Open all 93 cases against taxi rapist, insist lawyers
MORE than 90 further cases against black cab rapist John Worboys should be reconsidered to assess if he should face further prosecutions, lawyers for victims said yesterday.
The Parole Board sparked fury when it decided to free the serial sex attacker just nine years after he was jailed and without informing women he had attacked.
Victims have spoken of their “shock” at his imminent release.
With questions raised as to why all 105 complaints had not seen their cases brought to trial, lawyers from Slater and Gordon and Birnberg Peirce wrote to the Crown Prosecution Service asking for 93 cases for which Worboys was not prosecuted to be reassessed. The letter says: “Our clients were shocked and dismayed to learn of Worboys’ imminent release.
“The decision of the Parole Board, the manner it was communicated (most victims found out through the media) and the seeming failure to put in place proper measures to protect victims on his release are matters of grave concern to clients.”
The lawyers said victims had been told Worboys would “not be coming out for a long time” and, as a result, it was not necessary to prosecute him with another trial.
However, lawyer Richard Scorer from Slater and Gordon said victims are now “fearing for their safety and feeling sorely let down by the system meant to protect them”.
He added: “It’s important Worboys’ victims, and the greater public, have their faith restored in the criminal justice system.”
Worboys was found guilty of 19 charges of drugging and sexually assaulting 12 women passengers and one case of rape. He was jailed indefinitely in 2009, with a minimum term of eight years.
The CPS says it charged the cab driver with offences “where it was deemed there was a realistic prospect of conviction”.
Prosecutors will now consider the letter from the victims’ lawyers.