No, minister: the John Worboys case should stay closed
Hard cases make bad law. The release on parole of the ‘black cab rapist’, John Worboys, is a hard case. But ministers should not be panicked into throwing open parole board decision–making to public inspection. The police have blundered, the sentence was surely too lenient, and the failure to inform his victims was disgraceful. But it was not upon some careless whim that Parliament barred parole boards from giving reasons, and the new Justice Secretary, David Gauke, should think hard before reversing the interdiction. Much of the furore provoked by the release of this serial attacker of women after ten years in prison really arises not from the parole board’s