THE DNA of a Colchester man was linked to a 16-year-old “cold case” rape after he was arrested for a different matter last year, a court has heard.

Swabs were taken from 40-year-old Peter Hull following an alleged incident of domestic violence against his partner early in 2009. He was arrested on suspicion of raping a 34-year-old woman in Colchester in 1994 after his DNA was entered on a national police database and found to match that discovered on the alleged rape victim, Ipswich Crown Court was told.

Stephen Harvey, prosecuting, said the chances of the DNA found in semen on the alleged victim’s upper thigh coming from anyone other than Hull were one in a billion.

The court heard that on July 2, 1994, the 34-year-old woman was walking home after a night out in Colchester when she was raped by a stranger.

Shortly before the alleged attack, a man asked her for directions and within minutes of offering to show him the way he had pushed her into an off-licence car park in East Street.

He punched her in the face and threatened to kill her if she screamed before hitting her repeatedly around the head and allegedly forcing her to perform oral sex on him.

He then took her further into the car park away from the street lights and allegedly raped her after ripping off her underwear, said Mr Harvey.

Throughout the alleged attack, the man threatened to kill the woman if she made any noise and had repeatedly hit her in the face while holding her around the throat and insisting that she kiss him.

At the end of the alleged attack, he told her: “You’ve got five minutes.”

Mr Harvey said: “She thought she only had five minutes to live, but he zipped up his flies and walked off.”

The woman lay on the ground not daring to move, but eventually got up and dialled 999 from a phone box.

Hull, of Normandy Avenue, Colchester, has denied indecent assault, attempted buggery, attempted rape and rape on July 2, 1994.

Mr Harvey said that after his arrest Hull told police that in 1994 he had regularly picked up women in Colchester and had sex with them in outdoor locations including public toilets, Castle Park and a churchyard in Hythe Hill.

He accepted he must have had sex with the 34-year-old woman because his DNA was found on her, but said he had never had non-consensual sex with anyone as it went against his “core values.”

The trial continues today.