Paul Quinn, 52, has been jailed at Manchester Crown Court for 24 years for the 2003 rape for which innocent man Andrew Malkinson was wrongly jailed.
Mr Malkinson spent 17 years in prison after being convicted over the rape of the 33-year-old woman.
He was released from prison in 2020 and his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2023 after DNA evidence proved that he was not the attacker.
Quinn was convicted of the rape in April.
Sentencing him at Manchester Crown Court on Friday, Mr Justice Bright said his victim is a “hero”.
The judge said: “She, not you Paul Quinn, is the person from this case who I will remember for the rest of my days.
“She is truly a hero.”
open image in galleryMr Justice Bright said it was obvious how “excruciating” it was for her to come back to court for a second time.
“She is a remarkable person,” he said.
The woman was brutally strangled and “thought she was going to die” during the attack, he said.
She was lucky that she did not incur significant brain damage due to oygen deprivation.
The police’s attention “swiftly” focussed on Mr Malkinson, and Quinn visited an old news story on the Manchester Evening News website from 2004 about the other man’s conviction, Mr Justice Bright said.
open image in galleryThat demonstrated that Quinn was aware of both what he had done to the woman and also the knock-on effect on Mr Malkinson, he said.
“Neither of these things appears to have troubled you at any point during the 20-plus years that have passed,” he added.
“It is utterly clear that you knew throughout that another man had been arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned.
“You knew that his conviction was wrongful.”
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