John Worboys appeal - as it happened: High Court reverses decision to release 'black cab rapist'
Victory has 'brought huge relief', victim says
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Victims of black cab rapist John Worboys have won their legal challenge against a decision to release him from prison.
A ruling in the landmark case was given by three judges at the High Court in London, who heard evidence over two days earlier this month.
Lawyers for two of Worboys’ victims had argued that the Parole Board’s decision to release the 60-year-old serial sex attacker was “irrational”, and should be overturned.
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The Parole Board must reconsider, judges ruled on Tuesday morning – just minutes after the body’s chairman resigned.
Officials should have held further inquiry into Worboys’ offending and his “overall credibility and reliability”, Sir Brian Leveson said.
He also said the board’s Rule 25, which currently bars disclosure of information about its decisions, was incompatible with the principle of open justice.
Worboys, who now goes by the name Radford, 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 carriage.
Police believe he committed crimes against 105 women between 2002 and 2008, when he was caught.
The two victims who brought the case believe something went “badly wrong” with the Parole Board’s decision to free him.
They said the Parole Board should have taken into account “critical evidence” of the “wider allegations” against Worboys.
The judges heard that Worboys, who has served 10 years behind bars, including remand time, has denied committing any offences other than those for which he was convicted.
The Parole Board argued that its decision was “lawful and and rational” and was based on appropriate evidence.
London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan and The Sun newspaper also took part in the legal action.
A press conference is starting now. Nick Armstrong, junior counsel for the two victims DSD and NBV, says there will be a fresh hearing before the Parole Board, when they will need to instigate new inquiries about Worboys.
"It will need to do that in a way that is fair to Mr Radford (his new name) and re-assess his risk," he says.
The Government will then consider what form a new version of Rule 25 will take for the Parole Board.
Mr Armstrong says the case is "exceptional" so will have a limited impact on the wider system.
"This is not going to open the floodgates for lots of victims' challenges and it should not result in a lot of sub-conviction information going before the Parole Board."
He says he was convicted on a "sample offence" basis, meaning not all of his offences were fully taken into account of the court.
"There was unusually strong evidence of Mr Radford offending much more widely...Mr Radford had himself settled a number of civil actions against him by victims to the total of £241,000"
The Parole Board claimed Worboys was "open and honest" but that assessment was called into question by the judicial review.
"Impression management and manipulation" was used, he added.
Mr Armstrong says the potential for increase transparency in the Parole Board is welcomed, but emphasised that the panel that released Worboys had no judicial chair or counsel from the Government.
"There is a responsibility for the Justice Secretary not putting the Parole Board in the position where it could not discharge its duty properly...there is a story in all of this about the proper resourcing of the board."
Phillipa Kaufmann QC, who represented the two women who brought the challenge, says it is important that where the CPS only charges a sample of cases because of the scale of offending, it does not mean the Parole Board cannot look at other offences committed.
"In other cases where you're dealing with a serial offender...that doesn't mean the Parole Board will be prevented from looking at it"
Worboys was only charged for offences against a dozen women, but police believe he attacked around 100. Those other crimes, although not put before a court, will now be considered in a fresh hearing.
"You can't look at someone and know whether they will offend again, you've got to do what you can with the information available."
Ms Kaufmann said it was "striking just how under-resourced the process has become" for the Parole Board.
She says its workload has been increased by the creation of indefinite sentences for public protection, which was used for Worboys, and that serving High Court judges have been barred from sitting on the board.
"The Parole Board is constrained by a lack of resources, the judiciary is constrained by a lack of resources, and then there is the Ministry of Justice itself."
She says a specialist unit in the MoJ was responsible for laying the full facts on Worboys to the Parole Board.
Ms Kaufmann says Nick Hardwick had his resignation "forced upon him" after a meeting with the Justice Secretary David Gauke.
"It looks as though he has been scapegoated for something that was not the sole fault of the Parole Board."
She calls it an "improper and wrong decision".
Solicitor Harriet Wistrich says the case "illustrates failures at every single level" and would not have been brought if the two victims had not brought a separate challenge against the police for failing to properly act on the crimes against them.
"The Secretary of State could have put forward more evidence to the Parole Board...the probation service could have contacted victims...there are a lot of issues and we need to look very closely at this."
Ms Wistrich says she has been approached by 10 victims of Worboys, "many of whom didn't report it before, and we know that many women do not have the courage or confidence to report sexual offences, particularly in circumstances where they were drugged as in this case...we have seen in this case that they have reason to lack that confidence, sadly".