Victims rage as cabbie rapist John Worboys moved back to London ahead of release
Serial sex attacker has been switched from HMP Wakefield to London's Belmarsh in a move that will horrify his many victims from the area
BLACK cab rapist John Worboys is back in London — where the vast majority of his sickening attacks on women took place.
He was secretly driven to Belmarsh jail from HMP Wakefield at the weekend ahead of impending release.
The revelation that Worboys, 60 who is feared to have attacked up to 200 women, is back in the capital will spark uproar.
One victim said: “I’m terrified he’ll come after me.”
Worboys, 60, prowled the city’s streets for years in a black cab seeking his prey — and the vast majority of his victims were attacked there.
After the shock news that the Parole Board was to release him, those victims begged for him to be banned from London.
The Sun’s revelation he was secretly moved from Wakefield Prison, West Yorks, to HMP Belmarsh, south east London at the weekend pending release will horrify them.
Worboys is known to have kept a record of some victims’ addresses. And many have spoken publicly of their horror at the thought of him returning.
One said: “I am genuinely terrified he is going to come after me.
“Why should we think he won’t? He knows where so many of his victims live.”
Another said: “Surely one of the conditions of his licence must be that he cannot come back to the scene of his crimes?”
News of Worboys’ prison move emerged hours after Parole Board chairman Nick Hardwick said he had an “open mind” over calls to ban Worboys from London.
London MPs led by Boris Johnson and Zac Goldsmith last week signed a letter to the Parole Board calling for Worboys to be excluded from the capital.
A source said of the move to Belmarsh: “This represents Worboys’ first major step towards freedom. The wheels are now in motion. Barring a remarkable intervention by the courts, there is nothing can be done to stop him being out in February.”
Worboys, of Rotherhithe, was jailed indefinitely in 2009 for 19 offences including rape and sex assault. But police believe he attacked as many as 200 women. He has served less than nine years.
He will be held at Belmarsh before being found temporary lodgings at one of England’s 101 probation hostels.
Newly-released cons normally spend around three months in the halfway houses before moving back into the community.
The fury over the decision to free Worboys means he is likely to be housed outside central London. The Belmarsh move suggests somewhere in the Home Counties.
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In recent years notorious criminals have been placed in jail hostels far from their former haunts.
Karen Matthews, who faked the kidnap of daughter Shannon in Dewsbury, West Yorks, was placed in Reading.
Tracey Connelly, jailed over the death of baby son Peter Connelly in North London, was put in Lancashire.
Beast freed by 2 women
TWO of the three Parole Board members who ordered Worboys freed are women — including the chair of the hearing.
The identities of the panel members that made the controversial November ruling have been kept a strict secret, along with the report itself.
Worboys’ victims launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay for a lawsuit to get the information disclosed. Almost £55,000 has been raised so far.
On Friday Justice Secretary David Gauke told the Commons he would not launch his own judicial review.
Victims’ lawyer Harriet Wistrich launches a legal challenge tomorrow with a possible separate move to keep Worboys locked up while it is heard.