The release of black cab rapist John Worboys has been halted so a legal challenge by two of his victims can be heard.
Worboys, 60, who attacked more than 100 women but was only convicted of attacks on 19, is due to be released after a decade in prison, amid intense public anger.
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.
“Update - we have been granted a stay on his release until an oral application between February 6-8,” she said.
“Obviously it is a first stage. You can not read too much into it but it is obviously good that we have got through the first hurdle,” Ms Wistrich said.
“Given that somebody’s liberty is at stake I think that the court would have to proceed quickly. We are arguing that he should be in prison after the Parole Board has said that he should be released.”
The legal fight to review Worboys’ release was launched after the Government abandoned plans to launch a judicial review of it.
He was jailed indefinitely in 2009, with a minimum term of eight years, 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.
The women, identified as DSD and NBV, both previously took the Metropolitan Police to court over their failures investigating Worboys.
Writing on her court pseudonym, DSD said in a HuffPost UK blog: “The last two weeks have felt to me as though I live in a society that simply refuses to deal with rape.”
She continued: “Finding out through media reports two weeks ago that the Parole Board had decided to release him was horrific.
“We had been assured by the police and CPS that Worboys would remain in prison for a very long time.
“The system failed me from beginning to end. And now here, unbelievably, was news that the system was going to grant him the ability to potentially hurt more women.”