A Swedish man has been jailed for seven years for raping and sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend in a Dublin apartment.

The 36-year-old man, who cannot be named to preserve the anonymity of the victim, had pleaded not guilty to raping, sexually assaulting and falsely imprisoning the woman on July 4, 2010.

Last week a jury at the Central Criminal Court acquitted him of one count of sexual assault but convicted him of the remaining four counts.

Passing sentence on Tuesday, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said the victim had endured “a very nasty ordeal over a very lengthy period”.

He said the woman had suffered significant injuries consistent with her allegations that her ex attempted to strangle her.

Mr Justice McCarthy told the court that the accused said he had given the woman love bites, but that medical evidence said they were not love bites.

He noted that strangulation with consent had taken place as part of their previous relationship, which he said was “very unusual indeed”.

Mr Justice McCarthy said he was impressed by the woman's victim impact statement at her “immense resilience” and great efforts to cope with the incident and achieve normality, but said her life had changed “in a significant way”.

The judge accepted that the accused has already served a lengthy time in custody away from his family and native country. He backdated the seven-year sentence to June 18, 2013.

The State had previously undertaken to allow the accused return to Sweden to serve out his sentence on conviction.

During the trial the victim testified that she didn't think she was going to come out alive during parts of the attack.

She said the man confronted her in her flat and said he would strangle her if she did not remove her underwear. She said he climbed on top of her as she lay on her bed and began to strangle her.

“He held his hands around my neck until the vision went black, I realised I needed to do what he told me,” she said.

He began asking her how many times she and her new boyfriend had had sex and told her he was going to have sex with her the same number of times, she said.

She said she managed to grab her mobile phone and telephone emergency services but the accused grabbed the phone and threw it away.

The man stayed in her flat throughout the night and into the next day. At one point she said a man looking to buy her television telephoned and her attacker allowed her to take the call.

She said she later managed to send an internet message from her laptop to her new partner in which she told him to call the gardai and ask them to bang on the door.

She said she also managed to sent a text to her partner, saying “He's keeping me prisoner please help”. Her partner rang her back and the attacker then left.