Daily Star

FREED TO RAPE

ASBO BOY TO BEAST Sick campaign of terror after error set monster free

- ■ by JERRY LAWTON, Chief Crime Correspond­ent jerry.lawton@dailystar.co.uk

RAPIST Joseph McCann was one of the first criminals in Britain to be hit with an ASBO, it emerged last night.

The fiend, now 34, and his brothers Sean and Michael terrorised families on the Beswick estate in Manchester.

The trio spent their childhood setting fire to cars, stealing

A SEX beast embarked on Britain’s worst rape rampage after being freed from jail by mistake.

Joseph McCann, 34, put 11 women and children through horrific ordeals after snatching them off the streets in a two-week orgy of violence.

Last night McCann faced dying in jail after being convicted at the Old Bailey of 37 charges including eight rapes, kidnap and sexual assault.

Sentencing was adjourned until Monday but he could become the first non-killer to receive a whole life jail tariff. And his case sparked outrage after it was revealed he should not have been let out of jail to launch his sex attack frenzy.

In 2008 he was given an indetermin­ate sentence for aggravated burglary after breaking into an 85-yearold man’s home.

Months after his release in 2017 McCann was charged with another burglary and pinching a car.

But instead of recalling him to prison, probation officers allowed a routine prosecutio­n.

The bungle meant that once McCann had served half of his new threeyear sentence he was entitled to be freed automatica­lly. Two months after he was let out he launched his rampage.

A Probation Service worker has reportedly been demoted as a result. Last night Prisons and Probation Service boss Jo Farrar said: “We recognise that there were failings and we apologise unreserved­ly for our part.”

The Ministry of Justice has launched an inquiry.

Jurors heard that McCann went on a cocaine and vodka-fuelled campaign of violence and rape in Watford, London and the north west.

At one stage McCann tried to check into a hotel in Watford as he left two of his victims in a car outside.

Police eventually found him hiding up a tree in Congleton, Cheshire.

Four men and two women arrested on suspicion of assisting McCann while he was at large have been released under investigat­ion. and making lives hell.

In 1999, a judge handed Joseph, then 14, one of the first anti-social behaviour orders (ASBO) and the brothers were banned from the estate.

An ex-neighbour said: “They were a horrible family, absolutely vile, scum of the earth.” their neighbours’

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THEN: In 1999
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RAMPAGE OF EVIL: McCann. Below, at Watford hotel and in tree
■ RAMPAGE OF EVIL: McCann. Below, at Watford hotel and in tree
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