DNA BREAKTHROUGH: JAILED FOR RAPE, 33 YEARS ON

After 33 years of torment, victim in court to see attacker sentenced

A BRUTAL Geelong killer and rapist was jailed for 19 years yesterday, 33 years after a shocking attack on a woman in a Drumcondra home.

The advent of DNA technology helped police catch Michael “Mick” Mush – previously known as Michael Dimitrovski – for the horrific November 1985 crime.

Now 56, Mush was 23 at the time, and went on to commit a series of “frightening violent and sexual offences in the next decade”, Judge Gerard Mullaly said in Melbourne County Court yesterday. Judge Mullaly said the defendant’s rap sheet included a Supreme Court conviction for manslaughter in 1986 after he “assaulted, bashed, stomped on, and kicked” a man at a rooming house in Pakington St, Geelong West, in a dispute over a black and white TV.

Mush also raped a woman in 1995 after following her outside a Geelong nightclub, the court heard.

The victim of the rape in Drumcondra that Mush was sentenced for yesterday was sleeping, home alone when the man broke into her property and changed her life forever.

Aged in her 40s at the time, she is in her 70s now, and attended court yesterday, where the shocking crime was detailed.

The court heard her ordeal lasted a number of hours, with her attacker grabbing her from behind and pressing a cold steel object to her neck.

“I don’t want to hurt you, I just want your money” and “be quiet or I’ll kill you” were among Mush’s threats.

But Judge Mullaly said the man, who had been “prowling the waterfront area of Geelong” that night, attacked her “with great violence and with complete disregard for her as a human being”.

She was gagged, tied, beaten and raped, her attacker stopping momentarily for a cigarette before continuing her ordeal.

Mush stole $170 from the woman before he left, and told her: “Don’t worry, if what I’ve done hasn’t killed you, nothing will”. She waited 10 minutes before calling a friend and reporting she’d been “bashed and raped for hours”.

The court heard the impact of the crime lived with her to this day. It had affected her trust in men, even her own son, and forced her to live in fear, sometimes paralysed by anxiety. Through a victim impact statement she told the court she rarely left her home in the two years immediately after being attacked.

Judge Mullaly praised the “dedicated scientists” who used data-matching DNA technology to identify Mush for the cold case rape.

After avoiding detection for 30 years, he told the rapist yesterday: “You must now meet the consequences or your just desserts.”

The defendant pleaded guilty to seven charges — two of aggravated rape, three of indecent aggravated assault, one of burglary and one of assault causing bodily harm — in February, just before a jury was empaneled to hear his case.

He was sentenced yesterday to a 19-year jail term with nonparole period of 15 years.

“Don’t worry, if what I’ve done hasn’t killed you, nothing will.” RAPIST MICHAEL MUSH TO HIS VICTIM