A Romanian man who followed a woman in a graveyard in Exeter before raping her had served time in a Swiss prison for a similar crime in 2014, a court has heard.

Cosmin-Nicolae Vasioiu, 47, a convicted rapist, prowled Exeter city centre looking for a lone woman to attack in June last year.

The Romanian national followed his victim as she walked home from a night out with friends and attacked her in the grounds of St Bartholomew’s Cemetery.

She tried to fight him off, but he stripped her naked and raped her and only fled when she screamed, which alerted residents living nearby.

Exeter Crown Court heard Vasioiu had come to Britain after serving a prison sentence for a near-identical rape of an 18-year-old woman in Switzerland in 2014.

He remained in the UK after Brexit but did not apply for EU settled status, which meant his previous convictions were not flagged to the authorities.

Vasioiu was living in a garden shed and doing gardening work when he carried out his latest attack.

Afterwards, he shaved off his beard and hair and got a friend to wash his clothes and shoes.