A serial rapist who savagely attacked a woman in Victoria Park on his own wedding day is facing jail – for the second time.
Derry McCann, 28, of Portland Court in St Peter’s Way, off Kingsland Road, Haggerston, attacked his victim in the early hours of January 13.
He played “mind games” with her before carrying out the rape, photographing her, and stealing her bra and mobile phone. Just hours later he married his pregnant fiancée.
McCann’s victim was walking home in Grove Road when he dragged her into bushes and raped her, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard today.
Dressed in a grey hoodie and with a ginger beard, McCann muttered guilty pleas three counts of rape, one count of assault by penetration and one count of robbery.
He had only recently been freed from jail after spending several years behind bars for an attack in 2006. McCann, then 18, had been jailed for life but was freed after his minimum term of nine years was cut at an appeal.
“A little after midnight the victim was walking the short distance home after socialising with friends,” prosecutor Kate Bex told the court.
She was not far from home, Ms Bex added, having walked around the park rather than through the middle as she deemed it too dangerous.
“Within feet of the [park] exit,” she said, “the defendant grabbed her and pulled her off the park and began a sustained and systematic attack.”
McCann had an “unusual” conversation with his victim as he attacker her, Ms Bex told the court. It was “best described as mind games and an attempt to control her – asking the victim what she thought he was going to do to her before carrying out the attacks that he did.
“He behaved oddly in other respects: interaction concerning the condom he used when penetrating her and ejaculating and the items of her property culminating in the robbery, [and the] theft of her mobile phone and a piece of her underwear.”
Judge Martyn Zeidman told McCann: “You have done the most terrible things. You will be going to prison, as you understand, for a very, very long time.”
He will be sentenced on April 28. Judge Zeidman ordered a psychiatric report to be completed.
Det Insp Lee Davison from the Met’s sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command said: “This man is a vicious predator and an extreme danger to woman.
“He preyed on his victim and set out to degrade her physically and psychologically.
“No one should have to endure what she was forced to go through and I want to formally pay tribute to her courage and determination. It is through her bravery we have been able to bring McCann to justice.”
Andrew Held from the Crown Prosecution Service added: “This was a terrifying, violent and prolonged attack involving rapes committed by a man intent on inflicting fear and psychological suffering.
“The strong prosecution case which led to today’s guilty pleas included victim testimony, an ID parade, CCTV footage, and bad character evidence based on a similar rape committed by McCann in 2006.
“I would like to thank McCann’s victim for her courage in helping bring this prosecution and hope his conviction provides some sense of justice for her.”
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