Joseph McCann’s career in crime began when he was a young teenager (Pictures: PA/MEN)

The face of cowardly serial sex attacker Joseph McCann has been splashed across national news since he embarked on a two-week rampage raping 11 women and children.

But the public have seen his face before, when he became one of the first teenagers in the UK to be handed an ASBO in 1999, at the age of 14.

The 34-year-old predator has been in and out of prison for most of his life but he will probably spend the rest of it behind bars, after he was today given 33 life sentences with a minimum term of 30 years.

McCann refused to show up to hear his sentencing at the Old Bailey on Monday, during which Mr Justice Edis branded McCann a ‘classic psychopath’, ‘a coward, violent bully and paedophile’.




During a two-week cocaine and alcohol-fuelled rampage, he abducted, raped and assaulted his victims, aged between 11 and 71, at knife-point in London, Watford, and the North West.

He drove around the country forcing ‘sex slaves’ into cars until he was caught up a tree after a police car chase interrupted his attempt to rape two 14-year-old girls.

After re-offending McCann should have been back in prison indefinitely but was let out after 18 months (Picture: SWNS)

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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 (Picture: PA)

On Friday, a 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 also not present for his trial.

McCann had been freed by mistake just two months before he set out on his horrific crime spree, between April 21 and May 5, this year.

The son of a Scottish builder and a mother with links to the traveller community, McCann began his descent into crime as a young child, terrorising neighbours in Manchester by torching their cars.

In late 1999, McCann and his brothers Sean, then 16, and younger brother Michael, became some of the first teens to be handed an Anti Social Behaviour Order (ASBO).

The brothers tormented anyone in their path stealing from local shops on the now demolished Beswick estate in Manchester.

One neighbour told MailOnline: ‘They were a horrible family, absolutely vile – scum of the earth.’

McCann (right) received one of Britain’s first ASBOs in 1999 (Picture: MEN)

McCann started torching neighbours’ cars when he was a boy (Picture: MEN Media)

When the three brothers were finally banned from the estate the following year, shops in the area reportedly saw their takings shoot up by £14,000 a week.

Following their ASBOs, the MEN reports that the siblings appealed to the Crown Court, the Divisional Court, the Court of appeal and even the House of Lords but their efforts were unsuccessful.

After their home was bulldozed, they moved to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, and Wealdstone in Middlesex, where they made contact with their mum’s traveller relatives.

One neighbour said they ‘arrived overnight and brought havoc’ and said people in the area quickly got to know about the family.

Over the next two decades he was in and out of prison before he was given an indeterminate sentence for public protection in 2008, after 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.

McCann has been in and out of prison all of his life (Picture: PA)

A neighbour on the Beswick estate, in Manchester, called the family ‘scum of the earth’ (Picture: MEN Media)

But his older brother Sean, 32, killed himself in Peterborough prison in 2016 while serving a two-year sentence for assault – causing McCann to spiral again.



Following his release from an indeterminate sentence, McCann broke into a house in Bedfordshire on July 22, 2017, and was jailed for three years but he served only half his sentence.

After 18 months behind bars he should have gone before a parole board hearing before his release but he was automatically released in February, this year because prison staff did not know of his indeterminate sentence.

Just two months later he embarked on his campaign of terror and managed to evade police for 15 days using a ‘support network’ across the UK.

On April 21, he abducted his first victim, a young woman in Watford, and raped her. The woman named her attacker to police, and McCann’s details were put on the Police National Computer and a prison recall was issued.

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 abducted in the car (Picture: PA)

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McCann trying to run away from by police just before being arrested (Picture: PA)

Just four days later, on April 25, he abducted a 25-year-old woman in Walthamstow and subjected her to a 14-hour rape ordeal.

Hours later, he was caught on CCTV bundling another young woman into his car in north London, as her sister ran off screaming.

They escaped in Watford, after the 25-year-old hit McCann over the head with a vodka bottle.

Met Police circulated a CCTV image of McCann in Watford and received a tip-off with his name following a public appeal.

On May 5, McCann tricked his way into the home of a woman he met in a bar in Greater Manchester, tied her up and molested her 11 and 17-year-old children.

The teenage girl, who described McCann as ‘evil’, managed to jump out of a first-floor window to alert police.

The vile rapist was found guilty of 37 counts relating to 11 women and children, including rape, kidnap and false imprisonment (Picture: PA)

He was caught on CCTV buying condoms at a service station (Picture: PA)

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Later that day, McCann attacked a 71-year-old woman. He raped her, and abducted and assaulted a 13-year-old girl in her car, before they got away.


As police closed in, McCann forced two 14-year-old girls into the car by threatening to ‘chop them up’ with a machete.

He was captured on CCTV buying condoms at a service station before he was spotted by a patrol car, which began to chase him.

But McCann drove the wrong way on a roundabout and crashed into a Mercedes before making off on foot, leaving the ‘terrified’ girls behind.

He was arrested after officers managed to coax him down from a tree (Picture: PA)

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McCann at a Morrisons in Greater Manchester where he abducted a 71 year old woman (Picture: PA)

A police helicopter finally found him up a tree, before he was coaxed down and arrested early on May 6.

Following the verdicts, the Probation Service issued an ‘unreserved’ apology for the error which led to McCann’s release in February – half way through a three-year sentence for burglary.

A probation officer has been demoted after a Ministry of Justice review found that he was released because staff were unaware of his indeterminate jail sentence.

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