Paedophile Vanessa George and child grooming gang leader next in line for release after 'Black cab rapist' John Worboys as urgent investigation into parole board's decision is launched

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Vanessa George, who abused children in her care at a nursery in Plymouth, may also be eligible for release

There are fears a string of high-profile paedophiles could walk free from prison after the 'black cab rapist' John Worboys was released after just nine years.

Worboys, Britain’s worst serial sex offender, was jailed in 2009 for drugging and sexually assaulting 12 passengers.

Now, among those who may be eligible for release from an 'indefinite sentence for public protection' (IPP) is Vanessa George, part of one of the 'most sickening paedophile rings this country has ever seen' who abused children in her care at a nursery in Plymouth.

Other notorious inmates who are eligible include Wayne Fox, who left his girlfriend in a coma after savagely beating her beyond recognition, and Mohammed Liaqat, the mastermind behind a child grooming gang in Derby.

Nick Hardwick, the chairman of the Parole Board, claims there are 'a number of high-profile cases bubbling away' involving criminals similar to John Worboys who are no longer deemed a threat to the public, despite serving less than 10 years. 

The controversial sentencing policy brought was in by Tony Blair's government. 

Worboys, 60, has been linked to more than 100 rapes or sexual assaults in the back of his black cab during his reign of terror from July 2007 and February 2008. 

Liaqat will be eligible for parole next year was handed an IPP with a minimum sentence of eight year sentence back in 2011.  

Fox could be free as early as 2019 after he was given a eight years minimum back in 2011, while George was refused parole last year but could apply after serving seven years of her IPP. 

Taxi driver John Worboys (left) was jailed for raping and sexually assaulting passengers in 2009. Mohammed Liaqat, the mastermind behind a child grooming gang in Derby (right), could also now be eligible for release

The decision to release Worboys has been heavily criticised, and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has also come under fire for using just 14 complainants in is trial despite more than 100 women coming forward. 

It has been said many of the statements did not pass the 'evidential threshold', but the Sunday Times claims at least 26 of the women picked Worboys out as their attacker.  

Worboys was also given an IPP, which was banned six years ago by European courts on the basis of human rights. 

It was designed to keep prisoners indefinitely unless they proved they were fit for release.

More than 1,800 have been released over the past 18 months, but Worboys was among the first serious offenders to be considered for release. 

HIGH-PROFILE PAEDOPHILES WHO COULD BE RELEASED FROM JAIL

VANESSA GEORGE

Vanessa George was jailed in 2009 but will be considered for release in 2019

Britain's worst female paedophile Vanessa George, 45, who worked at Little Teds nursery in Plymouth, Devon until her arrest in 2009, described herself to a lover as a 'paedo whore mum' and the scale and depravity of her crimes shocked the nation. 

She was arrested and jailed for sexually assaulting babies and children aged around two, photographing the abuse, and sending the images to Colin Blanchard, the 'Facebook friend' to whom she sent thousands of messages and photographs. 

She admitted taking up to eight pictures a day while on duty in an attempt to get him to propose to her.  

There were fears she would walk free after serving her minimum sentence of seven years in December 2016, but she was turned down for parole. The panel decided the mother-of-two was still a danger and will not be considered for release again until 2019. 

MOHAMMED LIAQAT

Mohammed Liaqat was jailed in 2011. He will be eligible for parole next year

In January 2011, Mohammed Liaqat and his co-defendant Abid Saddique were told they would serve a minimum of 11 years and eight years respectively before they could be considered for release.

Liaqat and Saddique were the ringleaders of a gang who brought a ‘reign of terror’ to Derby's streets, targeting and grooming young girls for horrific sexual abuse.  

They ran a nine-strong gang which cruised around Derby in a BMW or a Range Rover – which Saddique referred to as the ‘Rape Rover’ – looking for vulnerable young girls.

They were then offered rides in the car to ‘link and chill’ with the men, plied with vodka stored under the seats and taken to parks, hotel rooms or houses, where they were sometimes offered cocaine before being pressured into sex. 

When girls refused their advances they were threatened with hammers or thrown out of cars. 

Unemployed Liaqat, of Sinfin, Derby, was convicted of rape, aiding and abetting rape, being involved with child pornography, two sexual assaults, four counts of sexual activity with a child, and affray. 

Liaqat was handed an IPP sentence with a minimum of eight years in 2011 for a string of offences including rape and sexual assault. He will be eligible for parole next year. 

WAYNE FOX

Wayne Fox was handed an IPP of a minimum eight years in 2011

Bareknuckle fighter Wayne Fox battered his beauty student girlfriend so badly that medics couldn't tell what sex she was.

Fox was handed an IPP of a minimum eight years in 2011.

His ex partner Tirion Lewis was left in a coma for a month and spent 18 months trying to recover from the brutal attack by 6ft 2in Fox.

Tirion was kidnapped by paranoid schizophrenic Fox as she sat in a car listening to music with her best friend Miriam Lewis.

The boxer smashed his bare fist through the window before driving terrified Tirion and her friend Miriam to forestry for the brutal attack. 

He punched her 'time after time' until she sunk into a coma in the motiveless attack in woodland in west Wales. 

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Police found a rape kit in the back of Worboys' taxi which including sleeping tablets, condoms and an ashtray he used to crush the drugs (top right) 

The taxi driven by Warboys in which he would assault his victims after telling them, 'Don't worry, I'll get you home safe'

A woman who escaped from Worboys after he drugged her with champagne laced with sedatives has spoken of her outrage at his release.

She said: ‘I don’t know how he has managed to persuade people that he’s a reformed character, not after that many crimes.’

The woman, then aged 30, was on her way home with a female friend in 2008 when she hailed Worboys’s cab at 2am. 

‘I was complaining that I had lost my phone, which he overheard, she revealed.

‘My friend told him that we should drop me off first. He refused but his argument made sense in terms of the route. He was a black cab driver so I trusted him.’

Now a mother-of-two, she was one of 14 women who gave evidence at Worboys’s trial, where he was found guilty of drugging her with intent.

She said: ‘I think everyone thought that what he had done was so abhorrent, no one was going to let him out so quickly.’

The woman was aghast last week to be told about his imminent release. ‘I would have thought that he’s at very high risk of doing it again to somebody else or lots of other people,’ she said. ‘I don’t see how they’d be able to stop him.’ 

EX GIRLFRIEND VOWS TO PUT 'VILE RAPIST' BACK BEHIND BARS 

Warboys outside Croydon Crown Court in London

An ex girlfriend of John Worboys has vowed to go to police to put him back in jail.

Jan Reynolds met Worboys in 1989 when she was a 38-year-old divorcee. 

She was on a girls' night out at a medieval banquet where Worboys - then a £100-a-night male stripper called Terry the Minder - was the evening's entertainment.

The 66-year-old waived her anonymity as a sex offence victim to speak out about her ordeal. 

She said she passed out while having dinner at Worboys' home after they struck up a relationship.

She told the Hertfordshire Mercury: 'I only had two or three glasses of wine over dinner but I remember feeling very drowsy and light-headed all of a sudden.

'The next thing I remember was waking up naked in his bed in the morning. 

'John turned to me with a smile on his face and said, 'You had quite a bit to drink last night.''

She said she felt 'ashamed', adding: 'In 1989, nobody had heard of date rape – that's why I did not report it then. I put it down to a one-off, never reported it and finished the relationship.

'I wish I had reported it – then these girls would not be going through what they are going through today.'

She vowed: 'I'll go to police if it means that vile rapist goes back to jail.' 

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Hardwick told The Sunday Times: 'We are now getting down to the much more tricky cases where, in order to release them if they have served their tariff, we need to have very robust supervision and support arrangements.'

Worboys received an IPP with a minimum of eight years sentence for sexually assaulting and drugging 12 women. 

He was only found guilty of one rape charge.

Nazir Afzal, a senior former CPS lawyer, said he was 'surprised' there were not more charges.

He said: 'If there was a second rape on that count he would have got a life sentence.'   

Karen Ingala Smith, chief executive of women's sexual and domestic violence charity, Nia, said: 'The police believe that Worboys may have raped more than 100 women, others think this is a conservative estimate.

'He's served nine years and nine months, that's just over a month per rape victim. How can we say justice has been served?

'On top of this, according to the CPS, the proportion of rape reports ending in a conviction has more than halved over the last seven years.

'Whilst this in part reflects increased reporting, it seems to me that the law is failing to deliver justice to too many women victims of sexual violence.' 

Theresa May reveals she knows one of John Worboys' targets as she promises to review how the Parole Board makes decisions

Theresa May (pictured on the Marr show today) promised to review how parole board decisions are taken

Theresa May today promised to review how parole board decisions are taken are victims were not told of the ruling John Worboys should be released.

The Prime Minister said her Justice Secretary David Lidington was examining procedures and the law following the shock decision.

In an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr Mrs May said she personally knows one of the victims. Carrie Symonds, who is the Conservative Party director of communications, was a star witness at the 2009 trial.

She said: 'In this case, if I may say, as we're saying, we've got to a situation where it's got to another stage in relation to the release of the individual.

'People are asking why is it that this has happened and why is it that victims weren't informed about this. I know someone who wasn't told about this, so it's important that we look at that and say actually should we be doing this in a different way?

'My instinct is that people do want to know more about why decisions are taken in the way that they're taken.But look, let's look at this properly and that is exactly what we're going to do as a government but I fully recognise why people are concerned about this.'   

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Black cab rapist John Worboys is seen stripping to a thong and sinking his teeth into a bride's bottom in wedding video taken before his reign of terror (as he claims 'God has forgiven him')

A married couple have spoken of their shock after they realised black cab rapist John Worboys performed his stripping routine at their wedding. 

The pair, who were married in 1991, had the stripper perform at their big day completely unaware of his darkside. 

The performance was before his reign of terror which lasted from July 2007 and February 2008. 

Worboys, who had a bleached blonde mullet, strip down to a pink g-string before performing a range of demeaning acts on the bridge - including biting her bottom

Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, the bride said: 'It casts a horrendous shadow over that day.' 

Worboys was performing under his stage name 'Terry the Minder'. He continued his routine for 13 years between 1987 and 2000.

The routine was filmed and it shows Worboys, who had a bleached blonde mullet, strip down to a pink g-string before performing a range of demeaning acts on the bridge - including biting her bottom. 

John Worboys performed as a stripper called Terry the Minder for 13 years between 1987-2000

She said: 'It makes me sick to my stomach now, knowing that evil man was not only at my wedding day - but in my living room among my family and friends. It's traumatising, I'm disgusted - as are all our family who recall him being there that day.'

He is expected to be released in the coming weeks, which has caused widespread revulsion and outrage. 

The bride admitted that the revelation that the man who performed at her wedding is also a serial sex offender has tarnished her wedding video. 

Worboys was hired to perform at the reception in St Albans as a 'surprise gift'.