A RAPIST escaped justice for more than eight years because of an error on the national DNA data base.

After a teenage girl suffered the terrifying attack as she walked home at night in August 1996, DNA samples were taken but no match was found.

It was not until police reviewed "near miss" cases in December last year that a match led to Wayne Adams.

Detective Insp David Withers explained as Adams was jailed for 12 years that he was originally arrested in November 1996 for a public order offence. His DNA was taken but there was no match. Last year, the forensic science service conducted a review of cases where details were close to samples from convicted men.

"They then realised that the sample taken in 1996 from the victim of the attack had been transcribed incorrectly onto the national data base," said DI Withers. "It appears to have been a typing mistake."

The officer explained that DNA information entered onto the computer was in the form of a series of numbers.

"The numbers must have been put in incorrectly," he said. "It came up as a near miss. It was reviewed and the mistake was identified. It was then matched to Adams."

DI Withers said the 36-year-old scaffolder had not since been linked to any other sex attacks.

"We are assured that subsequent changes in procedure mean that the same mistake could not happen again," he said. "There is now new technology. In 1996, we were still taking blood. From 1997 onwards, we started taking mouth swabs."

Maidstone Crown Court heard how the 19-year-old victim was still traumatised by the random attack on August 10 1996.

Oliver Saxby, prosecuting, said the teenager had been on a Saturday night out with friends at The Avenue night club in Gillingham, Kent, and was walking home alone at about 1am when grabbed from behind in Rainham.

Adams put his hand over her mouth and pushed her onto a stony driveway. She later told police that she could not scream but "kicked, squirmed and wriggled", despite having trouble breathing.

"Nevertheless, he managed to get on top of her and squeezed her neck," said Mr Saxby. "She recalls continuing to struggle before losing consciousness. When she came round, she realised she had been stripped.

"Her clothes and her money had been taken. She ran home, naked, and tried to rouse her boyfriend, who was staying at her family home. She couldn't and was forced to smash a pane of glass in the front door to let herself in."

The distraught victim ran to her boyfriend's bedroom. It was then about 2am. He woke up to see she had facial injuries and fingernail marks down the side of her neck. She was covered in mud.

Sobbing hysterically, she could only say that she had broken a window to get in. She then began to tell him what had happened. She was in shock and not able to construct full sentences, said Mr Saxby.

She managed to describe her attacker. Police searched the driveway where the attack happened and found her necklace. None of her clothing was found.

The teenager was medically examined and a doctor concluded that her facial injuries were probably caused by kicking.

The prosecutor said of the DNA investigation: "Unhappily, it seems that an error in transcription played a part in the failure to detect a match."

The review of samples last year were found to perfectly match Adams's DNA. When officers went to his home in Lyminge Close, Twydall, on December 14 to arrest him, he replied: "Bloody hell."

"He was in shock, became pallid and began to sweat profusely," said Mr Saxby. "He had to sit down to prevent fainting."

Adams at first denied being responsible for the attack. He claimed he had three or four one-night stands while in a relationship and said one of them must have been with the victim.

He said he must have met the teenager at The Avenue or a local pub. Sex would have been consensual, he said.

Adams, father of a 15-year-old boy, pleaded guilty to rape and attempting to choke, suffocate or strangle with intent to rape.

When told by Robert O'Sullivan, defending, that Adams's main mitigation was his guilty plea, Judge Andrew Patience, QC, replied: "It's his only mitigation, isn't it?"

Said Mr O'Sullivan: "In relation to the incident, its effects are appalling. There is no getting away from that."

Judge Patience told bearded and balding Adams, wearing a white cardigan and jeans: "What you did that night was to subject a defenceless young woman to a predatory and inhuman and wicked attack. You subjected her to brutal violence, degradation and humiliation.

"It is a terrible, terrible account of events to which I have had to listen to this morning. The effect of what you did cannot properly be put into words. It has had a devastating, traumatic and long-lasting effect upon the life of the victim.

"As a result of your behaviour, she has lost a great part of her life. A clear and dreadful picture emerges from the impact statement written by her mother.

"She should have expected in her 20s to have had periods of fun, happiness and full enjoyment of her young life, perhaps marriage and children.

"As it is, you have deprived her of that and her life remains blighted as a result of what you did."

The judge said he would exercise his powers and impose a longer sentence than normal for the offences.

When released on parole, Adams would remain on licence for the remainder of the sentence. His name would appear on the sex offenders' register for life.