A 60-year-old man was jailed by the High Court for seven years on Tuesday after pleading guilty to raping a girl 40 years ago.

Police said the defendant's victim was 13 when in 1983 he followed her into a flat in Tuen Mun and raped her before fleeing with HK$160 in cash.

The victim died in 1999, the force said.

Following sentencing, senior inspector Darren Yeung said that despite retrieving the man's palm prints at the crime scene, officers were not able to match them to their records until several years later when a new computer system was introduced.

It then took officers 13 years to catch the man – near his home in Tsuen Wan.

There was no record of him leaving Hong Kong since July 2008.

"It was not until the upgrade of the forensic system in late 2008, which enabled computerised comparison work, that the police successfully identified the arrested individual and placed him on the wanted list. Eventually, in August 2021, he was apprehended by a patrol officer," Yeung said.

"Regardless of how much time has passed in cases, the police will remain committed to apprehending the perpetrators and bringing them to justice," he added.