More than three decades after gang raping a young woman on a popular Victorian beach, her attacker claims to have his life "back on track".
Gregory John Challenger, 56, was found guilty in May of three charges of aggravated rape for the brutal attack on the 21-year-old woman at Lorne Beach on New Year's Day 1986.
He was acquitted of a lesser charge of attempted rape.
Challenger was charged in 2016 after new DNA evidence linked him to the victim's jumper.
She immediately identified an old photo of Challenger as the man who raped her when police showed her 12 different mugshots in 2016.
"It is him. It is his eyes," she told police, before she closed her eyes to avoid seeing his face again.
At a County Court pre-sentence hearing on Monday, prosecutors labelled the crime a "serious example of this type of offending".
However, Challenger's lawyer Len Hartnett said the delay in conviction gave his client the opportunity to get "his life back on track".
"In many ways, (he) has set himself upon a course of trying to rehabilitate himself over the years," he said.
Mr Hartnett argued Challenger had excellent prospects of rehabilitation and was not a risk to the community.
He conceded his client would serve jail time, but argued a sentence at the lower end of the scale would achieve a general deterrence effect, with his conviction proof justice can "catch up with offenders".
"Time does not heal the wound of very serious crime," he said.
Judge Liz Gaynor was given a copy of the victim's impact statement which detailed the violent nature of the gang rape.
Crown prosecutor Andrew Moore said it had left the victim "devastated".
"Her recovery has been an ongoing process for many years," he said via video link from Geelong.
Three other men involved in the rape have never been identified.
Challenger will be sentenced on June 26.
Australian Associated Press
