THE detective took a deep breath and steeled herself for one of the most difficult phone calls she had ever had to make.

She punched in the number and waited for an answer, not knowing what sort of reaction she was going to get.

But the long-serving and specially-trained officer had barely introduced herself when the timid voice on the other end of the line asked: "Have you caught him?"

It was a phone call for which Michelle had been waiting 15 years - but one she was certain would come one day.

All those years she had lived with the knowledge that the brute who had raped her - who had changed her life forever and continued to haunt her - was still at large.

But on November 18, last year, just a month short of the 15th anniversary of the horrific attack, Cleveland Police had the news she had been both hoping for and dreading.

The assault would never be far from Michelle's mind in all that time, but to have it thrust to the forefront, without warning, left the victim - by this time a married woman with two children - with wildly mixed emotions.

But she was determined that the prosecution should go ahead and that she would do everything she could to make sure the rapist was put behind bars.

Case officer, Detective Constable Guy Walledge, says: "From the moment we made contact with her again after all that time, she wanted to be continually appraised of the process.

"We took a mouth swab from her to help us split the DNA profile we had, which was made up of both the victim's and the attacker's, and told her it would take two weeks to get a result.

"On the 14th morning, she was on the phone asking what was happening and if there was any progress. She was so focused and could think of nothing but the investigation."

The hunt for Michelle's attacker began after she was badly beaten and raped shortly after midnight in the stairwell to a multi-storey car park in Stockton in December 1989.

But the extensive inquiry was wound down in 1991 when detectives failed to make a breakthrough, despite questioneing more than 40 potential suspects.

Andrew Russell, just 16 at the time, was not one of those questioned. He did not come into the frame because Michelle had told detectives her attacker was aged between 20 and 25 - an estimate based on the rapist's strength and brutality.

Russell left the area shortly afterwards and joined the Army, going on to travel the world before being dishonourably discharged and jailed in 1998 for attacking a fellow soldier.

He settled on Merseyside the following year after serving eight months in prison and tried to put the past - including an allegation of rape by a woman in Colchester, Essex, where he was based with the Army - behind him.

But like Michelle, he too, must have been fearful of that same call from Cleveland Police.

Russell was arrested twice for minor offences over the next few years, and on each occasion, a sample was taken and his DNA profile was put on a national database - something that had not existed at the time of the Stockton attack.

Then, last year, the Forensic Science Service was asked to re-open the case and samples of semen and blood taken from the victim in 1989 were sent to its labs.

A mixed profile was found, and experts were immediately confident that a single profile could be extracted if they could get DNA from Michelle and split hers off.

After establishing where Michelle lived, what her personal circumstances were and when she was most likely to be alone, police made their call.

Det Con Walledge said: "Approaching someone 15 years on presents all sorts of problems for the police.

"We had to find out about her lifestyle and approach at a time when nobody else was around in case, for instance, she had not told her husband about the attack.

"We provided her with the opportunity to decide whether she wanted us to go on with it and the decision to proceed with the case was entirely her choice.

"We have provided her with a great deal of support as this horrific incident re-occurs for her in her life."

Police obtained a sample and the scientists were able to split the profile and come up with one for the attacker which was cross-checked against the national database and, within days, they had a match: Andrew Russell, 31, living in Birkenhead. A former soldier, kicked out of the Army for violence, and with a criminal record in Civvy Street for criminal damage and a minor assault.

More inquiries into the suspect showed - most tellingly - that he was born and educated in Stockton, and left the town a few months after the car park rape.

He had left Stockton's Grangefield School at 16 with one low-level GCSE and had been encouraged to join the Army by his stepfather, a former soldier.

At the time of the attack, he lived in Hampton Road, on the Oxbridge estate, less than a ten-minute walk away from Castlegate, the scene of the attack.

Russell was arrested on Merseyside and brought back to his home town to be questioned about the assault. He denied any involvement - but, critically, could not explain the 351 million-to-one DNA match.

"I was expecting either an admission or a 'no-reply' interview, but I got neither," said Det Con Walledge. "I got answers to all the questions. He was very amiable.

"Effectively, he denied it and said he could offer no explanation whatsoever for the overwhelming forensic evidence.

"Clearly, there was no chance of an alibi, but he simply said his mother was a strict disciplinarian and he had to be in the house by 10pm, so it would not have been possible for him to have carried it out."

Michelle has been left afraid to go into multi-storey car parks, cannot bear to be in the company of men she doesn't know and is still haunted by the attack.

"It took her a long time to come to terms with it," said Det Con Walledge.

"Now, 15 years later, it has been reintroduced to her life in a massive way - but she is coping well.

"Subconsciously, she had been waiting for us to call. The first thing she said was: 'Have you caught him?'

"I also imagine that Russell had been living with the fear this would eventually come to his door.

"There has been a lot of publicity recently about DNA resolving historic sex offence cases and I would fully expect he had been waiting for the knock."

* The Northern Echo has referred to the victim as Michelle, not her real name, to protect her anonymity.