Tewolde Selassie stole his teenage victim’s self-confidence and sense of safety along with her virginity on the night he broke into her bedroom and raped her.

The schoolgirl was just 15 years old when he subjected her to the attack, for which he later denied all responsibility, despite damning DNA evidence against him. This forced his young victim to face him across a courtroom and give evidence, but her courage in doing so paid off this week when he was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 25 years behind bars by a judge who labelled him an evil predator.

The victim, who has a right to anonymity under the law, described how her life has changed forever.

“I’ve suffered a loss of safety, like walking down the street and not worrying about who’s behind me, the ability to walk into an elevator without assessing the men in it before deciding whether to get in. I’ve lost a God-given right to respect men and not to think they are criminals,” she told Supreme Court in a statement yesterday. She has suffered from headaches and poor concentration at school, and has felt frightened even going to the grocery store, she said, adding: “In S1 my grades were fantastic, all A’s and B’s, but in S2 when this happened, my grades were bad. I failed the entire year.”

Fears about her safety prompted her family to install an expensive home security system that they could ill afford, and she had to attend counselling sessions, which she hated. The girl also described how her friends stopped coming for sleepovers in the aftermath of the attack, and she stopped going out to the cinema in the evenings.

A member of the teenager’s family, speaking after the sentencing, described her as “a beautiful person”. She also spoke of her fear that Selassie may have attempted to target the girl prior to the terrifying night in January 2005 that he raped her, telling her he’d spotted her at school. Someone had broken into the house on at least three or four other occasions, claimed the relative, explaining: “We can’t prove it was him. We can only speculate. After what he said to her that night, we were scared after that to even let her go to school by herself.

“We had to transport her to school day in, day out, and get a security system put in because we couldn’t sleep.”

Selassie was arrested and remanded into custody in May 2005, with the court case two years later an added ordeal for the teenager, said the relative.

“The Police were great. They did an outstanding job. They were great and kept us posted and updated,” she added.

Senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Robert Cardwell, paid tribute to the youngster’s courage in the face of her ordeal.

“The victim in this case is one of the strongest people I have ever met. I’m very glad that now she can move on with her life,” he said, welcoming the lengthy sentence.

Meanwhile, Selassie was bundled into a prison van — vehemently protesting his innocence to watching journalists — and driven away to Westgate.