Black cab rapist John Worboys admits drugging four more women

Black cab rapist John Worboys has pleaded guilty to drugging four more women.

Appearing at the Old Bailey via video link from Wakefield prison, where he was jailed for at least eight years in 2009 for sex assaults on 12 women, the 62-year-old admitted further offences.

The court heard how Worboys, who now goes by the name John Derek Radford, targeted women who hailed his cab and drugged them in order to sexually assault them.

All four women whose allegations led to the guilty pleas on Thursday first told police of his actions early last year, but the offences dated back to between 2000 and 2008.

They all took place in London, with the first victim picked up by Worboys in his taxi after she left a bar and the second, who was a university student at the time, targeted after leaving a nightclub in New Oxford Street.

At an earlier hearing, prosecutor Jonathan Polnay said of the first incident: “The allegation is that in 2000 or 2001 (the first victim) left a bar in Dover Street and hailed a taxi.

“The prosecution case is the driver of that black cab was this defendant. He told her he had won money on the horses and was celebrating and claimed he had been a stripper with the Chippendales.”

Like many of his victims, he added that she was “offered champagne” to celebrate, and that drinking it was “her last memory that evening”.

He continued: “She woke up the next day naked with her clothes left in a trail on the way to her bed.”

Gregor McGill, director of legal services at the crown prosecution service, said the latest case was further evidence that the former taxi driver was a “sexual predator” who has left “countless victims feeling traumatised”.

He said in a statement: “John Worboys is a sexual predator. His modus operandi will be familiar to any victim unfortunate enough to cross his path: entice them into his cab with cheap fares, offer them a sedative-laced drink and take advantage of their vulnerable state.

“Worboys has left countless victims feeling traumatised, anxious and violated. I’d like to pay tribute to their bravery in continuing to speak up.”

Dressed in a light grey and green shirt and spectacles as he appeared in court, he pleaded guilty to two counts of administering a stupefying or overpowering drug with intent to commit rape or indecent assault.

He also pleaded guilty to another two counts of administering a substance with intent to commit a sexual offence under the Sexual Offences Act.

The admissions came a decade after his first trial at Croydon Crown Court in 2009, where jurors were told how Worboys, originally from Enfield, picked up his victims in the West End and plied them with champagne laced with sedatives on the pretext of celebrating a lottery or casino win.

He was convicted of 19 offences – including one count of rape, five sexual assaults, one attempted assault and 12 drugging charges – and was jailed for at least eight years.

He was told he would be in custody as long as he was deemed a danger to the public, and last year the parole board ruled that he should remain behind bars due to his “sense of sexual entitlement” and need to control women.

In total, police believe Worboys may have carried out more than 100 rapes and sexual assaults on women in the capital between 2002 and 2008.

(c) Sky News 2019: Black cab rapist John Worboys admits drugging four more women