The serial Manchester rapist Reynhard Sinaga and Joseph McCann have had their jail sentences increased from 30 to 40 years by the Court of Appeal.
Sinaga, 37, was handed a life sentence at Manchester Crown Court in January after being convicted of more than 150 offences, including 136 counts of rape, committed against 48 men – although police have linked him to more than 190 potential victims.
McCann, 35, was given 33 life sentences at the Old Bailey last December for a string of sex attacks on 11 women and children – one aged 11 – during a 15-day cocaine and vodka-fuelled rampage.
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 while 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.”
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 that, whether either man is in fact ever released from prison will be depend on the Parole Board’s assessment of the risk they pose after they have served their minimum jail terms.
