Joseph McCann

Joseph McCann (born 8 February 1985) is an English serial rapist.

Joseph McCann was born in London on 8 February 1985, to a Scottish builder and a mother with "links" to the Irish traveller community; he was reported as being "one generation removed" from travellers and part of a "large travelling family".

By the mid-1990s, the McCanns had moved to a council house on Tyrol Walk in Beswick, a district of Manchester.

Beginning around 1996, Joseph and his brothers Sean (a year older than him) and Michael (two years younger) "ran a campaign of intimidation and crime" in their neighbourhood.

Joseph himself first came into contact with the police at the age of 11.

His first conviction was for theft, when he was aged 13, and others followed for criminal damage, possession of a knife and handling stolen goods.

Other incidents reported by the press included stealing and setting fire to vehicles, carrying out muggings, threatening elderly neighbours and intimidating young children attending a homework club.

Following complaints from neighbours, the council filmed the brothers vandalising property, damaging cars and throwing bricks at people.

With neighbours and the council gathering evidence against the boys, in 1998 the council evicted the family from their home.

The McCanns moved to Ardwick, also in Manchester, but the boys often returned to their old estate and continued what the Manchester Evening Post called a "campaign of terror".

A local police officer told The Guardian that "there was a perception that they [the McCanns] were untouchable. The three boys caused an enormous amount of problems for local people and committed a range of anti-social behaviour".

The police continued to gather evidence from neighbours and, in 1999, McCann (aged 14) and his brothers were subject to one of the United Kingdom's first anti-social behaviour orders (ASBO).

They were banned from "entering the Beswick area [,] ... using or engaging in any abusive, insulting, offensive, threatening or intimidating language or behaviour in the City of Manchester [,] ... threatening or engaging in violence or damage against people or property in the City ... and encouraging others [to do the same]".

The boys were photographed smirking and swearing at journalists after leaving court.

Residents of Beswick were said to have been "relieved" by the order; the police reported that crime fell by a third, the burglary rate halved and one supermarket claimed that its revenue rose by £14,000 a week after the ASBO had been imposed.

The brothers appealed the order, firstly to the Crown Court and then to the High Court.

After the 1999 ASBO, the McCann family moved away from Manchester.

As The Daily Telegraph remarked, the ASBO came as a relief to residents of Beswick but "failed to solve the problem" of the McCann's offending.

The family settled in the south of England, in Aylesbury and Harrow, where the brothers continued to commit crimes, including car theft and damage to property.

Both failed and they took it to the Court of Appeal in 2001, which also rejected the appeal.

In 2002, the House of Lords heard the case, which rested on whether an ASBO constituted civil or criminal proceedings under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

This distinction mattered because hearsay was inadmissible in criminal proceedings; ASBOs had been established to be civil injunctions with criminal penalties, which (as civil proceedings) allowed the hearsay of intimidated people to be admissible rather than demand that they appear as witnesses.

If the House of Lords had ruled them to be criminal proceedings, then the ASBO would be "unworkable".

In R (McCann & others) v Crown Court at Manchester and another ([2002] UKHL 39), it was ruled that the proceedings were civil and the McCanns' case was therefore dismissed.

Because of its wider implications, the ruling was discussed in academic literature.

Two years later, police alerted his offender managers to intelligence from 2003 indicating that he "might pose a risk of sexual harm and exploitation to teenage girls".

By 2007, McCann was living in Bedford.

He had fathered a young child but had not been present at the birth because he had been in prison.

On 27 December (by then released), he burgled the house of an elderly man in Cotton End, a small village near Bedford; McCann threatened to stab the man and stole a purse.

After McCann was recognised on CCTV, he was arrested, eventually pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and was sentenced in September 2008 to an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) order with a minimum term of two years and six months in prison.

His partner was heavily pregnant with their second child at the time of his sentencing.

McCann's IPP was a form of indefinite sentence which meant that his release would only occur after the minimum term and once the Parole Board for England and Wales became satisfied that he would no longer pose a risk to the public; if he were released, it would be on a ten-year licence and if he were convicted of further offences during that period, he would be recalled to prison on his IPP sentence.

While serving his sentence, McCann was assessed by his offender manager as "posing a high risk of serious harm to the public and known adults", as well as a "medium risk" to children, prison staff and prisoners.

In 2009, his prison also intercepted letters suggesting that he "posed a risk of sexual harm".

McCann remained in prison for over eight years; the Parole Board rejected his applications for parole in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

He carried out rehabilitation courses and risk-reduction courses and was finally released on licence in March 2017.

In April and May 2019, McCann committed sexual attacks in Hertfordshire, London, Greater Manchester and Cheshire against 11 strangers, ranging in age from an 11-year-old boy to a 71-year-old woman.

He evaded police, who suspect that he was sheltered by a "support network" across the country.

For these crimes, he was tried at the Old Bailey and, on 6 December, convicted of 37 offences.

Three days later, he was given 33 life sentences.