Joseph McCann was convicted of a horrific campaign of kidnappings, rapes and sex attacks
A victim of serial sex attacker Joseph McCann has today told how her ordeal has left her in physical pain, made her unable to go outside at night and plagued by nightmares.
The 25-year-old woman, one of McCann’s 11 victims during his two week drug and alcohol fuelled rampage, says she suffers with post traumatic stress disorder and has ‘replaced a life of thriving with one of surviving.’
The emotional impact statement was read to the court today as convicted burglar McCann, who was freed by mistake just two months earlier, was handed 33 life sentences at the Old Bailey and told he must serve a minimum of 30 years in prison.
The victim, the second in his 15 day spree across London, Watford and the North East, was dragged into McCann’s Ford S Max car at knifepoint just minutes after she got off the Tube at Blackhorse Road station after finishing work.
It was the start of a 14 hour ordeal in which she would be raped repeatedly and forced to undergo depraved sex acts. She eventually managed to escape by smashing a vodka bottle over his head.
She said in a statement read to the court today that she has been forced to move house because her house and neighbourhood ‘triggered flashbacks’ and made her feel ‘constantly unsafe’, and her dreams of starting a family have been left in tatters.
She told how ‘going for a run, going out for the evening, going on holiday — doing any of these things alone is now impossible’ and said ‘it will take a long time to regain that freedom.’
She also revealed how seeking help for the trauma ‘has been complicated’ and was told there was a waiting list of up to a year on the NHS, so had to pay for it herself – which she said has made her feel ‘let down.’
Footage released by police shows McCann’s arrest after he hid up a tree after going on the run
McCann, described by the judge today as a ‘classic psychopath’ allegedly used a ‘support network’ across the country to evade police, despite being identified as a suspect on the day of his first attack.
He should never have been at liberty to commit the vile crimes and the head of the prison service apologised unreservedly for the catastrophic error.
McCann, who had addresses in Aylesbury and Harrow, refused to attend his Old Bailey trial, instead chosing to remain in prison rather than sit in the dock.
Again today he failed to appear, and the judge was handed a note saying the reason he was not present in the dock was because of a bad back. His legal team claimed on his behalf that the women he was accused of molesting had consensual sex, but that was dismissed as ‘ludicrous’ by victims.
A map shows the trail of misery McCann wrought across the country over two weeks
In his absence, Mr Justice Edis handed him 33 life sentences with a minimum term of 30 years, saying McCann had committed ‘a campaign of rape, violence and abduction of a kind which I have never seen or heard of before.’
The victim’s impact statement said: ‘Immediately after the incident, I was scared to go home and didn’t go back to my house for weeks. I found it difficult to sleep and was very physically weak even walking up and down the stairs was hard, I barely left the house and didn’t go to work.
‘I had to move house, which was an expensive and emotionally distressing process — my house, my road and my neighbourhood was now full of reminders which triggered flashbacks and made me feel constantly unsafe. I lost a tight-knit community of neighbours.
‘I felt acutely aware that everyone on the road knew what had happened. I could no longer share a home with my housemate, who was also traumatised by what had happened. I couldn’t travel anywhere unaccompanied, or be in the house alone. It took me weeks to be able to walk a few doors down the road to a local shop on my own, with my thumb hovering over the button on the panic phone in my pocket.
McCann looking into a Fiat car as he buys petrol and a pack of Durex condoms at a Shell garage with two 14-year-old girls allegedly in the car
‘When I went back to work, I had to be accompanied to and from my workplace by my partner or a friend, and take much more regular breaks as I now often feel overwhelmed by time spent with a lot of people.
‘I am still unable to walk around after dark. I have to be picked up at the tube station to walk home in the evening. Even in the daytime I often feel jumpy and afraid, at home or outside.
‘Going for a run, going out for the evening, going on holiday — doing any of these things alone is now impossible, and it will take a long time to regain that freedom.
‘This is a significant and limiting change in my lifestyle. I used to be a very independent person with very little fear of going out and doing things alone. I am now much more dependent on other people, which changes those relationships.
‘It also impacts my partner, his studies and his social life as he spends time helping me, even as he suffers with the traumatic psychological fallout of having heard me being abducted and having feared that I was dead.’
The woman said she has ‘found solace’ in therapeutic activities which helps her deal with flashbacks.
She told how her work has been affected, as she is unable to concentrate and she finds it difficult o have the motivation to do even the most basic of tasks. She has suffered a huge loss of income, and is left feeling ‘worried and insecure.’
She also told how she suffers from ‘chronic pain throughout my body as a result of both whiplash and the assault’ adding she is ‘nervous about seeking physical treatment which might trigger my body’s memory of the assault.’
She continued: ‘A routine smear test would mean reliving the forensic process I underwent hours after being attacked, and I worry about my health as a result. My sleep remains disturbed by nightmares and physical pain, and I am chronically fatigued.
‘I continue to have flashbacks, to dissociate and to have intrusive and emotionally distressing thoughts as a result of the trauma incurred. This has also led me to avoid things which could remind me of the event and trigger that response, such as my old neighbourhood, or physical intimacy with my partner.
‘I now rigorously check for distressing content before I read a book, watch a film or TV programme or go to a play. I have lost interest in things I used to love, like playing music and going swimming.
‘These things that came easily to me, that were so much of who I am, have become hard work.
Separate CCTV shows him at a McDonald’s drive through with two victims still in his car
‘I have become more socially isolated from my friends and peers, because it’s hard to be close to someone if they don’t know what I’m going through, but it’s even harder to tell them, and several months of silence or superficial conversation takes its toll on a relationship.
‘I often feel like I’m hiding a terrible secret, and I can’t connect with people like I used to as a result. When I do spend time working or socialising, I am having to work hard to seem like my old self, which takes twice the energy.’
She added: ‘My partner and I now both exhibit the symptoms of PTSD and it’s hard to hold on to our relationship as we knew it whilst balancing caring for each other in a traumatised state.’
Referencing having to relive her ordeal in court, she said: ‘The questions I was asked when I testified in court were therefore not new to me.
‘They are the same questions which keep me up at night and go round and round my mind in the day — could I, should I have acted differently, got away sooner? Was this failure to escape sooner than I did in some way my fault?
‘The defence’s questions echoed, and threatened to confirm, these intrusive and distressing thoughts. The fact that I am here to write this statement is testament to the answer: no. I had one chance. I did what I could in a situation that thankfully most people have no experience or understanding of – a situation for which nothing in my life had prepared me — and I survived.
‘The future now looks very different for me. Before this crime, I was optimistic about my life and I felt safe in the world.
‘My friendships and my career were flourishing, I was planning to take my driving test, and the plants I’d sown in my old garden were beginning to bear fruit. My partner and I were talking about starting a family together in the next three years.
‘My aspirations, both small and big, and my vision of a positive future, have been violently taken from me. To replace a life of thriving with one of surviving is deeply demoralising and difficult.’
Sentencing McCann today, Mr Justice Edis said there should be an independent investigation into how the system ‘failed to protect’ McCann’s victims from him.
He said: ‘Joseph McCann you are very dangerous indeed to people who are weaker then you are.
‘Among other things you are a coward and violent bully and a paedophile.
‘Your grip on reality is quite tenuous, your instructions to lawyers were utterly ridiculous.
‘You are entirely obsessed with yourself. 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.’
Paying tribute to his victims, the judge said: ‘Each of these stories is tragic. I hope each will find a way to live through their ordeal and future happiness.’
On Friday, the jury deliberated for five hours to find him guilty of 37 charges relating to 11 victims, including eight rapes, false imprisonment and kidnap.
McCann was freed automatically from jail in February – halfway through a three-year sentence. The decision to release him should instead have been made after consideration by the Parole Board.
McCann was caught on CCTV buying petrol and condoms at a Shell garage with two 14-year-old girls abducted in a Fiat car
This was because he was on lifelong licence for an aggravated burglary in 2007. However this earlier offence was not factored into his three-year sentence, with the result that parole officers were not informed about his case.
Following a Ministry of Justice investigation, one staff member has been found guilty of gross misconduct and demoted. Another probe saw a staff member who worked on McCann’s case sacked and another had their contract terminated.
Calls were made for an independent inquiry into McCann’s release and Nick Hardwick, former chairman of the Parole Board, said a senior figure should take the blame.
There were also questions about poor communication between neighbouring police forces during McCann’s rampage. McCann began his descent into crime as a child, thieving and torching cars neighbours in Manchester.
Aged 14 he became one of the first teenagers to be given an Anti Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) for terrorising local residents.
The son of a Scottish builder and a mother with links to the traveller community, McCann was given an indeterminate sentence for public protection in 2008 when he burgled the home of an 85-year-old man and held a knife to his throat.
McCann later insisted he wanted to ‘live a crime free life’ to look after his partner and two children.
But his older brother Sean, 32, killed himself in Peterborough prison in 2016 while serving a two-year sentence for assault.
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.
While he had no convictions for sexual offences he did have a ‘history of violence and threats towards partners of his’, prosecutor John Price QC said.
Crimes included escaping custody by grabbing and threatening a female Group 4 security guard with a plastic knife, possessing a blade, robbery and two burglaries.
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.
A probation officer said McCann had attended the Watford probation office where he was served with a warning for failing to disclose a new relationship, under the terms of his licence because of his history of domestic violence.
McCann was ‘not happy’ about it and when his new fiancee’s parents found out about the condition they broke off the relationship because they thought he was a sex offender.
McCann, was described as ‘pure evil’ as jurors heard how he drove around the country drinking vodka and snorting cocaine while performing horrific acts on his victims.
His depraved rampage, which the detective who led the investigation said was the ‘most horrendous sex offending’ she had ever seen, began in Watford on April 21.
He abducted a 21-year-old at knifepoint as she walked home from a nightclub and raped the mother of one on her own bed. Afterwards McCann told her rape is ‘what we do in the traveller community’.
A string of appalling offences followed over the next two weeks.
He targeted victims in London, Manchester and Cheshire, tricking his way into one woman’s home before tying her up and molesting her son and daughter.
He was eventually caught by police while hiding up a tree in Cheshire.
A jury at the Old Bailey found McCann guilty of 37 offences including false imprisonment, rape, rape of a child, kidnap and sexual assault. The jurors sent a note to the judge that read: ‘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.’
McCann refused to be interviewed at any stage of the investigation and refused to leave his cell at Belmarsh Prison in south-east London to appear in court.
Four men and two women have been arrested on suspicion of aiding McCann while he was on the run.
Mr Hardwick said: ‘I would like to see someone more senior, someone at the head of the organisation to step up and take responsibility for what has gone wrong here. There is no way McCann should have been released and the Parole Board would not have let it happen had they been involved.
‘This has been blamed on individual human error – but this is an indication of wider problems in the system. And if you were to ask ‘could this happen again?’ of course it could, unless wider problems are addressed.’
David Green of the think-tank Civitas said: ‘This case highlights just how dysfunctional our justice system can be.’
Richard Burgon, Labour’s justice spokesman, said: ‘There must now be a full independent review into what led to these shocking failures including what role deep government cuts to the Ministry of Justice budget and chaotic probation reforms played.’
Jo Farrar, chief executive of HM Prisons and Probation Service, said: ‘We recognise that there were failings and we apologise unreservedly for our part in this.
‘We are committed to doing everything we possibly can to learn from this terrible case. We have taken strong and immediate action against those involved.’
Jurors were played a recording of the mother’s 999 call in which she pleads with police to find her daughter.’
‘A man grabbed my 21-year-old about five minutes ago,’ she says, as her younger daughter is heard wailing in the background.
‘He tried to grab both of them but got hold of one of my daughters and the other ran away.’
There was already another woman, aged 25, in the car. She had been abducted in the early hours of that morning as she walked home in Walthamstow, east London.
John Price QC, prosecuting, said the 25-year-old woman had been raped ‘many times’ and subjected to acts of ‘shocking depravity and violence’.
She had also been made to perform sexual acts on McCann, who threatened to throw her into a canal to destroy DNA evidence.
‘He made her call him ‘Daddy’ and say that she was a child,’ said Mr Price. ‘At one point the man parked the car near to a school, saying that he wanted to make her rape a child. He raped [the woman] at that location.’
Prosecutor Mr Price said the 21-year-old snatched from the street was also raped and made to perform ‘depraved’ sexual acts.
The pair eventually escaped after the 25-year-old smashed a vodka bottle over McCann’s head, giving them time to run to a group of nearby builders in Watford.
McCann then went on the rampage in the North-West, picking up a mother in a bar in Lancashire before tying her up and raping her 17-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son in their home.
He then abducted his eldest victim, a 71-year-old woman, from a nearby Morrisons supermarket car park.
McCann let himself into the passenger door of her Fiat Punto as she began driving out of the car park, then punched her hard in the face, the Old Bailey was told.
He is said to have sexually assaulted her and then ordered her to drive him to Heywood, where he forced a 13-year-old girl to get into the car before sexually assaulted her too. They were able to escape at Knutsford service station on the M6.
McCann is alleged to have fled in the car, and little more than half an hour later used it to abduct two 14-year-old girls in Congleton, Cheshire. A friend rang police from a nearby shop.
Hundreds of officers from forces across the country were involved in the manhunt once McCann had been identified as the rape suspect.
During his remand court appearances McCann refused to take part in the proceedings with a magistrate having to go to his cell.
He refused to attend the Old Bailey trial leaving police involved rolling their eyes in disbelief when his QC produced a list of excuses.
McCann claimed he was suffering sleepless nights and had back problems. He also claimed prison officers were picking on him and complained about the food at Belmarsh Prison.
Unusually for such a high profile case the jurors never saw him during the three week trial and he was not in the dock when they found him guilty after five hours of deliberation.
One officer in the case said: ‘ This just showed what a coward McCann is. He subjected these girls, women and a boy to the most horrific abuse, yet did not have the guts to face them in court.’
McCann’s QC Jo Sidu offered no defence other than to claim the sexual assaults and rape were all consensual.
CPS lawyer Tetteh Turkson said: ‘The court heard today the impact McCann’s brutal campaign of rape has had, and will continue to have, on his victims. He is a dangerous man who has shown no remorse for his cruel and sickening actions.
‘He has now been given a life sentence and will serve 30 years before being considered for release. Our hope is that the victims in this case, all of whom have shown immense bravery, are now able to move on with their lives following these truly horrendous crimes.’
EXCLUSIVE: 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
So violent were McCann and his brothers that he became one of the first in Britain to be given an ASBO, aged just 14 (above in 1999)
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 90s.
For years McCann, his elder brother Sean and younger brother Michael struck fear into locals.
One told MailOnline: ‘They were a horrible family, absolutely vile – scum of the earth.’
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 Richard, a Scottish builder and Margaret, 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.
For years McCann, his elder brother Sean (in red) and younger brother Michael (in blue) struck fear into residents. One told McCann: ‘They were a horrible family, absolutely vile – scum of the earth’
The brothers became notorious in 1999 when they were given the first ASBOs and emerged from court defiant. Staring down the cameras, McCann (right) and his brothers, Sean then 16 and Michael (left), 12, were seen swearing and grinning
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.
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
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.
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.
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. 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. Above, the family home
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.’
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’
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.
Today, McCann’s parents live in a modest semi-detached bungalow on the outskirts of Aylesbury.
His father, Richard McCann, 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
Pprosecutors and police hailed the incredible bravery of the victims who escaped Joseph McCann’s clutches.
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.’