The police officer who solved the case of serial rapist John Worboys says the justice system is “close to exploding” due to similar crimes still happening with the rise of drink spiking in an overstretched system.
Tim Grattan-Kane, the senior investigating officer who arrested Worboys in 2008, made these comments before the broadcast of a new ITV drama about the case.
Grattan-Kane said the justice system was “close to exploding with a frightening bang” and that he knew of young police officers who were frustrated by the system and waiting for results from the Crown Prosecution Service, which is underfunded and taking a long time to make decisions.
According to the Law Society, more than half of the courts in England and Wales were closed between 2010 and 2019, making it difficult to get trials for cases.
Grattan-Kane pointed to the Gisèle Pelicot case in France and that of Vikas Nath, a Knightsbridge restaurateur facing trial on allegations that he raped and sexually assaulted a woman who had been drugged, which he denies.
He also believes that drink spiking has become “far more common” due to increased awareness or more men having “a bad approach to women”.
Grattan-Kane said higher rates of drink spiking could be the result of more women reporting their drinks being spiked.
Investigating the Worboys Case
Grattan-Kane and his officers identified links between Worboys’s crimes and went back over previous blood tests and CCTV footage.
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They also spoke with a person training to become a black-cab driver to predict which routes the attacker might have taken.
Grattan-Kane said officers had asked victims to come forward, promising they would be trusted, listened to, and believed, which led to a surge in phone calls.
Changing How Police Deal with Rapes
The Worboys case helped change how the police deal with rapes, with Grattan-Kane saying the process should start from the point of believing women who claim they have been assaulted.
However, the system needs “continued, constant monitoring” to ensure the process is followed appropriately.
Grattan-Kane highlighted the murder of Sarah Everard by the off-duty Met police constable Wayne Couzens as an example of someone who had used their profession to gain a woman’s trust.
The police response is now “far more centred” on survivors, and they are under pressure after Tony Blair‘s government adopted New York‘s target-driven system of holding police officials to account.
Grattan-Kane said that measuring performance by numbers rather than quality can lead to problems, and that there needs to be a balance in a process that is victim-focused, similar to determining fault in accidents.
The ITV drama Believe Me airs on Sunday, telling the story of the women whose testimony convicted Worboys.
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