The words ?20? years rang in the ears of a man who committed a ?horrendous and animal-like? sexual assault on a 76-year-old woman yesterday, as a judge hammered home two tough sentences.

Raymond Maxwell Perott, 38, pleaded guilty to what Assistant Justice Archibald Warner called ?the brutal and horrendous home invasion on a helpless elderly woman?.

?All Bermudians should be offended and outraged by (this crime),? he said. ?It strikes fear in the heart of women in this country. it makes all women vulnerable. Victims must be assured. I dare say the public must be assured.?

?This was a horrendous and animal-like crime,? he said. ?This man has an atrocious record.?

He sentenced Perott to eight years imprisonment for the burglary and 12 years for the sexual assault. The sentences will run consecutively, putting Perott in prison for a total of 20 years.

Perott will also undergo all available drug treatment and sex assault programmes in prison.

The maximum sentence for burglary is ten years. The maximum sentence for sexual assault is 20.

?Twenty years,? Mr. Justice Warner repeated as Perott was led away. Perott broke into the woman?s house and pounced on her as she lay in bed while her husband in another room.

Slamming a pillow into her face with such force that he broke her glasses, he repeatedly threatened to kill her as he demanded money for his cocaine habit. After she gave him $200 he repeatedly tried to sexually assault her, telling her he had a knife. He then escaped. The woman, who has diabetes and has suffered a heart attack as well as having to deal with her husband?s cancer in the aftermath of the assault, said the ordeal left her traumatised.

She especially feared she had contracted AIDS, despite tests showing otherwise. In a victim impact statement read to the court by prosecutor Juan Wolffe on Monday she said it nearly broke up her marriage after she blamed her husband for leaving the door unlocked. She has become ?extremely nervous and paranoid? since the incident, and has had to undergo counselling for anger and depression.

Perott, who has a string of dishonesty convictions as well as two for sex with underage girls, had only been released from jail three months prior to the attack. He has convictions dating back to the mid-1980s for house breaking, unlawful assault on a woman and stealing as well as two consecutive nine-month prison sentences in 1990 for having unlawful carnal knowledge of girls under 14.

In 1992 he was sentenced to seven years for three counts of robbery. In 1997 he was jailed for three years for stealing, was jailed again for six months in 2001 for stealing and was jailed in 2002 for unlawfully damaging a house door.

Perott?s lawyer Craig Attridge said: ?This offence is an aberration in his criminal history.?

The unlawful carnal knowledge offences dated back years and involved two women who were drinking alcohol in a social club and who had implicated three other individuals for similar convictions, said Mr. Attridge.

He added that the low sentences had been significant.

He said his client was high on a ?cocktail of drugs and alcohol which would have incapacitated the average individual? on the night of the incident, which helped explain why he could not remember the attack.

Perott had taken heroin and ecstasy that night. Perott?s drug and alcohol abuse began when he was nine, Mr. Attridge said, as he grappled with the trauma of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of various members of his family as well as foster families which began when he was three.

He said Perott would need psychological assistance in prison to tackle the root causes of his addiction.

Mr. Justice Warner said he had considered Perott?s drug addiction, but because of the seriousness of the crime that lent little weight to the sentencing.

Perott?s guilty plea saved the victim from testifying in court, he added, but that also lent little weight to his punishment.

Though Perott did not actually produce a weapon, Mr. Justice Warner said he saw no distinction between this and a crime with a weapon. In both cases the victim was terrorised and feared for their life, he said.