This is Vincent Dally, who has admitted attempting to rape a woman in Bristol almost 14 years after the vicious attack took place.

Today, Dally was jailed for 21 months by a judge at Bristol Crown Court.

Dally was just days from his 16th birthday when he attacked the woman as she walked to post a letter in Hartcliffe one evening.

He dragged her onto a piece of grassland, kicked her and repeatedly punched her before attempting to rape her. Then he fled, leaving his 39-year-old victim badly hurt and severely traumatised.

That was in November 1995.

For almost 14 years he thought he had got away with this dreadful crime.

He lived in the same house in Bowring Close. But throughout that time a solitary slide containing his DNA taken from his victim was stored in a forensic lab.

Police had taken the DNA sample from his victim's clothing after a friend persuaded her to report the attack.

At the time it did not match any DNA profiles held by the police.

But when detectives ran a further routine check last year it led them to Dally.

Now married, he had been arrested for another offence and the DNA sample taken. The chances of it belonging to anyone else but Dally were a billion to one.

He had pleaded guilty to attempted rape when he appeared before Bristol Crown Court three weeks ago.

To bring him to justice detectives had to find the officers who had worked on the case back in 1995, then track down witnesses who had moved – and ask the victim if she wanted them to proceed. She did.

Detective Constable Liz Cousins was the arresting officer.

She said: "When we went and knocked on his door he was stunned.

"He didn't make any protestations of innocence though.

"We took him from his home to a police station and a mouth swab was taken from him.

"There have been advances in DNA science over the years since this attack and new techniques mean that there was only a one in one billion chance that someone else was responsible."