My ordeal at hands of black-cab rapist, by aide linked with Boris
THE former Tory Party aide romantically linked to Boris Johnson has told how she was targeted by the blackcab rapist.
Carrie Symonds was a 19-yearold student when she was picked up by John Worboys, the taxi driver thought to be Britain’s most prolific sex attacker.
Earlier this year, the public relations chief, now 30, lobbied ministers to overturn a Parole Board decision to free Worboys, 60, suspected of targeting more than 100 women.
But some senior Tories were critical of the way she used her position to keep him behind bars. And sources claim that was one of the reasons she quit her job as the Conservative Party’s director of communications last month.
Now Miss Symonds has agreed to waive her anonymity so her terrifying account of how Worboys drugged and tried to attack her in July 2007 could be published.
Miss Symonds told The Sunday Times that Worboys picked her up from a bus stop on the King’s Road, Fulham, following a night out with friends and offered to take her to her Surrey home – even though she had just £5 – after lying that it was on his way home.
He then insisted she drink a shot of vodka with him, telling her he’d had a big win at a casino earlier in the evening and wanted someone to celebrate with.
‘After I drank the vodka, I can hardly remember a thing,’ she said. ‘I don’t remember if he got back into the front of the cab straight away or not. I think he did. I hope more than anything that he did.
‘When I finally arrived home, my mother remembers that I fell through the door, barely able to walk, like a rag doll.
‘I crawled into the bathroom and became very sick, my head spinning so much that I told my mother I wanted to die.
‘I feel I would know if Worboys had raped me that night. I’d have flashbacks or there would have been horrendous tell-tale signs
‘I told my mother I wanted to die’
when I woke the next day. But I will never truly know for sure what happened after he drugged me.’
Miss Symonds was among 14 women who gave evidence against Worboys, who was convicted of one rape, five sexual assaults, one attempted assault and 12 drugging charges committed from July 2007 to February 2008, at Croydon Crown Court in March 2009.
Following the row over his possible release, Miss Symonds said: ‘I cannot understand how this man can be deemed to be no longer a threat and safe to roam our streets.
‘I am genuinely terrified that he is going to come after me. He knows where so many of his victims live. Why should we think he won’t? I strongly believe Worboys poses a real danger to us all.’ In January, Justice Secretary David Gauke was forced to order a U-turn on Worboys’ release after being challenged in Cabinet by Environment Secretary Michael Gove, a close ally of Miss Symonds.
Mr Gove’s intervention – on an issue that had nothing to do with his departmental portfolio – raised eyebrows in Whitehall. Some Government insiders thought it was another example of Miss Symonds being ‘too partisan’ and backing one minister against another.
Her subsequent exit from her Tory Party role is said to have been the result of concern at No 10 that she was too close politically to Brexiteers such as Mr Gove – as well as too close personally to Mr Johnson.
Two of Worboys’ victims won a court challenge in March and the Parole Board’s decision to free him was quashed. Miss Symonds, who was educated at £20,000-ayear Godolphin and Latymer’s school in Hammersmith, west London, has been seen only once in public since the revelations about her links to Mr Johnson, who at 54 is 24 years her senior.
According to the Sunday Mirror, the former London Mayor made frantic phone calls to Miss Symonds this week to apologise for the way she was being treated. He also vowed to ‘protect her’ from the furore and said he hoped to see her again.
It has also been reported that the pair enjoyed a holiday to an Italian villa together last month.
One friend said: ‘Boris and Carrie are good friends. And, when the dust settles, he hopes they can meet again.’ Mr Johnson’s wife of 25 years, Marina, also 54, finally tired of his serial unfaithfulness, and the couple announced their divorce ten days ago.