A man arrested for urinating in the street was today jailed after police used DNA evidence to link him to a rape seven years earlier.

Mark Wilkinson was jailed for five years after a jury found him guilty of raping a 19-year-old student in December 1995.

The 25-year-old, of Roker Baths Road, Roker, Sunderland, was caught by detectives working on Operation Phoenix which aims to take a fresh look at unsolved sex crimes from the 1980s and 1990s using modern DNA techniques.

The defendant held his head in his hands as the jury foreman read out the unanimous verdict at Newcastle Crown Court today.

Judge Esmond Faulks said Wilkinson's behaviour that night was ''clearly out of character''. The judge said the jury had seen the victim's evidence via a TV link and that she was ''hugely traumatised'' by the offence which took place in an alleyway after she had visited Ku Nightclub in Sunderland.

Wilkinson was caught urinating in a street in South Shields, Tyneside, in December 2001 and cautioned.

A DNA sample was taken as a matter of routine and it was later matched against evidence taken from the rape victim.

Wilkinson was arrested and denied having sex, then claimed it had been consensual in a later interview, the court heard.

After the case, Detective Inspector John Watts said: ''This is the first conviction for Operation Phoenix but there is every indication it will not be the last. ''This should reassure people of our determination to detect serious offences no matter when they took place.

''The victim has been distressed for the last seven years and I hope this will give her some sense of finality.''

Wilkinson was placed on the Sex Offenders' Register for life.