Evil rapist gets 33 life sentences
A ‘PSYCHOPATH’ has been handed 33 life sentences and a minimum term of 30 years for a string of horrific sex attacks on 11 women and children.
Convicted burglar
Joseph McCann, 34, was finally arrested while hiding in a tree near Congleton.
He had been freed after a probation service error, two months before he embarked on a cocaine and vodka-fuelled rampage.
Over 15 days, he abducted, raped and assaulted victims aged between 11 and 71.
He allegedly used a ‘support network’ across the country to evade police, despite being identified as a suspect on the day of his first attack.
On Friday McCann, who had addresses in Aylesbury and Harrow, was found guilty of 37 charges relating to 11 victims, including eight rapes, false imprisonment and kidnap.
He was sentenced on Monday at the Old Bailey but failed to attend, citing a ‘bad back’.
Mr Justice Edis, who passed sentence, said: “This was a campaign of rape, violence and abduction of a kind which I have never seen or heard of before.
“In your world other people exist only for your pleasure and you have no ability to see the world in anybody’s eyes other than your own. You are a classic psychopath.”
He also said there should be an independent investigation into how the system ‘failed to protect’ McCann’s victims from him.
The court heard he had a string of convictions in the North West and South East of England, having received his first term behind bars at the age of 15.
Since his release in February, McCann was seen by probation officers 10 times.
The last occasion was on April 19, three days before McCann committed his first rape.
It was said this was committed in Watford, when he snatched his victim from the street and raped her in her own bed on April 21.
The woman named her attacker to police, and McCann’s details were put on the Police National Computer and a prison recall was issued.
But he remained at large and committed further crimes in places including Heywood, London and Ramsbottom.
In one he forced two 14-year-old girls into a car and threatened to ‘chop them up’. He was arrested on May 6 when a police helicopter located him up a tree.
The Probation Service has issued an ‘unreserved’ apology for a blunder which led to McCann’s release in February, halfway through a three-year sentence for burglary.
A probation officer was demoted after a Ministry of Justice review found McCann should have been immediately recalled to jail for an earlier offence.
Six people were arrested on suspicion of assisting McCann, and released under investigation.