A man attacked 11 women and children across England in a fortnight, subjecting his victims, including one as young as 11, to terrifying ordeals, a court has heard.

Joseph McCann, 34, denies the charges, including that he abducted young women and children and held them prisoner, to be in some cases repeatedly raped and attacked.

He went on trial at the Old Bailey on Tuesday.

The jury heard McCann is charged with 37 offences against 11 people over a two-week period between 20 April and 5 May this year. They include rape, kidnap and false imprisonment, with victims ranging from 11 years old to 71.

The offences are alleged to have taken place in areas including London, Watford and Greater Manchester.

The jury heard on 25 April this year an attempt was made to abduct two women aged 18 and 21 in broad daylight in north-west London.

A silver Ford S Max car pulled up alongside the women. One of the women was abducted while another was left “deeply distressed and panicking”. She managed to escape and raise the alarm.

The prosecutor, John Price QC, told the jury that when the woman was bundled into the silver car, she found another woman inside the vehicle who was “scared”. The second woman, 25, had been abducted hours earlier in east London.

Price told the jury: “As she neared the house, a man grabbed her. He put his hand over her mouth. He told her to stop screaming or he would stab her. He dragged her to a nearby car, pushed her inside and drove off.”

Price said the woman abducted in east London “was to be a prisoner of the driver of that car for the next 14 hours”. She was “raped by the driver many times” and suffered a prolonged ordeal that the prosecutor said involved “shocking depravity and violence”, which was detailed to the jury.

Price said: “Very many sexual assaults upon her took place in various locations, in and out of the car.”

The woman abducted in east London was attacked so many times she lost count. A number of threats were also made against her.

The woman abducted in north-west London was also raped. Price said: “He told [the victim] that if she caused trouble, he would slit her throat and put her in the river. At various times he made death threats to both women.”

McCann, the jury heard, repeatedly sexually assaulted her, leaving her “screaming and crying”. He is also alleged to have “struck her when she complained of the pain”.

The crown alleges that McCann drove the car to Watford, where the women managed to escape. McCann had been drinking vodka. One of the women smashed him over the head with a bottle and both fled.

The court was told McCann chased after them but the women were helped by three builders. Price said: “They did the right thing and stood up to him when, as it seemed to them, he was trying to drag a very scared young woman back to his car and who was pleading for their help. He was forced to give up, walk away, get back into his car and drive off.”

Price said the two women were not McCann’s first victims. A woman aged 21 was abducted in the early hours of Sunday 21 April after leaving a club. McCann is alleged to have threatened her with a knife and attacked her, the court was told.

Price said: “In the spree of similar such attacks by this man occurring in the following two weeks, there were seven abductions; women and children taken from the street and one further attempt. The oldest person so taken was a 71-year-old woman … the youngest was 13.”

Price added: “There is, however, a total of 11 alleged victims referred to in the indictment and one was a boy. A family of three, a mother… and her two children … were held prisoner by this man in their own home.”

Both siblings were raped, the jury were told.

As the case against McCann was opened, the jury saw CCTV allegedly of McCann abducting a victim and heard screams. They were also played recordings of desperate emergency calls to police for help.

McCann faces 10 counts of false imprisonment, seven counts of rape, one count of rape of a child, and two counts of causing or inciting a person to engage in sexual activity without consent. He is further charged with seven counts of kidnap, one count of attempted kidnap, three counts of causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, three counts of assault by penetration, one count of sexual assault and two counts of committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence.

Price told the jury: “Throughout these days there was an escalating police response in the face of this extraordinary and terrible sequence of events. Whereas it had started in Watford, moved on to London and then back to Watford, it resumed and came to an end in the Greater Manchester area.

“There was an interlude of 10 days between the end of the first sequence in the south-east and the start of the second in the north-west. The sequence of offences in London and the south-east, involving attacks upon four young women happened on Sunday 21 and Thursday 25 April, ending with the escape of [two young women] on the early afternoon of the 25th. The sequence of attacks in the north-west, upon three women, three girls and a boy, all took place in a space of about 12 hours on Sunday 5 May.”

The trial continues.