her life has been torn apart by the terrifying attacks in her own home, to the point where she has contemplated suicide.

"I live day to day in fear. I can't go out of my house without looking over my shoulder thinking that someone is watching me," she said in a statement read on her behalf at Supreme Court. "This man violated me in my home in the worst possible way."

The woman, aged in her 50s, was comforted by Police officers as the man was sent to prison yesterday. She told The Royal Gazette as she left court: "I'm very happy with the result."

The 36-year-old defendant cannot be identified by this newspaper in order to protect the right of the victim to anonymity. She sobbed as she gave evidence during the man's trial last month, telling the jury he sexually assaulted her during the first incident last year after entering her home as a trespasser in breach of a restraining order against him. She testified that he stole $40 and injured her in a number of ways including slapping her face, kicking her leg and biting her hand and breast.

"He asked me why I wanted to stop seeing him... he started to hit me. He said that he was going to f**k me up," said the woman, describing herself as "terrified" during the attack.

The jury convicted the defendant of sexual assault and causing his victim bodily harm, but cleared him of the theft charge. They also found him guilty of forcing his way back into her home three weeks later and sexually assaulting her, despite bail conditions for the first charges banning him from contacting her.

Reliving details of the second attack, the victim said in evidence: "He told me to make it look like I was enjoying it. I was frightened. I didn't know what to do. After raping me he got up off the bed, went to the kitchen to get a towel and he pushed me back on the bed. He told me: 'Surprise! you're on candid camera.' He said his friend was taping the whole thing."

The man was also convicted of trying to intimidate the woman into dropping the charges against him through sending her two letters from Westgate after he was remanded into custody for breaching bail conditions by contacting her.

He managed to evade prison censors by getting someone to deliver the first letter to the woman's place of work, where she found it taped to her pay cheque. He wrote the second one as if it was addressing a third party — although he sent it directly to her home. His victim said the letters left her "paralysed with fear".

In her statement to the court about the impact of the crime, she said she had been seeing counsellors and a psychiatrist since the attacks.

"Sometimes I wonder if I will ever truly heal," she said. "The court case has rehashed all the bad things that happened to me. Having to testify on the stand and having to re-tell my story was very hard. It was like experiencing the rape all over again. Seeing him face to face took a lot of courage for me to be there. I will always remember what this man has done to me and I hope I can get back to where I used to be before these incidents occurred."

Judge Charles-Etta Simmons heard the man has a string of previous convictions including assault, unlawful wounding, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and burglary. Sentencing him, she told him he engaged in a "reign of terror" over his victim.

"The complainant's only fault, if her behaviour can be described as such, was that she was a caring and trusting person," she told the defendant.