A man who raped a teenager after breaking into her bedroom has been jailed for 25 years.

Tewolde Mathin Selassie, 29, was told by the judge: “This was in my opinion a vicious, heinous crime of the worst type — the sort one should not wish upon one’s worst enemy.”

The victim, who was just 15 and a virgin when she was attacked in 2005, attended yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing dressed in her school uniform.

In a statement read by a Police officer on her behalf, she said of Selassie: “When I was raped, I lost something more than my safety, self confidence and time. He took something that was not his to take, something I was saving for someone of my choice ... now my memory of something that should be sacred is scarred for life.”

Members of her family sobbed with relief when the sentence was announced, with one relative later telling The Royal Gazette: “We’re extremely pleased with it. It’s been two years coming, two very stressful years for our family. This guy terrorised us and now we don’t need to worry for 25 years that he’s going to come back and do it again”.

The girl’s anonymity is protected by law, and her family members cannot be identified for this reason.

Selassie, an unemployed and unmarried Bermudian, was found guilty of burglary and serious sexual assault on Tuesday after a trial by jury.

The victim told how she was woken in the middle of the night in January 2005 by a man who had broken in through her window. He threw her bedclothes over her face before pulling her to the floor and anally assaulting her.

The man, she said, threatened that he had a knife and would kill her if she screamed. He put his hands over her mouth and nose to stop her fighting back, which made her believe she would die. At one point he even advised his victim to get her window fixed.

The girl did not recognise the man’s voice, but said he claimed he’d seen her at school and liked her, but believed she did not like him.

The victim alerted her family shortly after the attack, and they called the Police, who arrested Selassie in May 2005.

Semen on a swab taken from the victim was found to match his DNA profile, with an expert from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police telling the jury there was a one in 100 billion chance the DNA could be from someone else.

In her statement to court yesterday, the girl said she has suffered sleepless nights and fears about her safety since the attack.

“You should feel safe in your own home and you should not be scared. Since then, I always check the windows and doors two or three times before I go to sleep. Sometimes I get up to check them,” she said.

Urging Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves to hand Selassie the maximum 30-year sentence permissible for serious sexual assault, she added: “He has no right to do this to me or any other female in the world. This has hurt me and my family, and if he had the courage to do it once he will probably do it again. I would like to see the safety of women on the Island upheld to the highest standards.”

Detective Inspector Robert Cardwell, who led the investigation, told the court Selassie has convictions for burglary dating back to 1992 and has spent two previous stints behind bars. He was last released from Westgate in December 2004 — the month before he committed the burglary and serious sexual assault.

Addressing the judge, a defiant Selassie said: “I’m not going to apologise for something I didn’t do,” accusing Mr. Justice Greaves of practically instructing the jury to convict him.

He then stared impassively ahead as the judge condemned him for these remarks, saying he “arrogantly demonstrates his remorselessness, and demonstrates that he will do it again, if and when he gets the opportunity.”

The judge went on to describe Selassie as a “a predator with an evil intent” who stole into his victim’s bedroom “like a Grim Reaper” and subjected her to her worst nightmare.

“The fear must have been unimaginable. It must have been the worst ten to fifteen minutes of her life,” he said.

The judge went on to describe a new type of criminal he believes is evolving in Bermuda’s society: “Bold and arrogant career offenders who are prepared no more merely to burgle but to boldly enter the dwelling houses of womenfolk in the middle of the night and viciously ravish them in the midst of their sleep. As a court system we must respond to this new evil with full vigour,” he said.

Mr. Justice Greaves referred to the “eerily similar” case of Kingsley Eugene Burgess, whom he sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in February for breaking into a woman’s home armed with a knife and raping her. The only reason Selassie is entitled to a lesser sentence, said the judge, was the “commendable” decision of his lawyer Elizabeth Christopher not to put the victim through cross-examination during the trial, and because, unlike Burgess, he does not have previous sex offence convictions.