Joseph McCann: Witness describes moment suspected serial rapist fled police

A witness has described the moment fugitive Joseph McCann crashed his car outside her house – just hours before he was arrested after fleeing police and hiding out in a tree.

McCann is suspected of being connected to the abduction of two 14-year-old girls on Sunday evening who were forced into a black Fiat Punto in Congleton town centre.

The suspect, realising he had been spotted, hit a car as he attempted to flee. Running away on foot, the women were left in the car.

Hours later, he was found in a tree on a rural lane just outside the Cheshire town.

Joanne Moss told Sky News: “We heard the screeching of the brakes and loads of police sirens.

“We then saw a man get out of the car and he went over the fence between the two houses and that was the last we saw of him.

Ms Moss also described how she saw two teenage girls in the abandoned car.

“The two girls were in the car and went off back down the close from the direction they came in.”

The “extremely dangerous” 34-year-old is now being investigated over seven incidents across Cheshire, Manchester, Lancashire, London and Hertfordshire between April 21 and Sunday.

The attacks involved a total of 12 victims, aged between 11 and 71, the Metropolitan Police said.

Describing the incidents as “grotesque and appalling”, Commander Simon Rose said the force is relieved he has now been detained, adding that “England is a safer place”.

He said it is “impossible” to know whether there are further victims, but the force has appealed for other alleged victims to come forward.

He urged people who have been in contact with the suspect between February, when he was released from prison, and May to come forward.

Scotland Yard detectives had launched a hunt for suspected rapist and kidnapper McCann after he snatched two women in their 20s off the streets in north London on April 25 in separate incidents.

McCann is also suspected of abducting a 21-year-old woman at knifepoint in Watford four days earlier in the early hours of April 21 and raping her.

On Sunday, another series of attacks took place.

Police said a woman aged in her 30s was falsely imprisoned at a location in Haslingden, Lancashire, on Sunday morning at around 8am and, during the same incident a teenage girl and boy, aged 11, were raped.

At 1.30pm on the same day, a woman aged 71 was abducted and raped in Bury, Manchester.

Two hours later two 13-year-old boys and a 13-year-old girl were abducted in Heywood, Manchester.

During that incident the 13-year-old girl was sexually assaulted, police said.

The Metropolitan Police is leading the investigation and said McCann, who is in custody, is being brought to London.

The Ministry of Justice has launched an urgent review after it emerged McCann may have been wrongly released from prison.

He was freed automatically halfway through a three-year sentence for burglary and theft – but should have gone before a parole board, it is understood.

(c) Sky News 2019: Joseph McCann: Witness describes moment suspected serial rapist fled police