An opportunistic predator has been jailed for three years over what a judge has characterised as a humiliating and degrading public rape in a Canberra nature reserve.
Salvatore David Incandela, 41, must serve at least two years of the term behind bars for violating a "childlike" woman, whose vulnerabilities Chief Justice Lucy McCallum described as obvious.
The territory's top judge sentenced Incandela, who was previously found guilty by a jury of sexual intercourse without consent, in the ACT Supreme Court on Friday afternoon.
Chief Justice McCallum said the jury's verdict had established events that began when the victim met one of Incandela's friends through the Zoosk dating website.
On the day in question, in November 2020, this man collected the victim and took her to his Calwell home, where she had a number of alcoholic drinks.
The victim was "quite intoxicated" by the time her date upset her with the revelation he was not interested in pursuing a relationship.
Unable to afford a taxi or rideshare trip back to her home on the opposite side of the ACT, she accepted the offer of a lift from Incandela, who had dropped by the Calwell house.
On the way to the woman's place, Incandela stopped his car on a dirt track in a Spence nature reserve.
Chief Justice McCallum said the 41-year-old concreter got out of the vehicle with his pants around his knees and went to the passenger side, where he violently raped the victim.
"The offender was rough, leaving significant bruising and causing the victim to bleed heavily," she said.
Having observed the victim giving evidence during Incandela's trial, Chief Justice McCallum said the woman's "childlike way" meant at least some aspects of her vulnerability must have been obvious to the 41-year-old in the lead-up to the offence.
The rape had what the judge described as a "devastating" impact on the victim, as outlined in a statement the woman wrote for the court.
The victim's statement spoke of three suicide attempts in the wake of the rape, which also forced her to move because Incandela's knowledge of her address left her feeling unsafe.
She also detailed feeling helpless during the incident, and blaming herself for it.
"The nature of the offending was such to cause feelings of humiliation and degradation to the victim," Chief Justice McCallum said, noting people who lived in the area had seen parts of the attack.
When Incandela was arrested in December 2020, he initially told police he had not met the victim or been to Spence for at least 10 years.
He quickly changed his tune when detectives confronted him with a video, taken by a man whose property backed on to the nature reserve, showing his car on the dirt track.
At this point, Incandela claimed there had been a sexual encounter that could not possibly have been rape because his penis "was scared and it ran away".
Crown prosecutor Trent Hickey described Incandela's account as "rubbish" and, while Chief Justice McCallum did not adopt that term, she agreed his version should be rejected.
The judge also said Incandela's barrister, Travis Jackson, had appropriately conceded the court could not find any evidence of remorse in light of the 41-year-old's continued denials.
She referred to a pre-sentence report, which recorded Incandela saying the only thing he was guilty of was "having sex in public".
"That characterisation cannot be accepted by the court," Chief Justice McCallum said.
Notwithstanding the absence of remorse, the judge found Incandela had "reasonable" prospects of rehabilitation.
Ultimately describing the offence as one worthy of denunciation, the judge imposed the jail sentence and backdated it to start in March to account for time already served on remand.
Incandela, who shouted at Mr Hickey from the dock during a sentence hearing last week, stayed calm on Friday as he learned he would become eligible for parole in March 2024.
