Jail sentences increased for 2 of UK’s worst rapists

Two of Britain’s most dangerous sex offenders will have to spend at least 40 years in prison, judges ruled on Friday, December 11, after a government appeal that their sentences were too soft.

Britain’s attorney general had sought to ensure that Reynhard Sinaga and Joseph McCann spent their rest of the lives behind bars because of the extent and nature of their crimes.

But 5 appeal court judges, including the head of the judiciary of England and Wales, Lord Chief Justice judge Ian Burnett, refused to impose whole-life terms.

“The offending in the cases of McCann and Sinaga, very serious though it is, does not, in our judgment, call for either to receive a whole life tariff,” Burnett said in the ruling.

The judges said both men’s crimes were among the most serious offenses of rape to have been tried in the courts of England and Wales.

Neither had shown any remorse, they added, as they increased the minimum time they must spend in prison from 30 to 40 years.

Sinaga, an Indonesian national, was convicted of 159 offenses, including 136 rapes and 8 attempted rapes, at 4 separate trials which began in June 2018 and ended last December.

The 36-year-old lured unsuspecting men to his flat in Manchester, northwest England, drugged then assaulted them, and captured the attacks on camera.

Police believe he may have attacked as many as 195 men. The sentencing judge called him “an evil serial sexual predator” and a “monster”.

McCann, 34, was jailed in January after a cocaine- and vodka-fuelled rampage against 11 people aged between 11 and 71 in and around London, and northwest England.

The judge who sentenced him for 37 charges of rape, sexual assault, kidnap and false imprisonment branded him a “coward, a violent bully and a pedophile”.

The attorney general– the government’s most senior law officer – has powers to appeal certain sentences by judges in England and Wales if they appear to be “unduly lenient”.

Whole life orders are usually restricted to the most serious cases of murder.

At the appeal in October, Solicitor General Michael Ellis said both men’s crimes were “some of the worst and most violent that this country has ever witnessed”.

On Friday, he said he hoped the judges’ ruling “brings some solace to the victims of these despicable crimes”. – Rappler.com