Ten years on, haggard face of black cab rapist
Sex beast in court to see his victim win the right to challenge release
GREY-HAIRED and haggard, this is the face of serial sex attacker John Worboys arriving at court yesterday – the first time he has been seen in public for nearly ten years.
He was last pictured in 2009 when he was jailed indefinitely for drugging and sexually assaulting passengers in his black cab.
Yesterday, the 60-year-old was photographed being led into the Royal Courts of Justice in London – almost a decade after he first appeared before magistrates in February 2008.
A woman raped by the former taxi driver faced him at the High Court yesterday as judges ruled she could challenge the decision to free him. It means Worboys will have to remain in jail until a new hearing next month.
The victim sat in the public gallery just ten yards from her attacker, who was in a caged dock flanked by four prison officers.
He occasionally glanced in her direction as the court heard something had gone ‘ horribly wrong’ in the parole board process.
The woman, raped in 2003, was one of two victims who joined the Mayor of London in bringing the appeal against the release decision.
They were granted an ‘unprecedented’ judicial review into the planned release, after Phillippa Kaufmann QC told the court the victims feared ‘not only for themselves but for the wider public and women in particular’. The victims were also worried by the fact that the decision was ‘made entirely in secret’, the QC said.
Worboys was initially expected to appear at the hearing via video link from Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire, but after problems with the system senior judge Sir Brian Leveson ruled he should attend in person.
The victim in court was told that Worboys would be present only the night before. She found being there ‘very, very hard’, her lawyer Harriet Wistrich said outside court, adding: ‘She was relieved that he was behind a grid. In this situation he was the powerless one.
‘But obviously it is hard seeing him there in the flesh after all this time.’ The second victim bringing the case did not attend.
Worboys spent most of the hearing with his shoulders hunched forward and head tilted as he listened, occasionally taking notes.
After a legal issue was more speedily resolved as a result of Worboys being in court, Sir Brian said: ‘ The inability to work the video link has worked in our favour’ – prompting the rapist to grin broadly. He later smiled as he briefly chatted with guards during a short break.
Worboys, who now uses the name John Radford, had not been assigned a lawyer before the hearing, but a solicitor who had attended as an observer volunteered to represent him. When Sir Brian asked if he was happy with the arrangement, Worboys replied: ‘I’d like that, very much.’
Allowing a judicial review into the release to go ahead, Sir Brian and fellow judge Mr Justice Garnham asked for legal aid to be granted for Worboys ‘ on an emergency basis’. They also ordered a file of the Parole Board’s reasons for the release decision to be disclosed to the two victims that day.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said Worboys’ victims and Londoners would be ‘relieved’ by the ruling, adding: ‘I’m pleased there will now be an opportunity for thorough scrutiny of this decision by the Parole Board.’
The full judicial review hearing will take place in the High Court on March 13. Worboys must remain in prison until then. He was originally ordered to stay in jail for a minimum term of eight years after being convicted of 19 offences against 12 victims and linked to more than 100 complaints.
He was seen outside court yesterday despite taxpayer-funded screens intended to protect his ‘privacy’.
It was believed to be the first time the screens had been used to shield criminals attending the court, but the Ministry of Justice said the policy was used to protect the privacy of prisoners in other ‘high profile cases’ around the country. Victims and witnesses attending court cases to testify are not provided with screens.
Photographers were able to get pictures of Worboys after the van transporting him stopped a few yards from the pavement.
‘Hard seeing him in the flesh after all this time’