IS PAROLE SYSTEM FIT FOR PURPOSE?

After black cab rapist debacle sees parole chief axed, minister on brink and SIX more danger criminals in spotlight, the question...

THE parole system was in crisis yesterday after top judges attacked the decision to free black cab rapist John Worboys.

In a scathing ruling, they cited basic failures in the Parole Board’s handling of the case. They said the 60-year-old’s claim that he posed no risk had ‘not been probed to any extent, if at all’.

The fiasco led to the sacking yesterday of the board’s chief, left a minister on the brink and sparked fears that the whole parole system might not be fit for purpose.

Ministers last night ordered an urgent review into recent decisions to release six other dangerous criminals straight from top-security prisons.

The order to free Worboys was overturned only after two of the predator’s victims won their case at a crowd-funded judicial review.

Three High Court judges found that the Parole Board failed

to carry out ‘basic lines of inquiry’ to determine whether the former taxi driver, who is said to have attacked more than 100 women, was still a danger.

As the decision was announced, Parole Board chairman Nick Hardwick was forced to resign in disgrace. But Justice Secretary David Gauke was fighting to keep his job with lawyers for the victims suggesting he should also be held accountable.

Mr Gauke turned down the chance to bring a judicial review himself, and authorised the use of taxpayers’ money to defend the right of the Parole Board to cloak its decision in total secrecy.

Tory MP Anna Soubry said she was seeking reassurances ‘that there are not other instances where the Parole Board has released people who we deemed to be dangerous in circumstances where they should not be’.

Another Conservative MP, Julian Lewis, said the crisis ‘illustrates the fact that there is a culture of consideration for rapists and murderers that puts the public gravely at risk’. In other developments: Worboys’ victims told of their relief at the court’s ruling and spoke of anger at the official failures;

The judges said the Parole Board ignored a dossier referring to dozens

‘Consideration for rapists’

more victims and questioned Worboys for only 50 minutes;

They ordered the board to reassess the case – with Worboys to remain in jail until a decision is made;

The rapist is said to have duped the three-strong panel by claiming he had found religion and lying by insisting he started attacking women only after being dumped by a girlfriend;

Mr Gauke survived a bruising day with a vote of confidence from Theresa May before announcing emergency measures to shore up confidence in the Parole Board;

Police were urged to open fresh investigations into Worboys after another ten women came forward claiming they were also victims.

Fury over the Worboys case erupted in January after the Parole Board ruled that he should be released from topsecurity HMP Wakefield.

Worboys had been jailed indefinitely, with a minimum term of eight years, in 2009 for drugging and sexually assaulting women passengers in and around London.

The former stripper was convicted of 19 offences relating to 12 women but police have linked the prolific offender to more than 100 attacks.

The decision to release him after such a short term in jail sparked outrage, but Mr Gauke declined the opportunity to launch a legal chal- lenge, claiming it would be ‘inappropriate’ for him to act.

As a result, a judicial review was eventually brought by two women, identified in court only as DSD and NBV.

Delivering their verdict on the women’s challenge yesterday, three High Court judges said that neither the Parole Board nor the psychologists involved in assessing Worboys for release had appeared to have questioned whether his honesty was genuine.

They said the Parole Board had also failed to question why Worboys had paid £241,000 in compensation to 11 women, despite admitting attacking only three of them.

Instead, the Parole Board had claimed that Worboys had ‘learnt to be open and honest’ and had shown ‘good insight’ into his offending.

Mr Gauke said he had ordered officials to ‘ look closely’ at the six other cases to check if there were any concerns about the decisions – raising the prospect of the criminals being sent back behind bars.

On Worboys, he apologised to the victims and said there should have been much greater testing of the case he made.

Lawyers for the two women said the Ministry of Justice had failed in its responsibility to ensure all relevant material was highlighted to the Parole Board. Phillippa Kaufmann QC said Mr Hardwick’s resignation was ‘very disappointing’, adding: ‘It looks as though he’s been scapegoated.’

Worboys was convicted in 2009 but continued to protest his innocence and had asked the Criminal Cases Review Commission to look at his case. But in May 2015 – nine months before he would become eligible for parole after serving his minimum term – he dramatically admitted he had carried out the attacks he had been convicted of, but not the other allegations.

The Parole Board decides whether prisoners serving life or indeterminate sentences for public protection, fixedlength sentences of four years or more and some violent criminals who have reoffended should be released.

In 2016-17, it carried out 25,204 parole hearings, including 7,377 oral hearings. Of the 5,184 oral hearings concluded, 48 per cent led to releases.

THE grotesque case of black cab rapist John Worboys has brought shame on our entire criminal justice system, with the victims of this monster being failed at every turn.

From the police who missed glaring opportunities to catch him sooner, the Crown Prosecution Service who charged him with just a handful of the 100-plus sex crimes he was accused of, to the judge who gave him such a lenient minimum sentence, we have witnessed a litany of misjudgments and incompetence.

But the most egregious failings by far have been those of the secretive and largely unaccountable Parole Board, which tried to put Worboys quietly back on the streets, even though he remains a clear danger to women.

It didn’t even have the decency to tell his victims – many of them still traumatised – that he was to be freed.

Yesterday, thanks to the courage of two of those victims who challenged the decision to release him, this travesty of justice was overturned.

The High Court ruled that Worboys must stay in prison until a more thorough assessment has been done of the danger he poses to public safety. It’s to be hoped that this time all the crimes he is alleged to have committed will be taken into account.

Significantly, the judges also delivered a searing rebuke to the Parole Board, both for its inept handling of this case and the fact that its decisions are always cloaked in such secrecy – betraying the cherished British principle of open justice.

Their harsh criticisms must now be the signal for radical change.

Yes, chairman Nick Hardwick – a mediocre serial quangocrat who should never have been given the job in the first place – has been forced to resign but that is nowhere near enough. There must be a fundamental reform of the way the system works.

For make no mistake, the Worboys case was far from unique. It was just one of countless misguided decisions by the Parole Board to free dangerous criminals early, often with catastrophic results.

Just two days ago we reported on the trial of two killers who were released from life sentences for murder, then tortured and raped a young mother, before burning her alive.

The people who allowed this to happen have serious questions to answer – but what is now vital is that the insidious secrecy surrounding this whole process needs to end.

It’s time for the Parole Board to be dragged out of the shadows and account fully to the public for the decisions it makes. These decisions must also be much easier to challenge.

Although this paper believes firmly in rehabilitation and redemption for criminals, public safety must come first.

But there is another man who should hang his head today, and that is Justice Secretary David Gauke. Why didn’t he launch a judicial review of the decision to release Worboys himself?

He indicated that he would, then performed a screeching U-turn, claiming that independent counsel and his officials told him there were no grounds.

Even if that had been true – and yesterday’s result clearly proves that it wasn’t – Mr Gauke should still have had the gumption to ignore his pettyfogging civil servants and put the victims first.

Because of his failure, two women who had already been let down several times by the justice system were betrayed yet again. In order to keep the man who raped them off the streets, they had to launch the court action themselves.

The Mail salutes them for their inspiring bravery. But the fact they had to go it alone – with all the trauma and distress that must have entailed – speaks volumes for the inadequacies of the present system.