SERIAL rapist and former Bournemouth cabbie John Worboys will feature in a landmark appeal case at the Supreme Court today.

Two women attacked by the notorious "black cab rapist" won a civil claim against the Metropolitan Police for damages, after using human rights laws to argue that the force was liable for failures in its investigation.

But today the police will argue that victims of serious crime should not be allowed to use the Human Rights Act to sue the police.

Scotland Yard, with the backing of the Home Office, is appealing amid concerns that the ruling could open the floodgates to thousands of compensation claims from victims of rape.

Worboys, who worked in Bournemouth while renting a holiday flat in Poole, often pretended to have had a large casino or lottery win in order to persuade reluctant victims to "celebrate" with a glass of doped champagne. He then raped them in his cab.

It is thought he attacked more than 100 women between 2002 and 2009 but Scotland Yard officers did not take some women's complaints seriously, meaning he went on to attack dozens more victims, including the two who won damages.

He was jailed indefinitely in 2009 for 19 offences of drugging and sexually assaulting 12 women.Victims came from Dorset and from London.