Appeal Court Increases Sentences For Prolific Rapists
By: Andy Killoran
Tags: Rape, Sentence, True Crime, Crime, Jail Time

Appeal Court Increases Sentences For Prolific Rapists

Sinaga and McCann — Image: UK Police

Who is Joseph McCann?

Joseph McCann had convictions stretching back nearly 20 years when the then 34-year-old began his ‘spree’ campaign of cocaine-and-vodka-fuelled rapes in 2019.

His previous convictions, which had resulted in prison time, included violent offending as well as a property crime such as burglary. The Courts had not convicted McCann of any sexual offences. Critically, however, the Probation Service and Prison Officers failed properly to share or act on information that should have warned of his propensity to commit such crimes.

Personnel changes, inexperienced probation staff, weak management and poor handoffs, with other mistakes, allowed this man largely to disappear after his early release from prison. He began a ‘spree’ of offences including eight rapes, sometimes of children, as well as threatening victims with extreme violence. He had been released from prison only in February 2019 and was committing these offences in April and May of the same year. A jury found McCann guilty of 37 charges relating to 11 victims, including kidnap and false imprisonment as well as the rapes.

At McCann’s trial, Mr Justice Edis described McCann as a ‘classic psychopath’.

McCann’s offending was not sophisticated or hidden. Police had identified McCann as the suspect right at the beginning of the series of crimes, but it took 15-days before Police had him in custody and he continued to offend right up until Police stopped him.

The judge in this trial said that there should be an independent investigation into how the system had failed to protect McCann’s victims from him. Mr Justice Edis said: “This was a campaign of rape, violence and abduction of a kind which I have never seen or heard of before. Joseph McCann, you are very dangerous indeed to people who are weaker than you are.”

The Court gave McCann life imprisonment with a minimum sentence of 30 years and described him in Court as being a coward and a violent bully, entirely obsessed with himself and quite without empathy.

McCann’s ‘spree’ offending

The Court heard from a probation officer who warned McCann for failing to disclose that he had started a new relationship, which was a condition of his parole because of a previous record for domestic violence. McCann became very unhappy when his new fiancé’s parents found out about the restriction and broke off the relationship. McCann considered that the family thought him to be a sex offender.

Going ‘off the rails’, McCann abducted his first victim off the street in the English town of Watford, near London. Early on the morning of April 21st 2019, he raped the woman in her bed. The woman named McCann as her attacker to Police.

Police did not apprehend McCann. On April 25th he snatched a 25-year-old woman off the street in the London borough of Walthamstow, and he also raped her in an ordeal lasting 14-hours.

Hours later, in north London, CCTV recorded McCann forcing another young woman into his car. Her sister, who had been with her, escaped and ran away, screaming. The woman he had pushed into the vehicle hit McCann over the head with a vodka bottle, and she also escaped.

Police circulated an image of McCann taken from the CCTV, and he was named in a tip-off, allowing Police to tie the series of crimes together.

By May 5th, McCann was 200-miles away in Manchester. He was taken home by a woman he met in a bar there, and after tieing her up, he sexually assaulted her children aged 17 and 11 years. The 17-year-old girl escaped, jumping from an upstairs window. The girl was able to alert Police about the ‘evil’ man. McCann also raped her 11-year-old brother.

The next day, McCann attacked further victims. A 14-year-old girl was travelling in a car with a 71-year-old woman. McCann raped the older woman before he abducted and assaulted the 14-year-old. Both of these victims then got away.

McCann’s trail of offending was coming to an end. He forced two 14-year-old girls into his car by threatening to ‘chop them up’ with a machete. A Police patrol car spotted McCann’s car; The Police gave chase. After crashing his car into another vehicle, McCann escaped on foot. The Police utilised their helicopter in the pursuit, and the helicopter crew were able to direct Police officers to the tree up which McCann was hiding. The Police persuaded McCann to come down and give himself up.

McCann was later to criticise law enforcement for not catching him sooner, saying the later offences were all only committed because the Police had failed to stop him after the first couple of attacks.

After the verdicts, the Probation Service issued an unreserved apology for the failure which had allowed McCann to be released in February that year, only halfway through a three-year sentence he was serving for burglary.

Who is Reynhard Sinaga?

37-years-old at the time of his January 2020 trial, Sinaga is an Indonesian citizen who was in the UK to study at the University of Manchester. However, he was no longer enrolled there as a student when he was brought to justice and was a post-grad student.

His modus operandi could hardly be less like that of McCann.

Between January 2015 and June of 2017, when Police apprehended Sinaga, he lured dozens of potentially vulnerable, primarily heterosexual men to his Manchester city-centre apartment, under the pretence of helping them, before drugging and raping them. Prosecutors charged Sinaga with 136 counts of rape against 48 men: Subsequent and on-going investigation puts the potential numbers much higher — at December 2020, Police believe there may be 206 victims, of whom 60 are as-yet unidentified.

Sinaga was shown on CCTV images, prowling the city centre at the time pubs, bars and clubs were closing down, searching for potential victims. He often targeted men who were alone and drunk and would offer assistance, such as helping them get a taxi home or giving them a place to stay, taking them back to his apartment. Sinaga would offer these victims an alcoholic drink which had he had spiked with a ‘date rape’ type substance. Once they were unconscious, Sinaga would sexually assault them.

Judge Suzanne Goddard QC described Sinaga as a “monster” and said he was “an evil sexual predator”.

Because of the date-rape drugs that Sinaga had given them, many of the victims had little or no memory of the offences committed against them.

Judge Goddard sentenced Sinaga to life imprisonment with a 30-year tariff.

How did Sinaga get caught?

Sinaga used a mobile phone to film himself sexually assaulting and raping his victims. Police were to discover three terabytes of data, showing Sinaga attacking and penetrating his victims.

His last victim, an 18-year-old student who was also a rugby player, woke whilst Sinaga was assaulting him. He fought back against Sinaga, beating Sinaga badly in the process. He then fled and reported the offence to the Police. Initially, the Police arrested the victim. However, as they began to analyse the video footage, they understood the situation and Sinaga came to be seen as the offender and not the victim.

As well as filming his assaults on them, Sinaga took ‘trophies’ from his victims. These personal items helped Police to identify some of these victims. The things he took included phones and ID cards, which Police recovered from Sinaga’s apartment. Sinaga also boasted in chatrooms about his activity, posting messages such as “SuperRay saves straight guys from their monstrous girlfriends”.

Police continue to analyse the footage recovered on more than one mobile phone and as already stated, now believe there may be more than 200 victims. An appeal has been launched for more potential victims to come forward.

The earliest victims recorded in the UK are from 2015, although Police believe Sinaga may have been offending before this. They also consider he may have committed offences as early as 2005, two years before he arrived in the UK.

What has happened?

The UK Solicitor General has responsibility under the law for the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme (ULS), acting in the role of ‘Guardian of the Public Interest’.

Under this scheme, the Solicitor General can, within 28-days of a UK Court handing down a ruling, request that the UK Court of Appeal look at the sentence given. If the Appeal Court consider it to be unduly lenient, they can increase it to what they believe the correct sentence should have been. The Appeal Court will give a ruling and, usually, some guidance also. This guidance is legal precedent, and in the future, Courts will take account of the guidelines the Appeal Court has given.

In the last year, two prolific rapists have come before Crown Courts in England. Although both men were found guilty of multiple rapes, their crimes were otherwise very different. However, both Joseph McCann and Reynhard Sinaga were given life sentences (the only sentence that can be provided for rape in a Court in England and Wales), with a 30-year tariff, that is the minimum term that they must serve before they can apply for parole.

In both cases, the current Solicitor General, Michael Ellis QC MP, referred the matters to the Appeal Court using the ULS.

The Court of Appeal considered these cases in October 2020 and announced their decision in December.

The Appeal Court found in McCann and Sinaga that the sentence given was too lenient and increased the minimum tariff from 30 to 40-years. The Court also guided when a case might have meant that a Whole of Life tariff would have been appropriate. The Appeal Court did not find those conditions met in these cases.

McCann and Sinaga must both now serve 40-year sentences before the Parole Board can consider release. Release for McCann and Sinaga will not be automatic after they have served 40 years, it will still be necessary for them to convince an Appeal Board that they no longer represent a threat to the public before release. Sinaga is a foreign national, being in the UK as a student, and will also be subject to deportation once finally released.

(The Court of Appeal gave guidance on sentencing. A Whole-of-Life sentence is the most severe sentence that is possible in British jurisprudence. Courts must reserve this punishment for the most severe offences, where the perpetrator has killed someone, or where there would have been deaths had the Police not intervened in time. The Court further said that these offences were grave but did not reach the standard for a Whole-of-Life tariff: However, the sentence handed down by the Court, in both cases, was unduly lenient and was to be increased from 30 to 40-years.)

Court of Appeal increases sentences for both men

Speaking after the Court of Appeal judgement was handed down, the Solicitor General, Michael Ellis QC MP said:

“Both offenders carried out some of the most heinous and depraved sexual attacks that shocked the nation. I am grateful for the guidance the Court gave about whole life orders, and I am pleased that the Court imposed a longer minimum term. I hope this brings some solace to the victims of these despicable crimes.”

References and further reading

· Reynhard Sinaga — Wikipedia

· Joseph McCann: Serial rapist freed by ‘unstable’ probation staff — BBC News

· Reynhard Sinaga: Serial rapist ‘abused 206 men’ — BBC News

· Liverpool news Notorious rapists have minimum jail terms increased PremierLeague-News.Com — UK News — PremierLeague-News.Com (premierleague-news.com)

· guidance from appeal court on whole of life tariff in rape cases — Bing

· Joseph McCann (criminal) — Wikipedia

Footnote: The Solicitor General is a British Government appointment, who supports the Attorney General. The current appointee, Michael Ellis, is a QC and MP. QC is an abbreviation for ‘Queens Council’. QC’s are experienced barristers who may appear in all the Courts, and a QC on each side will typically lead significant cases. MP means that this person is a Member of Parliament, the 650-strong elected lower house of the British Parliamentary system.