A 33-year-old man from Sudan has been jailed for 12 years for the rape and attempted murder of a teenage girl last September.

Samuel T knocked the girl from her bike as she cycled home around 3am in an outlying district of Kampen. After raping her, he tried to drown her in a nearby ditch.

‘A defenceless 17-year-old girl was abused in a most animal way,’ the public prosecution department said during the court case.

The sentence, which is higher than the public prosecutor had asked for, is down to the far-reaching violence and the fact the girl was a minor, judges said. The man, who is said to be suffering from post traumatic stress, was also ordered to pay her €76,000 in compensation.

He was traced after the girl’s stolen mobile phone was found at the refugee centre in Dronten where he lived, news agency ANP said.