Human Rights lawyer Harriet Wistrich has claimed that police failures in the investigation of serial rapist John Worboys allowed him to ‘perfect’ his crimes and continue assaulting women
The real life lawyer from an ITV crime drama about the ‘Black Cab Rapist’ has revealed how he carried out the “perfect crime”.
Pioneering human rights lawyer Harriet Wistrich, who will be portrayed on screen by Amandaland’s Philippa Dunne in chilling new series Believe Me, has told what it was like to work on the horrific real life case and hold to account a system that failed women.
She says: “The shocking aspect was the serial rapist nature of his attacks, and the fact that this was effectively enabled by totally inadequate policing.”
Believe Me, starting on ITV tomorrow evening (MAY 10), is about John Worboys, one of the most prolific sex attackers in British history, who is currently serving multiple life sentences for sexual attacks on women between 2000 and 2008.
Worboys, played in the drama by Daniel Mays, preyed on women under the cover of being a ‘respectable’ licensed London black cab driver.
He would target solo women to pick up, claim he’d had a big win at a casino or on the lottery, then offer them a drug-laced glass of champagne to help him celebrate – which would knock them out.
After assaulting the women, he would often then boldly drop them at home. The women often had little or no memory of what had happened to them.
Harriet, founder and CEO of the Centre for Women’s Justice, who worked on the notorious case, says: “What Worboys did was shocking. The fact that he rendered the women unconscious and then raped or sexually assaulted them in the back of his cab and then delivered them home with the expectation they wouldn’t remember.”
She added:” “That dangerous modus operandi was quite distinct but it clearly worked and he was able to get away with it for so long. That’s a very growing and present issue, that if you spike somebody’s drink and they then can’t remember what happened, then there’s no credibility as a witness.”
“If you don’t capture evidence of their drink being spiked, it’s very difficult to hold perpetrators to account. Everything was difficult to prove. So that was a bit of a perfect crime.”
The four-parter focuses on Sarah and Laila (not their real names), played by Aimée-Ffion Edwards and Aasiya Shah, who reported sexual assaults by Worboys but felt they had not been believed by the police.
However, they fought back and won, thanks to the tenacity and compassion of Harriet and barrister Phillippa Kaufmann KC (played by Rachael Stirling).
The survivors approached Harriet as she was known for her work representing women who had been victims of sexual abuse or who had killed their abusive partners.
Crucially, she believed them. They took the unprecedented step to sue the Metropolitan Police under the Human Rights Act for their appalling failure to properly conduct investigations, claiming it led to them being subjected to degrading and distressing treatment.
Not only did they make the police answer for failings, with the Met losing appeals all the way to the Supreme Court in 2018, but they also triumphed just weeks later by overturning Worboys’ parole.
Harriet, 65, recalls: “Unlike in the drama, the two women actually approached me separately. I was aware of the case and there had been some publicity about the police failures, but the more I delved into it, the more I understood the extent of the problems. The police failed them so badly.”
Harriett went on to add: ““We thought there was little financial risk as the police would just want to get rid of the case and settle, but they decided to fight it all the way.”
She adds: “What struck me was the prolific nature of his offending. It wasn’t just that an individual woman was let down by poor police investigation, but that because she and others were let down, it enabled this man to gain strength and confidence, to perfect his technique, to continue doing it, hurting so many women over a period of time.”
Though Worboys was formally convicted in 2009 for crimes against 12 women and in 2019 for four more, legal representatives and police suspected the true number of victims exceeded 100 women.
In powerful scenes in the true crime drama, Sarah gets into Worboys’ taxi after a night out in 2003, reluctantly accepts the drink, then passes out. She wakes up in hospital certain she has been raped by the cab driver.
After invasive examinations and gruelling questioning, the police are dismissive and her case is dropped. In Laila’s story, she is also drugged and assaulted before being dumped outside her student accommodation.
During humiliating questioning, even her red nail varnish is used to question her integrity. Harriet warns: “There is a really dangerous narrative that women make up false complaints. It’s a nightmare. No one’s going to make it up and go through that process with what they have to go through. It’s really hard for women to do, it’s quite traumatic.”
“One of the things that you get from this story is a particular way in which men target women, that women feel like they have to be polite,” she said.
“Even if a man’s bothering them, they don’t necessarily want to just tell them to p*** off. The way in which Worboys really pushed and persuaded them to take a drink and a lot of them didn’t really want to, I think that will ring true for most women. It is really quite hard to resist when someone’s being like that. It makes you seem really horrible if you’re not just friendly.”
The drama also highlights the many ways in which police did not handle the case correctly. Harriet explains: “The police were looking for evidence of a date rape drug, which there wasn’t, so they dismissed it. But actually, when you looked at the toxicology results, there were all sorts of other drugs in their system. So the women were left confused, left to think they just got very drunk or something weird had happened. That was a pretty shocking aspect.”
Recalling her time on the case, she said: “I also remember at the time of the attacks, the Mayor of London was doing a big campaign about ‘Never use an unlicensed cab, always use a black cab’. I remember both of the women saying to me how horrible it was to see this campaign.”
Harriet has also acted for the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, shot dead by Met police officers in July 2005, as well as a number of women in successful appeals against their murder convictions, including Sally Challen, abused and coercively controlled by her husband, and Emma Humphreys, who killed her violent boyfriend and pimp.
She still works tirelessly to highlight failures in the police and criminal justice system regarding violence against women, though it can sometimes be tough to keep the emotions in check.
Harriet, also a founder member of the campaign group Justice for Women, says: “If you want to remain empathetic, you’ve got to travel the journey a bit, but also you need to have a bit of separation so that you’re useful to your client, rather than an emotional wreck.”
“It’s about holding their hands through the process, but however hard it is, it’s their choice, and they’re doing it because actually, seeking truth and justice can have its own healing effect,” Harriett continued.
The drama also features Miriam Petche as Carrie Symonds, now the wife of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was targeted by Worboys in her youth and had a narrow escape.
Unbelievably, only eight years after Worboys was convicted for his crimes, his victims were made to fight again to keep him behind bars.
Carrie, by then a senior figure in the Conservative Party press team, spearheaded a huge media and political campaign pushing for the unprecedented review of the Parole Board’s decision.
Worboys’ parole was quashed and the bravery of these women resulted in significant changes to the law. His next parole hearing is due to be held in public in June.
Harriet, who describes her key legal battles in her book ‘Sister in Law: Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men’, reveals she never ever felt like giving up.
She says: “It always felt like the truth, the justice, was on our side, and you just have to find a way to get there.” During filming of Believe Me, Harriet visited the ITV set and met Motherland actor Philippa, who was apparently nervous to meet her.
Harriet says: “She’s based on me, she’s not trying to mimic who I am. I think she was quite shy. I did actually send a couple of notes to clarify a point and also to say, ‘Could you just maybe show a tiny bit more empathy at this point’.”
She adds: “I’m really pleased the story is being told. I’m keen to use the drama as a vehicle to raise awareness about ways in which you can actually hold the police accountable. We need to protect women and girls.
“There are prejudices, sexism, misogyny, and a culture of blaming women for getting themselves raped. Women are being failed all the time. It’s still a massive battle. What you’ll get from the drama is why those women do it, why they continue to fight – not for themselves, for all women.”
Believe Me airs on ITV and STV from tomorrow night, Sunday 10th May at 9pm, with all four episodes available to stream on ITVX and STV Player
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