DETECTIVES last night revealed a catalogue of more than 80 sex crimes dating back three decades they hope to solve using advances in DNA technology.

News of the cases, from across the North-East, followed the jailing yesterday of a rapist for the brutal attack on a woman on Teesside nearly ten years ago.

Cleveland Police revealed they were looking at more than 80 rapes, and detectives warned those responsible that it was only a matter of time before they were tracked down.

The Government is providing funding for Operation Advance, and help is being given by experts at the Forensic Science Service laboratory, in Wetherby, West Yorkshire.

Yesterday, Thomas Noble became the second rapist to be put behind bars by Cleveland Police as a result of Operation Advance, which was set up in 2004 and which has had more than a dozen successes nationwide.

Noble was jailed for five years for the attack on a single mother in Newham Grange Park - known locally as Monkey Tree Park - in Stockton, in summer 1997.

The 32-year-old victim was walking home in the early hours of June 14 when Noble forced her off the path and down a grassy bank.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Noble, then aged 36 and in a relationship, grabbed her by the throat and threatened to harm her.

During the attack, which lasted more than an hour, the victim tried to struggle free, but Noble began to strangle her, and warned: "I've hit women before."

When he released her, he said: "I've just raped you. You are going to tell the police."

Rod Hunt, prosecuting, told the court the victim tried to calm Noble by saying she would not report the attack, but as soon as he had gone, she went to a public call box and rang 999.

Noble was arrested last year after a scientific breakthrough linked him to the crime. He admitted rape, at Teesside Crown Court last month.

After the hearing, Detective Superintendent Tony Hutchinson, of Cleveland Police, said that more than 80 cases, dating back to the late Seventies, were being re-opened.

Northumbria Police has its own Operation Phoenix, which is re-examining a series of unsolved sex attacks between 1985 and 1999 while Durham Constabulary is also using the Forensic Science Service.

North Yorkshire Police looked at 18 unsolved cases across the county after the launch of Operation Advance, and two of them have been re-opened after breakthroughs.

Det Supt Hutchinson told The Northern Echo: "People who have committed serious crimes such as these many years ago and think they have got away with it should think again.

"It is extremely satisfying to knock on the door of an offender when their past catches up with them and while that might not happen in the next week or month or even in the course of the next 12 months there is a possibility we will be coming."

Robin Denny, mitigating, said Noble had consumed a lot of alcohol before the attack and had not lain in wait for his victim, and initially thought she was consenting to sex.

But Judge Les Spittle told Noble: "This act was a brutal, degrading and painful experience and it must have been manifestly obvious to you that she was not consenting."

Det Supt Hutchinson said: "The outcome of this case means the victim can have closure.

"She has spent more than nine years wondering if every man she passes in the street is the one who attacked her.

"She now hopes to put her terrible ordeal behind her and get on with the rest of her life."