Blundering probation staff missed a series of chances to recall serial rapist Joseph McCann to jail before he attacked 11 victims, a damning report reveals today.
He was given 33 life terms and jailed for at least 30 years in December for kidnapping, raping and sexually assaulting women and children aged 11 to 71.
McCann had been freed from prison by mistake two months before his two-week rampage fuelled by vodka and cocaine when he forced victims into his car at knifepoint.
Joseph McCann was jailed for carrying out a horrific campaign of kidnappings, rapes and sex attacks
Last night a mother, who was tied up while he raped her son, 11, and her daughter, 17, in their home, said: ‘If the probation service had done its job, these tragedies would never have occurred. My family was torn apart by what that man did and it could all have been prevented.’
The report by watchdogs reveals staff admitted being ‘scared’ of McCann, 35, and said he was ‘very intimidating’ as well as ‘menacing and manipulative’.
The document added: ‘It is evident that offender managers were threatened, blamed and lied to by [McCann].’
Other shocking revelations include how McCann wrote to relatives asking them to find him a ‘clean young girl’ on his release. Yet he was not identified as a potential sex offender and prison officers did not share details of his letter.
Probation officers were also under pressure not to recall prisoners back to jail to ease overcrowding.
The report told how scrutiny of McCann in the community was mistakenly downgraded just 12 days after he was freed from jail in February last year.
The findings told how information was lost or not shared with probation staff who had an ‘excessive workload’. In another failing, ‘concerns by police in relation to his sexual behaviour were not identified’.
McCann, a traveller from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, was jailed for burglary in 2017 and freed in February 2019.
In that period, there were eight occasions when he could have been recalled to appear before the Parole Board.
This should have happened under the terms of a ‘public protection’ jail sentence from 2008 for holding a knife to the throat of a pensioner.
A graphic shows how McCann carried out his the trail of misery before finally being brought to justice
McCann tried to run from police, pictured, before finally being arrested by officers
But this was never flagged up and he was released to carry out the sickening crimes including eight rapes in Watford, north London, Greater Manchester and Cheshire.
Justice Secretary Robert Buckland asked Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell to carry out an independent review of the case.
In the first of two reports, Mr Russell said there were ‘major failings’ in the way the case was handled, adding: ‘McCann was managed by an unstable team, lacking experienced and skilled practitioners. They suffered from poor management oversight, high workloads, poor performance and high staff turnover.’
Alan Collins, one of the lawyers representing McCann’s victims, told the PA news agency the report made ‘distressing reading’ and called for dangerous offenders to be ‘red flagged’ across the justice system to make sure such failings never happen again.
McCann – who had a long history of ‘serious offending’ and breaching court orders – saw 10 staff over 11 years, with three different probation officers responsible for his case in the months leading up to his prison release in February 2019.
‘There were signs that he posed an increasing risk to the public. There was evidence of his potential for sexual offending,’ Mr Russell said.
His report sets out a series of troubling findings, including details of ‘graphic’ letters intercepted by prison staff that McCann wrote to relatives in 2009 containing threats of sexual violence and revealing his desire for ‘a clean young girl’ on release from jail.
He even tried to escape from prison that year and was transferred to a high security jail after the attempt was foiled.
Details of police intelligence from 2003, which said McCann and a relative had been involved in the abuse and sexual exploitation of young teenage girls, was discussed at a meeting attended by the offender manager responsible for his case between 2010 and 2013.
Crucial information, recorded on different systems by various authorities, was ‘lost’ in handovers between staff, Mr Russell said.
‘Most worryingly’, prison officers identified in 2013 that McCann – ‘with the collusion of his family – was attempting to find a ‘young girl’ for his release’.
But the ‘key intelligence’ was not passed to probation staff, meaning they did ‘not have a clear picture’ of who they were dealing with and were making decisions based on ‘inadequate’ assessments, Mr Russell said.
McCann’s ability to manipulate staff was ‘underestimated’ and the level of threat he posed to the public was downgraded ‘too soon’ after his prison release, the report added.
An internal Ministry of Justice (MoJ) review published in March laid bare a catalogue of errors in the case after McCann’s sentencing judge described him as a ‘classic psychopath’.
The 34-year-old convicted burglar was freed after a probation blunder two months before he embarked on the cocaine and vodka-fuelled rampage.
Had he been recalled to prison, he would have been kept behind bars until the Parole Board decided he was safe to release. Instead, he was automatically freed from jail after serving his term.
He was seen by probation officers 10 times in two months after his release, the last in April being days before he carried out the first rape.
Over 15 days, he abducted, raped and assaulted victims aged between 11 and 71 in London and the North West.
A jury found him guilty of 37 charges relating to 11 victims, including eight rapes, false imprisonment and kidnap.
One member of probation staff was demoted over the case.
Footage released by police shows McCann’s arrest after he hid up a tree after going on the run
Among 13 recommendations made to prison and probation services, Mr Russell said staff need better access to all relevant records, including historical case files, and urged jails to share information.
He also called for better scrutiny of recall decisions and more beds at bail hostels – known as approved premises – where offenders leaving prison are monitored by probation, which is where McCann should have been housed after release instead of with relatives.
The MoJ said McCann’s crimes were ‘horrendous’ and it had already apologised to victims for the ‘unacceptable failings’, adding: ‘We have greatly improved information sharing between prisons and probation officers and all probation staff have received new, mandatory training on when offenders should be recalled.’
An extra 800 probation officers are in training, a spokesman added.
The second part of the review is due to be published in the autumn.
Life of crime from 11 – Serial rapist Joseph McCann spent childhood stealing, setting fire to cars and terrorising neighbours as he became one of first in Britain to be given an ASBO aged 14
Evil sex beast Joseph McCann spent his childhood stealing, setting fire to cars and terrorising his terrified neighbours.
So violent were he and his brothers that he became one of the first in Britain to be given an ASBO, aged just 14.
The trio ran a campaign of intimidation on their impoverished Manchester estate during the 1990s.
Details of McCann’s criminal past were reported for the first time in December after he was found guilty of 37 charges relating to 11 victims, including eight rapes, false imprisonment and kidnap.
The convicted burglar, who had been freed after a probation service error, went on a cocaine and vodka-fuelled rampage, abducting, raping and assaulting victims aged between 11 and 71 in Watford, London and the North West.
McCann, who was given 33 life terms and jailed for at least 30 years, changed his appearance and moved across five police force areas as he evaded police for 15 days despite telling his first victim his surname.
McCann, his elder brother Sean (centre, in red) and younger brother Michael (right, in blue) struck fear into residents in the 1990s. They are pictured in Manchester in 1999
The brothers emerged from court defiant in 1999. Staring down the cameras, McCann (right) and his brothers, Sean, then 16 and Michael (left), 12, were pictured swearing and grinning
But McCann, his elder brother Sean and younger brother Michael have been striking fear into locals for years.
One told MailOnline: ‘They were a horrible family, absolutely vile – scum of the earth.’
McCann is a convicted burglar who had been freed after a probation service error
The brothers became notorious in 1999 when they were given the first ASBOs and emerged from court defiant.
Staring down the cameras, McCann and his brothers, Sean then 16 and Michael, 12, were seen swearing and grinning.
McCann grew up on the Beswick estate in Manchester, a deprived area of the city which has now been knocked down.
Born in 1985, the son of a Scottish builder and a mother with links to the traveller community, he grew up with a fierce temper and struggled to control his anger.
He and his brothers stole for sport and threatened anyone who got in their way.
At the age of 11 he had his first brush with the police and was convicted in 1998 for theft.
When the boys were finally banned from the estate the following year, takings at the local shops increased by £14,000 a week. Sean McCann is pictured (centre) in Manchester in 1999
Former neighbours on an estate in Wealdstone, Middlesex, recalled how they lived in fear of the McCanns who issued threats to anyone who challenged them. Above, the former family home
So prolific was the three boys stealing that when they were finally banned from the estate the following year, takings at the local shops increased by £14,000 a week.
Forced to moved from Beswick, they headed south to Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, and Middlesex where they linked up with their traveller relatives.
Former neighbours on a quiet estate in Wealdstone, Middlesex, recalled how they lived in fear of the McCanns who issued threats to anyone who challenged them.
‘They arrived overnight and brought havoc,’ one neighbour told MailOnline. ‘Everyone quickly got to know about the McCanns. They were awful.
‘Joseph and his brother were always stealing cars. They’d drive the cars around and then they’d burn them on our little green. The police would be around their house all the time.
‘One time they drove this van into the back garden. We called the police and they said it had been stolen about 15 minutes beforehand.’
He added: ‘We heard that they had had to leave where they used to live because it became too hot for them.’
McCann was in and out of prison until 2008 when armed with a knife, he broke into the home of a frail 85-year-old man in Bedford.
McCann was caught on CCTV buying petrol and condoms at a Shell garage with two 14-year-old girls abducted in a Fiat car on May 5, just hours before police found him hiding up a tree
The pensioner was watching TV when McCann burst in through a sidedoor and threatened to stab the pensioner before stealing several items.
When McCann was jailed in 2008, his then girlfriend was pregnant with their second child. They already had a very young child.
Her name is believed to have been ‘Bobbie’ and it was this name which he had tattooed across his stomach.
McCann spent the next 11 years in prison before being released, jailed again in 2018 and then released earlier this year for his devastating two week attack.
It was a marked shift of brutality for a man who until this year has focused pn carrying out violent burglaries.
After his years in and out of prison, the McCann family are believed to have finally moved out of Wealdstone for good some six or seven years ago.
Another neighbour said: ‘I breathed a sigh of relief when they did. They used to throw bricks at anyone.
‘There used to be a brick wall outside their house. But they took all the bricks out to throw them at people.
‘If you said anything to them they would threaten to beat you up. There were two older boys and one little one. They were really horrible.
‘The boys were always out in the street. There was no way of avoiding them. Everyone knew the McCanns. But there was nothing we could do.
‘They were part of a gang. Their house was like their headquarters.’
Always close to his brothers, McCann was left bereft after Sean, 32, committed suicide in Peterborough prison in 2016 while serving a two-year sentence for assault.
After his years in and out of prison, the McCann family are believed to have finally moved out of Wealdstone some six or seven years ago. Another neighbour said: ‘I breathed a sigh of relief when they did. They used to throw bricks at anyone’
Today, McCann’s parents live in a modest semi-detached bungalow on the outskirts of Aylesbury.
His father drives a 2019-plate 4×4 Ford Kuga car which is often parked on a driveway by the front door.
A sign on the wall warns visitors; ‘Beware of the wife.’
Part of a trailer lies on the driveway while a mobile home is parked in the garden behind a high wooden fence.
The semi-detached property is guarded by security cameras.
‘His eyes were pure evil’: Teenager, 17, who was raped in her own home by Joseph McCann revealed how he told her to have sex with her brother, 11, before she jumped naked from first floor window to save her family
Prosecutors and police hailed the incredible bravery of the victims who escaped Joseph McCann’s clutches after he was jailed in December.
McCann kept the women and children he snatched from the streets locked in his car for hours while raping others and holding them at knifepoint in their own homes.
Joseph McCann put his victims through horrific ordeals of rape and kidnap
A 17-year-old girl had to jump from the first floor window of her Lancashire home after McCann abducted her mother and tied her up at their house.
McCann raped the 17-year-old and her 11-year-old brother.
The 17-year-old said in a statement to police: ‘You know when you can see inside someone’s eyes and you know they are pure evil.’
The girl fractured her heel when she jumped out of a window naked to escape and she feared McCann had killed her mother and brother in revenge for her getting away.
Another of McCann’s victims told how she had to hit McCann over the head with a vodka bottle to get away after he kept them in his car.
She said: ‘I went back to the car to get a big bottle of vodka. I took the bottle out of the bag and hit him on the head,’ she said.
‘It smashed and I ran away to some builders shouting ‘help, help. He is kidnapping us. They let me into a builder’s merchants and I saw the car driveway.’
McCann at the Phoenix Lodge Hotel in Watford on the afternoon of April 25, as he left two women, his alleged victims, in his car outside
McCann’s other victims included a 21-year-old woman he snatched as she walked home from Pryzm nightclub in Watford in the early hours of April 21.
On April 25, he abducted a 21-year-old woman in broad daylight in north-west London. Already inside the car was another woman, 25, who had been abducted in east London and held captive for 14 hours.
His final two victims were two 14-year-old girls who crouched in terror on the back seat of his stolen car while being chased by police.
After McCann was convicted, CPS prosecutor Tetteh Turkson said: ‘His victims endured horrifying acts of sexual violence and were subjected to a truly terrifying ordeal.
‘It was through persistence and bravery that some of them managed to escape.
‘They showed great strength of character in recounting their stories to police and giving evidence to the court – reliving some of what must have been the darkest moments of their lives.
‘It is with the power of this evidence, and the courage of the victims in giving evidence, that Joseph McCann has been convicted of his crimes.
‘I hope today’s verdicts provide some comfort to the victims and allows them to focus on moving on and rebuilding their lives.’
The seven men and five women on the panel at the Old Bailey trial took the unusual step of passing a note to trial judge Mr Justice Edis asking him to place on record their sentiments.
The note said: ‘The jury want to acknowledge the bravery of all the victims in this case and the courage it has taken for them to come forward.’