ITV’s new drama Believe Me shines a light on the horrifying crimes of serial rapist John Worboys and, more importantly, the women whose lives were devastated by him – including his wife and girlfriend. While the former black cab driver became one of Britain’s most notorious sex offenders, the disturbing reality is that he was living a seemingly ordinary life behind closed doors, returning home each night to a wife or girlfriend who had no idea of the extent of his crimes.
The licensed taxi driver preyed on dozens, and possibly hundreds, of women while presenting himself as a respectable London cabbie. In Believe Me, writer Jeff Pope focuses on the victims and the repeated failures that allowed one of Britain’s most prolific sex attackers to continue offending for years.
Although a jury ultimately convicted him of attacks on 12 women, police believed there may have been as many as 500 victims. And some would argue the women closest to John Worboys, including his former wife and later girlfriend, were victims in their own way too.
Who was is wife?
John Worboys, portrayed by Daniel Mays in ITV’s Believe Me, was arrested and later convicted in 2009 after being found guilty of sexually assaulting 12 women between 2006 and 2008. Their cases were chosen from a much larger pool of alleged victims.
At the time of his arrest, he was in a relationship with another woman. Before that, he had been married to Jean Clayton, whom he met in a Hackney pub in 1988. The pair married in 1991, with Worboys becoming stepfather to her daughters Carrie-Ann and Clare, and son Stephen. However, the marriage lasted only four unhappy years before they separated in 1995.
Jean later described Worboys as a “sex addict” and claimed he behaved inappropriately around her teenage daughters, spying on them while they undressed. She branded him abusive, violent and a “peeping Tom”.
Their relationship finally ended after she caught him spying on one of her daughters from a previous relationship.
Years later, when a parole board considered releasing Worboys, Jean publicly condemned the decision and said she believed he was still dangerous. She believe he would have killed someone eventually had he not been caught.
‘He was the biggest mistake of my life’
Speaking to The Sun in 2018, Jean Clayton said her ex-husband should never be freed from prison. Calling him “the worst husband a woman could ever ask for”, she added: “I feel utter disgust. If he hadn’t been caught and taken to court he would have murdered somebody. It’s very scary. He was the biggest mistake of my life. No one knows what I went through.”
The mother-of-three, who had no children with Worboys, said she eventually left him after catching him spying on her daughters as teenagers.
She also alleged that he attempted to massage the girls and described him as “creepy” and “conniving”. Carrie-Ann, then aged 40, later told the newspaper: “He made our family’s life a misery. I can’t imagine what these women are feeling.”
Jean also recalled one chilling moment when Worboys returned home covered in mud and admitted following a drunk woman before assaulting her when she fell asleep. That confession proved to be the final straw.
She has since remarried and now manages a bar in Bulgaria.
John Worboys had a girlfriend at the time of his arrest
When Worboys was arrested in 2008, he had been dating divorcee Kathy Martin for two years. Living in Enfield at the time, Kathy regularly spent weekends at his home and believed him to be a “gentleman” and someone she could trust completely.
In a grim twist, Worboys reportedly discussed sex crimes with her and called them “terrible”, all while hiding his own crimes.
Kathy stood by him after his arrest and attended court hearings during the trial. But after hearing the evidence and learning about the attacks, she admitted she had been completely unaware of the “double life” he had been leading.
She said at the time: “If I was forced to list 100 men that I know and who would be the least likely to do this, it would be John. […] It’s unbelievable, you would expect people like that to look like a monster. I still wake up and can’t believe it’s him.”
Following his conviction, Kathy ended the relationship and later described Worboys as a “good conman” who had deceived her. She eventually agreed to become a prosecution witness and gave a 322-page statement.
John Worboys blamed girlfriend for his attacks
Viewers watching Believe Me may be especially disturbed by scenes in episode four, where Worboys attempts to blame a former girlfriend for his crimes.
During conversations about his possible parole, another inmate tells him he must confront why he offended in the first place. But instead, he shifts responsibility onto someone else.
Speaking to a forensic psychologist, he claimed: “She was an old girlfriend. She left me in summer 2005. I was really cut up about it. And then we were sort of on/off. A year later, she phoned me and asked me to come pick her up and take her back to mine. I was excited about this but, when I got to the bar, she was absolutely hammered. Totally drunk. All I could do was take her home to her mums. I was on my own again, absolutely furious. That night I went looking for someone. That would have been the first one, around September/October 2006.”
The timeline suggests that, even if the story were true, he was referring to another unidentified former girlfriend rather than Kathy Martin. However, it is now widely understood that Worboys had been offending long before 2005, despite earlier victims being unable to bring prosecutions against him.
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