Robert Barry to be sentenced after fresh DNA analysis solves 40-year rape case
A violent rape in Gippsland almost four decades ago has been solved after fresh DNA analysis linked the case to a serial sex offender in Western Australia.
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A violent rape in Gippsland nearly 40 years ago has been solved after DNA evidence was linked to a serial sex offender in Western Australia.
Robert Barry was aged 22 when he grabbed a young woman from behind before dragging her into a garden and raping her while she walked to meet friends in Traralgon in 1984.
The case remained cold for decades until analysis of DNA from clothing matched with Barry who was then living in Perth.
The County Court on Tuesday heard Barry, now 61, followed the woman on Franklin St after she left a bar to meet friends about 10.30pm on August 25, 1984.
He grabbed her from behind, putting his hands over her mouth and pinning her arms before dragging her into a garden where he pulled off her clothes and raped her.
“Don’t look at me,” he told her.
When she attempted to crawl away, Barry repeatedly slammed her head against a timber garden bed, knocking her unconscious, before he fled.
After she woke up, the woman raised the alarm with a neighbour who called police.
The woman’s face was so badly bruised she was unrecognisable to friends and despite providing a description of her assailant, police were unable to track him down.
Forensic evidence including swabs and blood samples were taken from items including the woman’s clothing but DNA technology had not yet been developed to test it.
In 2012, the items were analysed and DNA was later linked to Barry when it was found he was 100 billion times more likely to be the source than anyone else.
He was jailed for 12 years in 2017 after pleading guilty to a string of sex offences in Western Australia in the early 1990s including the rape of two teenagers — also solved through DNA analysis.
After his Western Australian matters finished, he was extradited to Victoria where he pleaded guilty to aggravated rape over the Traralgon assault.
Prosecutor Andrew Grant told Tuesday’s pre-sentence hearing the offending was every woman’s “worst nightmare” and Barry had attacked four victims unknown to him.
“Minding your own business, going home from a social night on a weekend and then worrying about this sort of thing,” he said.
He said Barry had not taken part in any sex offender programs in jail and still posed a danger to women.
Lawyer Jo Swiney, for Barry, said she would not argue her client was of good character given his subsequent crimes but it had been 30 years since his last offending.
She said his offending occurred during times of alcohol abuse but he had a stable life in his older years, noting he raised a family in Western Australia and worked as a truck driver and furniture removalist.
Ms Swiney said his adult children and wife had ceased contact with him after he was sentenced in Western Australia.
Barry’s Western Australian sentence will expire in 2028 and Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis said he would be facing further jail time.
Barry, who appeared in court via video link from Hopkins Correctional Centre, will be sentenced next week.
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