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A vile beast who sexually assaulted his stepdaughter in a seven-hour attack was caged for four years on Thursday.

Brave Julie-Ann Hudson waived her right to anonymity so her scumbag attacker could be named after he admitted the sexual assault.

Dundalk Circuit Court heard John Hudson, 46, was extradited from Australia to face the charges.

In her victim impact statement Julie-Ann told the court she believed she was “going to die” and “if I didn’t fight as hard as I did I wouldn’t have made it out alive”.

Hudson was meant to be dropping the then 22-year-old victim home but instead he drove down a dark country lane at Beaulieu, Co Louth, on October 10, 2008.

He carried out what Judge Michael O’Shea said was “an horrific, ongoing sexual abuse ordeal” on Julie-Ann.

He added it was “horrific, disgusting, embarrassing and humiliating”.

Julie-Ann said Hudson had previously been in a relationship with her mother and “was the only father I had ever known”.

She had known him since she was two years old and after he and her mother split up she continued to visit him.

After the attack she tried to take her own life and said: “I am scared he will get in. It got to the stage where I slept with a knife under my pillow.”

Prosecuting counsel Kevin Segrave told the court Hudson drove down the single track laneway and “demanded she remove her clothes”.

She struggled against him as he tried to open her buttons and she shouted at him to stop and he grabbed her at the top of her shirt.

He left the car to go to the toilet and she tried to call 999 but he got back into the car and again ordered her to take her clothes off. After about 30 minutes she believed “her only option” was to remove her top.

He pulled off her bra, forced her neck back and used what the judge said was “horrific and insulting language” towards her.

He sexually assaulted her and when she said she needed to go to the toilet he watched her before making her sit on his lap in the car.

He told her he loved her and never looked on her as his daughter.

When she said that if he killed her he would be doing her a favour he grabbed her around the neck.

The ordeal ended when he decided to drive to a garage in Drogheda to get cigarettes.

It was 6.35am and she ran into the garage and with the help of staff there she locked herself in a toilet until the gardai arrived.

She told Judge Michael O’Shea that she still fears he will come and get her and no longer trusts people.

Hudson admitted the offence which took place when he was living in Crann Mor Cove, Clogherhead, Co Louth.

Garda David O’Leary said Hudson had to be extradited from Australia and he has been in custody since August 2012 and Judge O’Shea back-dated the sentence to that point.

Julie-Ann said she would have preferred a longer jail sentence, adding: “I have been in a mental institution, tried to kill myself three times.

“I only now can start moving on.”