Black cab rapist John Worboys 'turned to Christianity' to fool parole board

Black cab rapist John Worboys turned to God in a bid to get early release from prison, sources claim. Worboys will be released from jail after serving eight years and eight months of what could have been an indefinite sentence for a spate of sex offences in his London taxi.

Police fear he could have attacked just over 100 victims and not just the 12 women he was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting.

Worboys became a born again Christian to fool the parole board at Wakefield jail in a pretence that he was capable of turning his life around, said a prison system source.

"Worboys is seriously misguided and I believe is potentially still a danger to women," a Wakefield jail source told the Daily Star. "He thinks he is born again since embracing religion and that he has been forgiven. A cynical person might think he's done this as the best way of getting parole."

The 60-year-old former stripper and ex-porn star attended Church of England services at the maximum security prison.

He also befriended serial killer Levi Bellfield, who murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler in 2002, and kept fit by regularly running 50 laps of the prison football field.

The claim comes as revelations about Worboys life begin to emerge since he was jailed in 2009. The Sun reports Sally Bercow, the wife of Speaker of the House of Commons Jon Bercow, once hired the taxi driver as a stripper for a Oxford University Conservatives event.

News of his imminent release drew widespread criticism as some of the victims only found out about it through media reports.

Speaking about Worboys' release, Prime Minister Theresa May said she knew one of the victims and that the law could change to end secret parole board decisions.

"I know somebody who was one of his victims and was not contacted and first heard something was happening through the media so I recognise why people are so concerned," she said on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday [7 January].

"That's why I think it's right obviously that the parole board operates independently but I think it's right we as a government should look at the question of openness and that we should look at this issue as a whole too as how victims are kept in touch with what is happening."