Relief as rapist’s release is overturned

A VICTIM of black cab rapist John Worboys spoke of her relief after the High Court overturned a decision to release him.

Three judges in London ruled on Wednesday that the Parole Board must make a “fresh determination” in the case of the 60-year-old serial sex attacker after a challenge by victims.

The woman, who can only be identified as DSD, said: “I have always said one of the reasons I’m doing this is to give women the confidence that they can come forward and it will be dealt with.

“That is why I was keen to prosecute, because that would give me the ultimate closure and I would be able to get on with my life.”

Parole Board chairman Nick Hardwick was forced to quit ahead of the ruling.

Sir Brian Leveson, Mr Justice Jay and Mr Justice Garnham said the board should have “undertaken further inquiry into the circumstances of his offending”.

The judges announced that, in the light of their findings, the “release decision will be quashed” and the case “remitted to the Parole Board for fresh determination before a differently constituted panel”.

Lawyers for the two women who brought the challenge argued during a hearing earlier this month that the Parole Board’s decision to release Worboys, who now goes under the name of John Radford, should be overturned.

At the conclusion of the hearing on March 14, the judges continued a temporary bar preventing Worboys’ release, which was granted in January.

He was jailed indefinitely in 2009, with a minimum term of eight years, after being found guilty of 19 offences, including rape, sexual assault and drugging, committed against 12 victims.

He became known as the black cab rapist after attacking victims in his hackney taxi. Police believe he committed crimes against 105 women between 2002 and 2008, when he was caught.

The two women who challenged the decision – and who cannot be named for legal reasons – said something had gone “badly wrong” with the decision to free him.

The Parole Board argued their decision was “lawful and and rational” and based on appropriate evidence.