Carrie Johnson has called for better police treatment of sexual assault victims – as she revealed what happened the night she was targeted by black cab rapist John Worboys.
Mrs Johnson, 38, who helped bring Worboys to justice, said she fears ‘the way the police deal with crimes such as sexual assault and rape is no better than it was’ nearly two decades ago.
She highlights the murder of Sarah Everard, saying it raised concerns ‘that systemic issues – such as misogyny, poor vetting and lack of accountability – haven’t been fixed’.
‘What I worry hasn’t changed is the police culture that meant Worboys was not caught nearly as soon as he should have been,’ Mrs Johnson wrote in the Daily Mail.
She revealed two friends have been raped in recent years and said both were treated with ‘no empathy, no respect and their cases never properly followed up’, adding: ‘I bet every woman has a similar story about a friend.
‘It takes enormous courage for women to come forward. They must know that when they do, they will be treated seriously and that every effort will be made to ensure justice is done.’
Worboys is serving a life sentence after luring women into his taxi late at night, pretending he had won money and offering them celebratory drinks laced with drugs.
A decision to release him in 2018 was reversed by the Parole Board after widespread public outrage which sparked other victims to come forward.
His case was before the board again this week, when it emerged Worboys now admits attacking 90 women.
In its latest ruling, the Parole Board said Worboys ‘continues to represent a high risk of committing further serious sexual offences against women’.
The wife of former prime minister Boris Johnson was one of several women who spoke out to keep Worboys behind bars.
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She said news he had been refused parole came as a ‘huge relief’ to many survivors.
Mrs Johnson said her involvemen in a new ITV dramatisation of the case, ‘Believe Me’, was driven by a desire to give victims a voice
While Mrs Johnson welcomed changes to the parole system, she said victims were still being failed when reporting sexual assault to police.
‘I was a 19-year-old university student when I got into the taxi of John Worboys – the man now known as the black cab rapist,’ she wrote.
‘Nearly 20 years on, while much has changed, I fear the way the police deal with crimes such as sexual assault and rape is no better than it was then.’
Mrs Johnson said she had been making her way home from a night out with pals in Chelsea when ‘Worboys pulled up beside me in his cab and rolled down the window’.
‘He seemed concerned. He said he didn’t like to see young women on their own late at night. It could be dangerous, he warned,’ she wrote.
‘Oh, the irony.’
She said she ‘couldn’t believe [her] luck’ when Worboys agreed to take her home for the £5 she had left in her pocket.
Worboys began his well-practised ruse, saying he had ‘won a lot of money at a casino that evening’ and invited her to celebrate with him and toast his jackpot with a glass of champagne.
‘His manner wasn’t threatening in the slightest,’ she recalls.
‘Looking back now, I realise just how manipulative he was. He was a professional conman.’
Mrs Johnson highlights the fact that date-rape drugs were not as prevalent back then, years before the public campaigns warning women to watch their drinks.
While she managed to pour one glass of champagne onto the floor, he later returned with a bottle of vodka, which she would discover had been spiked.
After making it home, she said she ‘never made it into my bed’.
‘Instead, I passed out in the bathroom, lying in the empty bathtub, fully clothed,’ she said.
Months later, she said a friend flagged a newspaper report about a black cab driver accused of raping women after drugging them with spiked champagne.
She said she called the police immediately and handed detectives Worboys’ phone number, which he had given her at the end of the journey, and picked him out of a line-up.
The publicity around the case led further victims to come forward, and Worboys was charged with more crimes dating between 2000 and 2008, which he admitted.
In 2019, he was handed two life sentences with a minimum term of six years.
Worboys will be considered for parole again in around two years’ time.
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