Warning: this story contains content that some readers may find upsetting
A man who raped a first-year Newcastle university student in a "terrifying" broad daylight attack, after breaking into a suburban share house, has been sentenced to a maximum of 14 years in jail.
Jonah Somasundaram, now 22, appeared to have no reaction as he sat in the audio-visual suite at Kempsey prison while Judge Megan Latham handed down the punishment in Newcastle District Court on Friday.
The court heard that Somasundaram had consumed 12 beers on the afternoon of July 29, 2021, before he broke into the share house - in the same suburb as the home where he was living with his father - looking for money.
He took a steak knife from the kitchen drawer and went into a bedroom at about 3pm, where he found the 20-year-old victim sitting at her desk.
Over the course of at least 30 minutes, Somasundaram forced the young woman to undress at knife-point, twice attempted to forcibly have sexual intercourse with her and digitally penetrated her.
He forced his genitals into her mouth on three occasions - two of those causing her to vomit.
Somasundaram made her make a degrading statement as he was assaulting her and cut her hand during a struggle over the knife when she briefly got hold of it.
He took the young woman's mobile phone and was arrested at his home the next day.
Judge Latham described the attack as "abhorrent".
"This was a sustained, terrifying ordeal inflicted on the victim by a stranger for his own sexual gratification," she said in her judgement on Friday.
"It was callous, cruel and violent."
In a victim impact statement read to the court by a support person, the young woman said the incident caused her to return to live in her family's home and stopped her studies.
It made her "more wary of men" and had left her living in fear of someone breaking into her home, she said.
Somasundaram gave evidence from Kempsey jail on Friday, saying he did not know why he attacked the young woman and that he broke into her house in search of money to steal.
Judge Latham said there was little evidence that Somasundaram had the capacity to develop insight into the impacts of his offending.
Despite Somasundaram being alcohol-affected at the time of the attack, Judge Latham said there could be no doubt he was "fully aware of the serious nature" of the assaults.
In sentencing Somasundaram, Judge Latham set a non-parole period of 10 years. With the sentence backdated to the time of his arrest to account for the period he has already spent in custody, he will be first eligible for release in July 2031.
