The case of a second serial sex offender has been referred to the Parole Board a week after the former black-cab driver John Worboys was approved for release.
Officials will review whether Antoni Imiela, known as the M25 rapist, who was given seven life sentences in 2004, should be freed in the coming months. Five of his victims were under the age of 14, two of them aged 10.
It emerged last week that the Parole Board had decided to release Worboys, who in 2009 was jailed indefinitely with a minimum term of eight years for drugging and sexually assaulting female passengers.
Some of his victims were not told of the decision, prompting an apology from the chairman of the Parole Board. A review into how the board makes its decisions and how much information it can publish about individual cases has been launched.
Imiela, now 63, a former railway worker from Appledore, near Ashford in Kent, was given seven life sentences at Maidstone crown court for a series of stranger rapes across the Home Counties against women and girls.
He grabbed his victims, dragged them into a secluded area, threatened to kill them and hit them. After being convicted in 2004, his DNA was put on a police database.
A cold case review into a sex attack on Christmas Day 1987 found a match to Imiela. In March 2012 he was sentenced to 12 years at the Old Bailey after being found guilty of rape, indecent assault and another serious sex offence.
A spokesman for the Parole Board said: “We can confirm that the Ministry of Justice has referred the case of Antoni Imiela for a parole review. The review is following the standard six-month process for all indeterminate sentence prisoners and will be reviewed on the papers in the first instance. The review may be concluded on the papers or alternatively it may be directed to an oral hearing.”