A DANGEROUS and depraved sex attacker who wore a Halloween mask when he forced his way into a pregnant woman's home and abused and degraded her has been locked up for ten years.

The judge sentencing 20-year-old Louis Kukuruzovic said the Bradford victim's terrifying and traumatic knifepoint ordeal was "the stuff of nightmares."

Kukuruzovic, who told psychiatrists he was urged on by voices in his head, wore latex gloves in the late-night attack carried out to satisfy his fetish for ladies underwear.

He pleaded guilty at Bradford Crown Court to sexual assault, assault by penetration and robbery of underwear in the incident last year.

Prosecutor Sophie Drake said Kukuruzovic, of Lastingham Green, Buttershaw, Bradford, targeted his victim, who was more than six months pregnant.

She was in her maternity nightgown when she answered his repeated knocking on her door after dark.

At first she thought it was a Halloween prank when he barged his way into her home.

"Then she saw the knife and quickly realised this was no joke," Miss Drake said.

She pretended her husband was asleep upstairs but Kukuruzovic demanded to know where her underwear was kept and pushed her into the bedroom.

He ordered her to remove her nightgown and sexually assaulted and degraded her at knifepoint.

Miss Drake told the court yesterday he made his victim remove her bra and robbed the rest of her underwear from the bedroom.

He made off leaving her in extreme fear and distress.

When police searched Kukuruzovic's home they found latex gloves, a knife, a burned mask and underwear belonging to the victim.

His barrister, Stephen Wood, conceded the defendant was a public danger but asked the court to draw back from a sentence of life imprisonment.

Kukuruzovic had a very troubled past and was currently being held in a hospital for the mentally ill.

"He has spoken at length about demands made upon him by voices," Mr Wood said.

Judge Jonathan Rose sentenced Kukuruzovic to ten years in a young offender institution, with an extended eight year licence period, the maximum allowed by law.

"These offences are the stuff of nightmares for any woman, indeed for any person, male or female," he said.

Kukuruzovic's interest in possessing women's underwear had crossed the line and led to an "horrendous crime."

His victim had suffered despicable degradation in a place where she was entitled to feel safe.

"She must have thought 'I must comply'' because she was afraid to be raped and murdered," Judge Rose said.

After the case, Detective Inspector Tony Nicholson, of Bradford District CID, said: "This must have been a harrowing ordeal for the victim and we would like to thank her for her courage in coming forward and reporting the matter to the police."