The announcement that so-called black cab rapist John Worboys would not be released by the Parole Board after all, thus reversing an earlier decision made by the very same board, shows how difficult it is for victims of such predators to get justice from our current system.
The panel considered a new 1255 page ‘dossier’ that included seven victim impact statements. They found that his “sense of sexual entitlement”, “need to control women” and belief that “rape was acceptable” meant that he still posed a serious risk as a sexual predator.
So how could the system allow such a predator to be released back into the public? Where was this ‘dossier’ before the Parole Board considered his release last year? Why did it take a concerted effort by the victims, campaigners, the media and the general public for this decision to be reversed?
Worboys was found guilty in 2009 of sexual assaults against 12 women, although many other charges against him were either dropped or allowed to lie on file, meaning that the victims of those crimes could not get justice or closure.
It was also acknowledged at the time that he could be guilty of sexual attacks against at least a further 200 victims. When he was finally arrested, the police found a ‘rape kit’ in his car that included champagne, condoms, gloves, sleeping tablets and an ashtray to grind up the drugs.
Given the extent of the evidence against Worboys at the time of his trial, it is beyond fathomable that the Parole Board would even consider, let alone agree to the appeal against the length of his sentence in the first place. To add further insult to injury, many of his victims were not even informed when he was granted release by the Parole Board in January 2018, finding out from the media.
Shortly after the verdict in 2009, the Metropolitan Police Service was forced to pay out damages to two of Worboys victims after admitting that they had failed to investigate leads properly, meaning that Worboys was allowed to carry out his systemic campaign of terror for a far longer period of time. At the time, many believed that the Met refused to take the victim’s testimony seriously because they could not believe that a black cab driver could be capable of serious sexual assault.
Sadly, a decade after that case, the Met and many other police forces up and down the country are still letting victims down. Whether the case involves stranger rape (as was the case here) marital rape or rape by a known person, the outcome is generally the same. For victims from a BAME background, the impact of trying to access justice is even greater. The #MeToo movement may have served as turning point for empowering victims to come forward and name their abusers but sadly, that still does not mean that our legal system is strong enough to ensure that these perpetrators are brought to justice quickly or even at all.
What this case further illustrates, time and time again, is that our judicial system is simply not up to it when it comes to ensuring that cases involving sexual assault and violence are dealt with the same brevity and seriousness as other serious crimes. The woefully low conviction rate for rape, which recently dropped by a further 9.1% is just one example of this. Providing, of course, that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decide to prosecute the complaint in the first place.
In this case, campaigners and victims such as myself can claim a minor victory, at least until the next time the parole board considers another request for early release by Worboys, likely to be in 2020. There are too many other cases where victims are being failed by our legal system, so for the time being, there is simply no rest for the rest of us.