Serial rapist Joseph McCann found guilty of 37 charges after two-week reign of terror

A serial rapist dubbed “pure evil” who abducted and raped women and children in a two-week reign of terror just weeks after he was set free from jail is facing life in prison after being convicted of 37 charges.

Joseph McCann, 34, grabbed his victims at random in the street and subjected them to horrendous ordeals in his car, keeping one woman prisoner for 14 hours before she was eventually able to escape.

McCann raped an 11-year-old boy while forcing his older sister to watch during a rampage of attacks. He also abducted and raped a 71-year-old woman after spotting her out doing her shopping, and threatened to kill victims and attack their families if they did not comply with his depraved demands.

Police launched a nationwide manhunt in April after he had kidnapped and raped his first three victims, but McCann managed to evade capture for 15 days and go on to commit a catalogue of other offences.

Jurors at the Old Bailey today found McCann guilty of 37 offences after five hours of deliberations. Mr Justice Edis will sentenced McCann at a later date, could consider imposing a whole life prison term.

McCann was locked up to protect the public in 2008, but blunders by officials meant that he was automatically set free from prison just two months before launching his crime spree.

The Old Bailey also heard that McCann revealed his name to his first victim, helping detectives to identify him and sparking a recall to prison.

But the sexual predator used his network of contacts around the country to stay free and carry out a string of attacks.

When he was finally caught – hiding up a tree in Cheshire – 11 women and children had fallen victim to McCann.

DCI Katherine Goodwin, who led the manhunt, called McCann’s crime spree “horrendous and unprecedented”, adding: “He is one of the most dangerous individuals we have ever come across.”

CPS prosecutor Tetteh Turkson said traumatised victims had “endured horrifying acts of sexual violence and were subjected to a truly terrifying ordeal”.

Following the trial, attention will now move to why McCann, a known dangerous offender, was on the loose when he committed these offences.

With a criminal record stretching back to 1998, he was given an indeterminate prison sentence for public protection in 2008 for an aggravated burglary at the home of an 85-year-old man.

Given a minimum term of two-and-a-half years, the parole board eventually deemed him fit for release in 2017.

While on licence McCann committed another burglary, but a blunder meant he was not recalled to prison and he then received a three-year jail term.

Because of the type of sentence he was handed, McCann did not come back in front of the parole board and was instead automatically released at the midway point of his sentence, on February 15 this year and just two months before he committed the first rape.

The Ministry of Justice launched an investigation into the circumstances of McCann’s release from prison after his arrest.

McCann had previous convictions for violence but no past sex crimes and DCI Goodwin said the crime spree he embarked on came “out of nowhere”.

“We have never been able to get a true understanding of what his motivation was or what kind of man he is”, she added.

The first attack happened on April 21 when McCann kidnapped a woman as she walked home from a Watford nightclub, taking her back to her own home where he raped her at knifepoint.

McCann eventually released the victim and she reported him to Hertfordshire Police, giving officers his name, where he said he lived, and the fact he had recently been set free from prison.

Detectives identified McCann as the prime suspect and his details were put on to the Police National Computer on April 22. However he struck again in the early hours of April 25, grabbing a woman in the street in northeast London and subjecting her to a 14-hour ordeal including raping her while his car was parked outside a school.

While she was still in his car, McCann grabbed another woman from the street in northwest London in a brazen broad-daylight attack.

The two women managed to escape by striking McCann over the head with a vodka bottle as he contemplated checking into a hotel to abuse them over the course of two days.

The first time Scotland Yard knew McCann’s name was after a tip-off from the public, following publicity of CCTV images, and it was then that they linked the London offences to the rape carried out in Watford.

Despite mass publicity and a nationwide manhunt, McCann stayed at large and struck again on May 5, with a prolonged attack on the 11-year-old boy and his older sister.

While their mother was tied up, McCann raped both children and forced them to watch the attacks. The girl managed to escape and raise the alarm when she leapt naked from an upstairs window.

She told the court she feared being kept as McCann’s “sex slave” and believed he was about to kill her family, adding: “You know when you can see inside someone’s eyes and you know they are pure evil.”

In a 12-hour rampage through the northwest of England, McCann kidnapped and sexually assault a 13-year-old girl, and when he was pursued by police in Cheshire he still had two young girls in the back of his car.

McCann went to extreme lengths to avoid being arrested, crashing the stolen car he was in before fleeing through back gardens and eventually hiding up a tree, where he threatened to kill himself to avoid justice.

DCI Goodwin said McCann had shown “utter contempt” for the victims by shunning his trial while cowering under a blanket in his prison cell. He came to court only once, to complain about his treatment behind bars and minor medical ailments.

McCann, originally from the Aylesbury area, denied but was convicted of ten counts of false imprisonment, seven rapes, one rape of a child, two counts of causing or inciting a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, 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.

The judge is expected to adjourn the case until sentencing at a later date.