Notorious rapists Reynard Sinaga and Joseph McCann have extra 10 years added to jail time
UK's "most prolific rapists" Joseph McCann and Reynard Sinaga have had their minimum jail terms increased from 30 to 40 years by the Court of Appeal.
The two predators committed "some of the worst and most violent" sexual offences in English legal history, The Court of Appeal heard back in October.
Sinaga, 37, was sentenced to life in January at Manchester Crown Court for 159 offences - including 136 counts of rape - committed against 48 men at his Manchester city centre flat.
McCann, 35, raped and kidnapped 11 people including an 11-year-old boy during a two-week cocaine-fuelled reign of terror after mistakenly being freed from jail.
The Attorney General’s Office referred the 30-year minimum jail terms handed to McCann and Sinaga to the Court of Appeal as "unduly lenient" earlier this year.
The Crown Prosecution Service had asked Appeal Court judges to consider a whole life term for both men - a sentence usually reserved for the worst murder cases.
But a panel of five judges refused to impose whole life terms on McCann and Sinaga, as sought by the Solicitor General Michael Ellis QC at a hearing in October.
Giving the court’s ruling on Friday, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett said: "The offending in the cases of McCann and Sinaga, very serious indeed though it is, does not, in our judgment, call for either to receive a whole life tariff.
"This is not to minimise the seriousness of their offending but instead to ensure that the most severe sentence in our jurisdiction is reserved, save exceptionally, either for the most serious cases involving loss of life, or when a substantive plan to murder of similar seriousness is interrupted close to fulfilment."
However, the judge said their minimum terms would be increased to reflect the serious nature of their crimes.
Lord Burnett said that in the collective experience of the senior judges who heard the case, McCann and Sinaga’s crimes are some of the most serious offences of rape to have been tried within England and Wales.
He added: "Neither man has shown any remorse and the long-term psychological damage for at least some of the victims in both trials is profound and will only be understood in the years to come."
The judge said whether either man is in fact ever released from prison will depend on the Parole Board’s assessment of the risk they pose after they have served their minimum jail terms.
In a statement after the ruling, Mr Ellis 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."
The case was the first time two separate offenders’ sentences have been challenged together as being unduly lenient.
McCann carried out a series of sex attacks in London and the North West in April and May 2019, two months after the convicted burglar was wrongly freed from prison following “major failings” by probation staff.
Sinaga drugged the men then filmed himself sexually violating them while they were unconscious, with many of his victims having little or no memory of the assaults.
Judge Suzanne Goddard QC, who sentenced him to a minimum of 30 years, described Sinaga as "an evil serial sexual predator" and a "monster".