Worboys release on hold after challenge

The release of black cab rapist John Worboys from prison has been put on hold after victims won the first step in a legal challenge.

Lawyer Harriet Wistrich said an “urgent application” had been made to the High Court on behalf of two of his victims for a stay of his release pending a further permission hearing.

She said: “Update – we have been granted a stay on his release until an oral application between 6 and 8 February.”

The Parole Board provoked fury this month when it directed Worboys’s release after a decade in prison. He was jailed indefinitely in 2009 for drugging and sexually assaulting women passengers. Despite being convicted of 19 offences against 12 women, it is feared Worboys may have more than 100 victims. Ms Wistrich said the papers were lodged on Thursday “because of the urgency” of the situation in trying to stop someone’s pending release from prison.

A half-day hearing is set to be fixed between 6 and 8 February in which Worboys can have a lawyer make representations on his behalf, according to Ms Wistrich. After the development, she said: “You can not read too much into it but it is obviously good that we have got through the first hurdle.”