"A coward, violent bully and paedophile”: Joseph McCann gets 33 life sentences after sex attacks

Serial rapist Joseph McCann has received 33 life sentences after a string of sex attacks on women and children.

The judge handing out the sentence called McCann "a coward, a violent bully and paedophile”.

McCann, 34, was found guilty on Friday at the Old Bailey of 37 counts including rape, kidnap and false imprisonment during a rampage that stretched from London to Cheshire.

He will serve a minimum of 30 years behind bars.

Last spring, McCann became Britain's most wanted man as he travelled the country abducting his victims at knifepoint.

McCann's youngest victim an 11-year-old boy, and the oldest was a 71-year-old woman.

Cops tracked him down on May 6 just hours after he forced two 14-year-old girls into a car.

McCann began his descent into crime as a child, thieving and torching neighbours' cars 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 mum 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.

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

After 18-months inside, he should have gone before a parole board hearing before his release – as he was still subject to the life sentence.

However, he was released without the meeting on February 15 this year because prison staff were unaware he had been handed a life term.

His series of sex attacks began weeks later.

McCann did not appear in court himself, but instructed his barrister to make a series of bizarre claims insisting that his victims either consented to sex – or it didn't happen.