Black cab rapist John Worboys admits drugging four women in order to sexually assault them

The black cab rapist John Worboys faces spending the rest of his life behind bars after pleading guilty to a further string of assaults on women.

The 62-year-old, who was jailed in 2009 for 19 sex attacks on 12 women, admitted on Thursday drugging another four women he had picked up in his cab.

Worboys appeared at the Old Bailey via video link from Wakefield prison, to plead guilty to two counts of administering a stupefying or overpowering drug with intent to commit rape or indecent assault.

The convicted rapist, who was wearing spectacles and a light grey and green shirt, also admitted two counts of administering a substance with intent to commit a sexual offence under the Sexual Offences Act.

All four women made their allegations to police in early 2018, but the offences - which took place in London - dated back to between 2000 and 2008.

The court heard that Worboys, who spoke only to confirm his identity and enter his guilty pleas, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for the new offences.

In one of the four new cases the victim only came forward after recognising Worboys as the man who attacked her while watching the media coverage of his 2009 conviction, which detailed how the cab driver would pick up his victims in London's West End and ply them with champagne laced with sedatives on the pretext of celebrating a lottery or casino win.

Jonathan Polnay, prosecuting, said at an earlier hearing: "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. He offered champagne and invited her to celebrate. She agreed.

"This defendant pulled over on a side road off the A40 served an alcoholic drink in a plastic cup, which she drank. That is her last memory that evening. She woke up the next day naked with her clothes left in a trail on the way to her bed."

Mr Polnay added: "In the late 2000s when there was considerable publicity about this defendant when he stood trial for a number of sexual offences she recognised the defendant as the taxi driver who had picked her up and in due course on December 13 2018 she picked him out in an identity parade."

Mr Polnay said the second of the latest victims was a university student in London when she was targeted in 2003 after leaving a nightclub on New Oxford Street, in what was "an identical method not only to the first count but a number of previous convictions and allegations three and four".

Mrs Justice McGowan asked for a report to be prepared on Worboys' history of offending and ordered him to appear in court in person for sentencing on September 2.

She said: "This is a case where the public might expect the defendant to be sitting in the dock."

Police believe Worboys, originally from Enfield, may have carried out more than 100 rapes and sexual assaults on women in London between 2002 and 2008.

At his first trial at Croydon Crown Court in 2009 he was convicted of 19 offences including one count of rape, five sexual assaults, one attempted assault and 12 drugging charges.

He was jailed for a minimum of eight years, but was told he would be held in custody as long as he was deemed a danger to the public.

Worboys, who now goes by the name John Derek Radford, was on the verge of being freed when the Parole Board decided in 2017 that it was safe to release him after just eight years.

But in March last year to two of his victims successfully blocked his release amid an outcry from the public and the women he attacked.

As a result the Parole Board ruled he should remain in prison, citing his "sense of sexual entitlement" and a need to control women.

One of the women who fought to block his release, known only as DSD, spoke on Thursday of her relief at Worboys’ decision to admit to further offences.

She told The Telegraph: “I was completely in shock that he pled guilty after everything he has put his numerous victims through over the years. Whilst I can’t help being cynical about his motives I am pleased that his victims have been saved the trauma of a Court case.

“My thoughts are with each and every victim today and the hope that we can now put this behind us and finally rebuild our lives. I would also like to express my utmost admiration of the victims courage to finally speak out to ensure this dangerous criminal is brought to justice.”

Harriet Wistrich, director of the Centre for Women’s Justice and solicitor for the two women who challenged the Parole Board's initial decision, said: “It is clearly a relief that Worboys is now admitting to offences he has been charged with. This is a vindication of the judicial review brought last year which sought to highlight  a much wider level of offending than that he was previously prepared to admit”