Boys tried to fight British serial rapist Joseph McCann

WARNING –– HARMFUL CONTENT: A teenager told police he and his friend tried to fight off a suspected serial rapist who had apparently kidnapped a girl, a court heard.

The student, who cannot be named due to his age, told investigators he was stopped by suspect Joseph McCann while walking with a male and female friend of a similar age in Greater Manchester.

In a recorded video interview, the boy said McCann, 34, drank from a bottle of wine in a car before accusing the three of bullying his sister and ordering them to get into the car.

The Old Bailey heard that a woman, who McCann said was his grandmother, was in the front seat of the car at the time.

During the trial, it had previously been established that the woman was a 71-year-old shopper who was punched in the face by McCann and then kidnapped and sexually assaulted in her car.

McCann, from Harrow, north-west London, is accused of kidnapping, raping and holding captive a number of women and children aged between 11 and 71 in London, Hertfordshire and the north-west between April 20 and May 5.

The boy said: “This guy stopped us and said: ‘Which one of you insulted and threatened my sister?’

“We said, ‘We didn’t do that, it wasn’t us.’ He told us to get in the car.”

The boy said McCann then told the boys to “get out” and wait on the sidewalk for “five minutes” while the girlfriend remained in the back seat of the car.

The witness said McCann told them he would stab them if they reported the incident to police.

“He said he would take her (the girl) hostage and then drove away with his ‘grandma’ at 80 km/h,” the boy added.

“(The girl) was just crying. We asked her if she was OK. We tried to get her out. My (male) friend tried to get the guy off her for at least two minutes.”

The boys then raised the alarm in a nearby shop.

McCann, who is not in the dock, is on trial at the Old Bailey after denying 37 charges relating to 11 alleged victims.

Court hears: Mother must listen to child rape

Earlier this month, a court heard that McCann forced a mother to listen to him rape her two children in her home.

The alleged rapist had tied the woman up with an electric cable after meeting her in a bar in Haslingden, Greater Manchester, and then woken her 17-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son in the next room.

He then raped them and forced each child to watch the abuse while the mother listened in the house next door.

The family managed to escape when the daughter jumped naked out of a window and then ran to a neighbor’s house to call the police.

As police attempted to track down McCann, he allegedly stole a mountain bike and climbed a tree in a desperate attempt to escape police.

According to jurors, the serial rapist was caught with two 14-year-old girls in the back seat of a car and tried to hide to avoid arrest.

After a number of women and children were abducted and sexually abused within three days this spring, a comprehensive investigation was launched that stretched from London to the northwest.

McCann is charged with ten counts of false imprisonment, seven counts of rape, one count of rape of a child, two counts of inducing or inciting a person to engage in sexual acts without their consent, seven counts of kidnapping, one count of attempted kidnapping, three counts of inducing or inciting a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual acts, three counts of assault by penetration, one count of sexual assault and two counts of intentionally committing a sexual offense.

The process continues.

–– Yahoo News UK

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