Kingsley Eugene Burgess broke into another woman's home at night and raped her in an almost identical attack 27 years ago.

The plumber and mason got ten years behind bars for those offences.

Having also been convicted 16 times for breaking and entering, he had only been released from prison for house-breaking, unlawful wounding and possession of an offensive weapon three months before his November 2006 burglary and sex attack.

Senior Crown Counsel Paula Tyndale told Supreme Court 54-year-old Burgess's previous convictions tended to show "that this defendant has not learned any lessons from his lengthy period of incarceration nor from his maturing years".