Career crim cops four years for NSW rape

Almost 16 years after a woman was grabbed on a Sydney unit balcony, choked and then sexually assaulted, her attacker has been sentenced.

Shane Kitchener, 40, had gone to the apartment in West Ryde on the morning of March 24, 1998, in a bid to break and enter.

But when he spotted a woman, then 29, sitting on the balcony in just her underpants, what followed next was "opportunistic".

Kitchener, Sydney's District Court heard on Friday, came up behind her, grabbing her mouth and neck.

Calling her a "bitch" and then threatening to kill her if she screamed or fought, Kitchener led her to the bedroom of the unit, in which she was staying with a friend.

As the woman, who cannot be named, fought Kitchener he proceeded to choke her, first with his hands and then a shoelace.

"Because you are fighting me I'm going to punish you," he said, before sexually assaulting her.

It took more than 14 years for the crime to catch up with Kitchener, who was arrested in 2012 after police tested archived DNA.

In sentencing him, Judge Michael Bozic said it would have been a terrifying ordeal for the woman.

Judge Bozic said Kitchener's criminal record extended into 33 pages and that the offence, while opportunistic, was "part of his general criminal pattern of behaviour".

At the time of the offence, Kitchener was on parole after serving time for assault with intent to rob.

The court heard Kitchener had pleaded guilty two days into the trial late last year after the woman had been flown over from Hungary and was preparing to give evidence.

Kitchener said he did not remember the attack as he would have been on heroin at the time.

He was sentenced to a minimum of four years and three months and a maximum of seven years for aggravated entering a dwelling with intent and aggravated sexual assault in relation to the 1998 attack.

Taking into account time already served, he will be eligible for parole in January 2017.