‘A victory for victims ... he is a danger to all women’
ONE of John Worboys’s youngest victims last night praised the decision to keep him behind bars. Carrie Symonds was a 19-year-old student when she was picked up from a bus stop after a night out and drugged.
She said yesterday: ‘It was the most horrendous shock to be informed earlier this year that Worboys was to be released much sooner than expected, with absolutely no good reason. Myself and other victims were sure then, as we are now, that he still poses a real danger to women.’
Miss Symonds, now 30, added: ‘The Parole Board and the justice system let us down very badly but today us victims who fought to keep him behind bars have been vindicated. This is the right decision.’
She also praised Daily Mail readers who helped raise almost £70,000 via an online campaign to fund the legal challenge.
She added: ‘This victory probably wouldn’t have happened without readers of the Mail.’ Miss Symonds bravely agreed to waive her anonymity to describe the horror of her 2007 ordeal.
Worboys approached her in his cab at a bus stop in Fulham, West London, following a night out with friends. He offered to take her home to Surrey, claiming she lived on his way home.
He insisted she drank a glass of champagne with him, telling her he had had a big win at a casino earlier in the evening and wanted someone to celebrate with.
SHE agreed, but poured the contents of the glass onto the cab floor when he wasn’t looking. Worboys then convinced her to down a shot of vodka. Miss Symonds, who now works in ocean conservation, said: ‘After I drank the vodka, I can hardly remember a thing.
‘When I finally arrived home, my mother remembers I fell through the door, barely able to walk, like a rag doll.
‘Six months later, I opened a newspaper and read that a black taxi driver had been arrested, accused of raping women having pretended to win money at a casino, giving his passengers spiked champagne. I froze. I knew it was him.’
Miss Symonds went to the police and was one of 14 witnesses whose testimony was presented at Worboys’s trial in 2009.
Welcoming the Parole Board’s decision, she added yesterday: ‘I strongly believe Worboys poses a real danger to us all.’