A Geelong man was at a 21st birthday party before he broke into an aged care home and violently tried to rape a 90-year-old woman, a court has been told.
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Shane Huici was 23 and still living at home when he was walking back from the party at a Geelong pub and decided to break into the St Albans Park aged care facility in the early hours of August 15, 2021.
He had drunk to excess and consumed cocaine earlier in the night, before removing a flyscreen at the home and climbing through a window.
A 90-year-old resident soon woke to see him in front of her before he pinned her down, telling her to shut up as he tried to rape her.
The woman managed to resist Huici's attack and activate a personal duress alarm around her neck, but not before she sustained injuries including bruising and cuts to her mouth and a five-centimetre tear to her arm, the County Court of Victoria was told on Wednesday.
CCTV footage later led police to raid Huici's home, where they found spare keys to another room at the aged care facility.
DNA evidence also linked Huici - now 26 - to the crime scene, and he ultimately pleaded guilty to attempted rape, recklessly causing injury, aggravated burglary and theft after a lengthy court process.
The St Albans Park man had a happy and stable upbringing but got into alcohol and drugs as a teenager, and ultimately ended up in financial strife because of gambling, his defence barrister Amelia Beech said on Wednesday.
Those three factors - alcohol, drugs and strained finances - collided with his social anxiety that night in the lead-up to his offending, she said.
"None of that is an excuse but it is, at least, an explanation," Ms Beech told the court.
Huici has continually denied sexually assaulting the elderly woman, who was terribly frightened by the attack, the court was told.
It was for that reason prosecutor Angela Moran urged Judge Pardeep Tiwana to give little weight to references from Huici's family.
They claimed he was remorseful and described him as a "well-rounded and pleasant bloke", "the type of person who thinks of others before himself", and someone without "a malicious bone in his body".
"It's tragic, really, that (the victim has) had to experience something this terrifying ... at such a late stage in her life," Ms Moran said.
The 26-year-old's barrister stressed her client's close-knit family would continue to stand by him.
Judge Tiwana said Huici's attack was despicable and appalling, and it was unfathomable the Geelong man would do such a thing even while frustrated about his lack of an intimate partner.
Huici's remorse largely appeared to be self-pitying, he said.
"Despite pleading guilty he seems to still not accept the offending. His insight is described as being very superficial," Judge Tiwana said.
The 26-year-old had stable work as a forklift driver at the time of his offending and had no previous violent or sexual offences.
The judge is due to sentence Huici on April 26.
Australian Associated Press
