MPs to grill parole chief Nick Hardwick over the release of the 'black cab rapist'
THE chief of the Parole Board is to be hauled before MPs to explain why Britain’s most notorious rapist John Worboys is being freed from jail.
Professor Nick Hardwick faces a grilling in Parliament amid calls for the decision to be overturned.
Fury erupted after it was announced Worboys, 60, is to be released within days after serving less than 10 years.
The “black cab rapist” was convicted in April 2009 of carrying out seven sex attacks and drugging 12 passengers.
Worboys, of Rotherhithe, southeast London, offered them Champagne to help him celebrate fictional lottery or casino wins.
But the drinks were spiked with powerful sedatives which left the women insensible and unable to protect themselves as he pounced.
The former stripper and amateur porn actor is suspected of attacking more than 100 women during a six-year reign of terror.
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Senior Labour MP Sir Keir Starmer, who was Director of Public Prosecutions when Warboys was jailed, is facing growing anger over the decision not to prosecute Worboys after more alleged victims came forward.
Baroness Scotland, the former Labour attorney-general, was also at the centre of a backlash yesterday after it emerged she decided against referring Worboys’ sentence back to the courts in 2009, despite an outcry over its leniency.
Women’s rights campaigners had condemned his sentence as a “disaster”. Worboys was given an indeterminate public protection sentence, with a minimum term of eight years.
It meant he could be kept in jail for as long as he posed a threat to the public.
The Parole Board cleared him for release after deciding he no longer presented a risk.
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MPs and campaigners have also demanded an investigation into why some of Worboys’ victims were not informed that he is being freed.
Yesterday Prof Hardwick apologised “unreservedly” for the failure.
But he stood by the panel’s decision to release Worboys, adding: “We have to make unpopular decisions.”
Yesterday 58 MPs signed a letter asking whether Worboys’ victims had been given an opportunity to make representations to the parole board.
Conservative MP Bob Neill, chairman of the House of Commons Justice Committee, said: “What has happened here is very disturbing.
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“We will also want to ask about how the parole system can be made more transparent.
“It is ridiculous current rules prevent the board making public the reasons for their decisions.”
At the time of Worboys’ conviction, 83 women had registered complaints. Another 19 then came forward.
But the Crown Prosecution Service declined to press more charges.
Yesterday, Sir Keir welcomed a comment from the CPS on his role.
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In a statement last night it said: “At the outset of this case Lord Ken Macdonald was the director of public prosecutions.
Sir Keir Starmer became DPP in November 2008.
Neither DPP had any involvement in the decision making behind this case.”
Sir Keir said: “As the CPS has made clear, neither I, nor my predecessor, had any involvement in the decision making.”
The CPS said police received further complaints following Worboys’ conviction and it advised officers to refer any allegations of rape, it being unlikely to “prosecute Worboys in relation to allegations of sexual assault or administering a substance with intent, because of the maximum sentence available”, the statement said.
