A MUM-OF-TWO was brutally raped on Christmas Day 1987 by a man who now has a string of rape convictions, the Old Bailey heard today.

Antoni Imiela, aged 57, is accused of raping Sheila Jankowitz in Forest Hill, nearly a quarter of a century ago.

The court heard Imiela has since taken part in a “savage and perverted campaign against total strangers” between November 2001 and autumn 2002 before being convicted of seven rapes from that period.

Jurors were told that South African born Mrs Jankowitz, aged 31, arrived home in Forest Hill “distressed and angry” after the incident.

Prosecutor Richard Hearnden said: “Her clothes were covered in dirt and blood. She told her family that she had just been raped.”

Jurors heard how the alleged victim had argued with her husband while out drinking on Christmas Eve, and had headed to another pub alone.

Returning to her flat, she found her husband was not in and left again. But as she walked up a path toward the main road a man ran towards her.

Mr Hearnden said: “The man grabbed hold of her, put his hand over her mouth and dragged her backwards to some waste ground behind the flats.

“There he subjected her to a terrifying ordeal of physical and sexual assaults.

“He told her that if she so much as looked at his face he would murder her.

“He punched her hard and repeatedly in the face when she resisted him.

“He picked up a brick and held it aloft in his right hand throughout the attack.”

He added: “The whole time, the man thought nothing of his victim but only of his own pleasure and needs.”

The court was told that swabs of semen taken at the time were studied by a Met Police cold case team three years ago, who found they matched Imiela’s DNA profile.

Mr Hearnden said the probability of the semen coming from someone else was “one in a billion”.

Imiela was arrested in January 2010. The following March he filed a defence statement claiming the woman, who has since died, had sex with him consensually.

He denies rape, buggery and indecent assault. The trial continues.