Use of force authorised to make alleged rapist Joseph McCann appear in court

Alleged serial rapist Joseph McCann is to be forced to appear in court after refusing to attend a hearing on Wednesday.

Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot authorised the use of force to bring him before her by videolink from Belmarsh prison.

McCann, 34, was due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday but refused to come up from the cells.

Security was so tight six uniformed officers had been placed on guard outside the courtroom.

McCann, from Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, has been charged with 12 offences, including five rapes.

He was arrested near Congleton, in Cheshire, in the early hours of Monday, just over two weeks after he is alleged to have abducted a woman in her 20s in Watford in the early hours of Sunday April 21 before raping her in a residential property.

He is charged with kidnap and rape over the alleged attack.

McCann is further charged with two kidnappings, four counts of rape, one count of false imprisonment, two counts of causing a female to engage in sexual activity and one count of assaulting a female by penetration in London between April 24 and April 27.

The charges relate to two women, who are in their 20s, who were separately snatched off the street in Chingford and Edgware, in London, before being raped in a car.

An investigation by Scotland Yard’s Homicide and Major Crime Command is continuing and the Metropolitan Police said a file remains with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in relation to further alleged offences.