Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the former Labour attorney-general, decided against referring the sentence handed to John Worboys back to the courts despite an outcry over its leniency, it emerged last night. Lady Scotland, now Commonwealth secretary-general, considered the case in detail in 2009 after women’s rights campaigners condemned the eight-year minimum term recommended by the judge as a “disaster”. The sentence was imposed despite a psychiatric report concluding that Worboys, then 51, was a “repetitive predatory sexual offender” who showed a “significant degree of deviance”. Lady Scotland’s decision not to challenge the sentence is one of a series of actions by legal authorities that might have enabled his early release. A psychiatric report said John Worboys showed a “significant degree” of “deviance”, such a plying his victims with alcohol Metropolitan PoliceThey now face scrutiny at a time of renewed concern about police and prosecutors’ ability…

Source: The Times January 05, 2018 02:26 UTC