(BBC) – A serial rapist who carried out a string of sex attacks on 11 women and children across England has been given 33 life sentences.
Joseph McCann’s victims were aged between 11 and 71 and included three women who were abducted off the street at knifepoint and repeatedly raped.
He was found guilty of 37 offences at the Old Bailey on Friday.
Mr Justice Edis said McCann, who would serve a minimum of 30 years, was “a threat to children” and “a paedophile”.
The judge described him as a “classic psychopath” and called for an “independent and systematic” investigation to be held as to why “the system failed to protect” McCann’s victims.
McCann, a convicted burglar, had been released from prison following a probation error in February before he embarked on a cocaine and vodka-fuelled rampage.
The 34-year-old’s “spree of sex attacks” started in Watford in April before he moved to London, Greater Manchester and Cheshire over a two-week period.
Sentencing McCann at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Edis described him as: “a coward, a violent bully and a paedophile”.
He said his victims “will never properly recover from what you did”, adding: “The psychological harm you have done will last for decades and may ruin their lives and those of the people who love them.
“This was a campaign of rape, violence and abduction of a kind which I have never seen or heard of before.”
McCann’s 33 life sentences would run concurrently.
Vodka bottle
On 21 April, McCann grabbed a 21-year-old woman at knifepoint as she walked home from a nightclub in Watford and took her to a house where he raped her.
Four days later, a 25-year-old woman was abducted as she walked home in Walthamstow, east London, just after midnight. She was then repeatedly raped in a number of locations over 14 hours.
Later the same day he snatched a 21-year-old woman in Edgware, north London, as she walked along the street with her sister.
The pair finally managed to escape when McCann drove to Watford, where he had booked a hotel room, and one of them hit him over the head with a vodka bottle before they fled to get help.
In the early hours of 5 May, McCann tricked his way into the home of a woman he had met in a bar in Greater Manchester.
Once inside, he tied her to a bed and molested her 11-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter, who he told “you are going to Europe tomorrow, you are mine”.
The girl, who said she feared becoming a “sex slave”, managed to escape by jumping naked from a window, and she alerted police.
McCann then abducted and raped a 71-year-old woman and then sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl he had taken from the street.
On 5 May, McCann abducted two 14-year-old girls after threatening to “chop them up with a machete”.
After crashing his car when a patrol vehicle gave chase, a police helicopter finally located him up a tree. He was coaxed down and arrested early on May 6.
In a victim impact statement, one of McCann’s victims told how her life had changed from being “thriving” to “surviving”.
Three days after delivering their “guilty” verdicts, the 12 jurors returned to the Old Bailey for sentencing.
They didn’t have to be in court but they clearly wanted to see the conclusion of a most traumatic case.
Two of McCann’s victims – a teenage girl and her mother – were also present, having travelled to London from the north-west of England.
The teenager, who in May had jumped naked from a first-floor window to bring her ordeal to an end and save her mother and younger brother, was praised by the judge for her “courage”, as he added some personal observations after the formal sentencing process had ended.
Mr Justice Edis said he’d read statements from all the victims about the impact of McCann’s unprecedented campaign of sexual violence and wished them all well.
“I hope that things turn out for them as well as we all hope they will, rather than as we fear they might,” the judge said, surely echoing the thoughts and feelings of everyone at today’s hearing.
Speaking after the sentencing, the Crown Prosecution Service’s Tetteh Turkson said McCann’s attacks were a “brutal campaign of rape”.
“McCann is a dangerous man who has shown no remorse for his cruel and sickening actions,” Mr Turkson said.
McCann, who had addresses in Aylesbury and Harrow, refused to attend his Old Bailey trial and hid under a prison blanket rather than give evidence.
He also failed to attend his sentencing, citing a “bad back”.
