Hearing held in jail after alleged serial rapist Joseph McCann refuses to go to court
Written by News on 10/05/2019
A magistrate has conducted a hearing inside a jail for the first time after a prisoner refused to appear in court in person or via a video link.
The unprecedented hearing was ordered by chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot after a second attempt to get alleged serial rapist Joseph McCann to appear before her.
Under recent new rules, a defendant must appear for a case to be transferred from a magistrates’ court to a crown court.
McCann, 34, was arrested in Cheshire on Monday and faces 21 charges – eight rapes, four kidnaps, two false imprisonments, two assaults by penetration, one penetrative sexual activity with a child, two of causing nonsexual activity, one non-penetrative sexual activity with a child, and one actual bodily harm.
The charges relate to eight victims aged between 11 and 71. Three of them are children.
McCann refused to leave his court cell to go into the dock at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday and was due to appear today by video link from prison, but again refused.
The new hearing began when a court official took a court crest from an Argos carrier bag and laid it on a pine table in a room at a conference centre opposite Belmarsh jail in southeast London.
Officials had travelled 15 miles from central London.
Ten reporters watched as the chief magistrate walked in with her clerk and prosecution and defence lawyers.
She explained she and the lawyers were about to hold a private hearing with McCann somewhere inside the prison 200 yards away.
She said she would return to recount what we had missed, then left after asking Sky News if we would look after her green leather handbag. She said she wouldn’t be allowed to take it in with her.
The chief magistrate and lawyers spent an hour and 20 minutes in the prison, though the hearing, in the healthcare wing, was brief.
McCann did not cooperate, turning his back on magistrates and lawyers. He did not give his name when asked, leaving his lawyer to identify him.
His next hearing will be on 23 May at the Old Bailey and he was remanded in custody until then.
A defendant has had to appear for the case transfer to the higher court since a ruling involving Lord Janner, who was charged with historical sex offences.
His lawyers had argued he should be spared attending because he was too ill with dementia, but they lost their argument after a High Court battle. He died in 2015 before his trial began.
(c) Sky News 2019: Hearing held in jail after alleged serial rapist Joseph McCann refuses to go to court
