History > 2006 > UK > Violence (IV-VI)

The Sun frontpage

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Killings by strangers

rise a third in 10 years

December 27, 2006
The Times
Dominic Kennedy

Young men suffer more random attacks

Most murders still by people known to victim

Killings carried out by strangers have increased by a third since Tony Blair came to power promising to be tough on crime and its causes, according to figures released to The Times.

The incidence of homicide by strangers is regarded by experts as one of the most reliable measures of the true rate of violence in society because the figures are difficult to manipulate.

The disturbing statistics revealed today suggest a rise in random incidents of violence rather than a growing weapons culture of blades or firearms. Stranger killings have rocketed in the West Country and London but dropped sharply in Greater Manchester, where police strive to identify and monitor the most dangerous individuals.

A close examination by the Crown Prosecution Service of stranger killings in one of the harder-hit areas, Devon & Cornwall, has found that people are as likely to be killed by a stranger's bare hands or boots as knives or guns. Yet across the UK the number of people who die at the hands of somebody they know has remained remarkably constant at about 400 a year.

Of those, crimes of passion stayed steady at around 130 annually. In a surprising development, this means people are now as likely to be killed by a complete stranger as by their husband, wife, lover or a former partner.

Other killings by people who know their victim include 30 a year by parents on children and 22 by children on parents. Most “known” killers — 213 a year — are friends, acquaintances or relatives beyond the nuclear family.

The increase in stranger homicide chimes with research by Manuel Eisner, deputy director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, who has found that young men are increasingly being killed by strangers. His findings have been linked to young male group behaviour and leisure patterns.

Dr Eisner told The Times that the increase “is one of the best available indicators of serious violence in public space.”

Officials define a stranger killing as one where “the principal subject is not known to the victim”.

The figures do not include the 52 people who were killed in the July 7 attacks by suicide bombers in 2005 nor the victims of the mass murderer, Dr Harold Shipman.

Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College, London, said: “We have seen an increase in homicide since the mid-1990s and I think it is a reasonable argument that this shows there is a lot of hidden violence which is potentially going on but is not being picked up in the statistics.”

He added: “What we know about the long-term trends in homicide is that the risk of being a victim of homicide in the bottom 10 per cent of society has gone up an awful lot and the risk at the top end has fallen.

“There is a lot of violence about that is not officially recognised by government statistics. For every homicide there will have been many violent incidents that may have led to homicide if it hadn’t been for intervening factors,” he said.

The geographical pattern of stranger killings reinforces the findings of criminologists that gun crime is unlikely to be responsible for the rise.

Greater Manchester has seen a rapid fall in stranger killings, attributed to a reduction in firearms crime, possibly due to the introduction of a five-year minimum sentence for possession. Nottinghamshire, notorious nationally for gun crime, has a low overall toll of stranger killings.

Only 99 people were killed by strangers in the year Labour took office. Figures show a steadily rising trend reaching 130 such homicides last year. The total body count of stranger killings in Labour’s first eight years is 903.

Devon & Cornwall has seen the largest rise. While there was only one stranger killing, or none, a year in the late 1990s, there have been 26 in the past five years. Sharp but smaller rises can also be seen in Dorset, Avon & Somerset and Gloucestershire.

Greater London saw a doubling from 57 in Labour’s first four years to 101 in the next four. Greater Manchester’s toll has tumbled from a peak of 37 in 1999-2000, to only 5 and 7 stranger killings in the past two years respectively.

Nottinghamshire is relatively safer. The force suffers few stranger killings, peaking at 6 in 1999-2000 and falling to just one last year.

Killings by strangers rise a third in 10 years, Ts, 27.12.2006,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2519548,00.html

Tragic toll of fights

and petty crime that cost lives

December 27, 2006
The Times
Dominic Kennedy

Street violence, burglaries and an 'excuse culture' are being blamed for the rise in victims who are killed by strangers

Fighting was to blame for more of the random killings in the West Country than knives and guns, according to prosecutors.

Roger Coe-Salazar, the chief Crown prosecutor for Devon & Cornwall, studied the recent increase in homicides carried out by strangers, and found that residents appeared to be in most danger of being killed by local young men than drug gangs or other violent criminals.

There have been 26 random killings in the region in the past five years, more than in Merseyside, causing retired officers to return to work and the force’s serious crimes investigations team to be tripled in size in an attempt to solve the murders.

Mr Coe-Salazar, a former defence barrister, and his team have achieved a 100 per cent conviction rate for the killers, all of whom were men. Most were involved in street fights, though three cases involved sex attacks and two of them involved robbery.

Mr Coe-Salazar said: “Most of these stranger murders tend to be petty crime got out of hand — silly fights, bungled amateur burglaries and just stupid behaviour that has just gone too far.

“I sound like some old uncle — I’m just in my forties — I just get a feeling there is a lack of respect. There’s also a growing excuse culture, that it’s always somebody else’s fault where somebody has gone off the rails.

“There’s a need to blame the Government and State for creating the problem rather than people taking ownership of their own lives.”

Only two people in the area had died at the hands of strangers in the final three years of the last century.

According to news reports, the stranger killings have been spread evenly throughout the ports, coastal area and inland country of the two counties. The victims of the most notorious murderers were Graham and Carol Fisher. Lee Firkins, 31, and his brother Robert, 33, from Somerset, seeing themselves as the new Kray twins, terrorised locals on a robbing spree around Cornwall.

The Fishers were about to settle down to tea in front of the television at home in Wadebridge when the balaclava-clad brothers burst in, then shot and battered them to death.

In response to questions from The Times, the Crown Prosecution Service analysed the area’s stranger killings. While the most high-profile random murders have involved visitors to the peninsula such as the Firkins brothers, prosecutors discovered that most of the killers were locals.

There is no sign of a knife culture to blame. Nor were these the results of drug gangsters fighting over turf. Mr Coe-Salazar said that knives had been used in a number of the cases, as had sawn-off shotguns and fist fighting, in equal measure.

The first of the killings was in 2001, when the naked body of Dawn Bresland was discovered in an alley in Plymouth, Described by friends as a fun-loving divorcée nicknamed “Dallas Dawn”, she had been strangled by a convicted rapist using her handbag strap.

Two of the killings, in separate towns, involved young men using their cars to murder strangers. Neil Pearson was fatally hit in Plymouth by a driver high on alcohol, cannabis and a heroin substitute, who decided to mount the pavement and run over him “for fun”.

Philip Cousins, 33, a pedestrian in a narrow road in Crediton, found himself blocking the path of a motorist who had drunk a large quantity of wine. The driver accelerated at Mr Cousins, knocked him down, drove over him forwards and in reverse, and dragged his body 35 yards.

Mr Cousins suffered 32 injuries, including a broken skull, broken ribs and two tyre marks from his groin to his head.

Alan Allanson was killed for gatecrashing a party in Torquay. The host, a man with 34 previous convictions including some for serious violence, murdered him within half an hour of his arrival, kicking him so viciously that his nosebone was severed from his skull.

Charlotte Pinkney, 16, disappeared after being driven from a party in Ilfracombe by a 24-year-old scaffolder who wanted to have sex with her. He was convicted of murdering her although no body has been found. Alicia Eborne, 18, was killed when she was the lone passenger on a bus in Plymouth and refused the driver’s sexual advances. Flo Seccombe, 71, was sleeping rough in a bus station in Plymouth when a 17-year-old mentally disturbed boy, who was high on alcohol, cannabis and amphetamines, stabbed her in the neck.

Patrick Parkes remonstrated with a 23-year-old man in Fowey who threw a glass; the killer punched him fatally to the ground and was convicted of manslaughter. Alan Edge was killed in Falmouth by a man in a drunken rage, also convicted of manslaughter.

Matthew Stiling, a football club captain, was stabbed through the heart with a sword in the street after an argument in a Sidmouth club. George Jenkin, 83, was battered to death by two young burglars using a 25lb rock at his home in Penzance.

The Metropolitan Police dealt with 57 stranger killings in the first four years of Labour’s rule, a toll that almost doubled to 101 cases over the next four years, when the total number of homicides across the capital was falling.

Scotland Yard speculated that the rise might be due to improvements in gathering information about murder suspects.

A spokesman said: “The apparent jump in the number of stranger murders shown in the Home Office statistics from before 2000-01 to those in 2001-02 and after could be put down to better analysis, meaning we can attribute with greater accuracy a classification for a murder.

“Better analysis allows us to gain a clearer understanding of the factors and inform future murder investigations. Findings from the reviews are also fed into future policing strategy decisions.”

Grim Death

“Stranger killings” include

Commercial, business or professional relationship, where the victim was killed in the course of work, eg, Marian Bates, shot dead in her jeweller’s shop

Commercial, business or professional relationship, where the suspect killed a customer or client in the course of work, eg, Harold Shipman, GP who murdered his patients

Police officer, prison officer killed in the courseof duty, eg, PC Sharon Beshenivsky, shot dead by robbers

Terrorist killing, contract killing or other

Source Home Office/The Times

Tragic toll of fights and petty crime that cost lives, Ts, 27.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2519645,00.html

Imagination

the key weapon in cutting murders

December 27, 2006
The Times 
Dominic Kennedy

By the turn of the century, the most vivid popular image of Manchester was a city swamped by a tide of gangland shootings.

Headline writers swapped its summer-of-love nickname Madchester for the more gruesome Gunchester. Of the 88 stranger killings in England and Wales in 1999-2000, nearly half took place on Greater Manchester Police’s patch.

Far from giving up hope, Manchester has adopted a robust and imaginative series of responses to its crimewave. The results have been spectacular. In the past two years stranger killings fell to five and seven respectively.

Some of the initiatives involve traditional police work to take known criminals out of circulation or voluntary grassroots attempts to lure neighbourhood youths away from guns and gangs.

There is an intriguing parallel with New York. The words “zero tolerance”, implying a crackdown on petty offences to achieve a knock-on reduction in major crime, spring quickly to the lips of Manchester’s policymakers. This summer the term was used for a clampdown on quad bikes.

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Jones attributed much of the fall in stranger killings to Greater Manchester’s creative fight against gun gangs.

“We launched various operations to concentrate on reducing the number of fatal shootings because they are often the most difficult of crimes to investigate,” he told The Times. “You are never sure who is the person behind the gun.

“One of the things we have done is to very much concentrate on the people we consider to be the most dangerous of individuals and the activities they have engaged in.

“We have been mapping the organised criminal groups who we believe have access to firearms and are willing to use them. We have tried to improve intelligence through use of dedicated covert officers who are able to give us information.”

The feared Pitt Bull Crew was disrupted by the jailing of its founder, Thomas Pitt, for murdering a member of a rival gang in a gun attack on four men in 2000. The Crew used machineguns to protect their empire and attack rivals.

In the old days, when a murder took place in Greater Manchester the police would scratch around trying to find officers to investigate. Now a dedicated team of people with the necessary skills has been established. Few killings go unsolved. “We don’t get in a position of having serial killers,” Mr Jones said. “The detection rate for homicide has increased.”

The sex offenders register is used to reduce the risk of sex killings. “We have put a lot of effort into how we manage sex offenders and violent criminals so we can concentrate on the people most likely to kill,” Mr Jones said.

Beyond the police force, Greater Manchester’s health services, including paramedics, have cultivated the skills needed to save lives by better treatment of gun wounds. “We get very good quality first-aid medical attention at the scene of the shooting,” Mr Jones said.

Since the Government introduced a minimum five-year sentence for possessing firearms, local criminals use replica weapons, which are less accurate, and homemade ammunition. “Where people would probably have died from being shot, they are not because of crap ammunition and weaponry,” Mr Jones said.

Plastic cups have replaced glass in high-risk venues, an idea borrowed from sports stadiums. Officers liaise with bouncers. When people pour out of drinking dens, the police are there to prevent scraps. Closed-circuit cameras have been positioned in clubland.

When the police learn that a gangster has threatened to kill a rival in a drug turf war, officers go to the target and warn him. “We offer people advice and personal protection, which is a good way of reducing risk,” Mr Jones said.

The police imaginatively use their powers to tackle crime. “We do the old Eliot Ness [Al Capone’s Chicago nemesis who brought down the gangster for tax evasion]; we’ll use what powers we have. If we map criminals we will do them for disqualified driving just to disrupt them.”

The New York Times has compared Michael Todd, Greater Manchester’s Chief Constable, to William Bratton, the former Commissioner of New York. Mr Bratton put into action the “broken windows” theory. If nobody bothers to repair smashed glass, the idea goes, criminals infer that they are free to move into an area and a downward spiral of crime begins.

Greater Manchester has adopted Mr Bratton’s philosophy of being “incredibly performance focused”, Mr Jones said. “It’s about a chief holding all the divisional and branch commanders to account every 28 days. It’s very much focusing everybody.”

Imagination the key weapon in cutting murders, Ts, 27.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2519646,00.html

Lethal side of living the good life

December 27, 2006
The Times 
Richard Ford: Analysis

One message often repeated in the Home Office is that when the good times roll, violent crime is likely to rise.

A booming economy means that people are more likely to be out enjoying themselves in clubs and bars than during straitened economic times. And when a lot of people are out on the streets, particularly under the influence of drugs or alcohol, there are more opportunities for violence to erupt.

Some of the increase in serious wounding may be a result of better police recording but criminologists and some judges believe that offenders are becoming more violent.

David Wilson, Professor of Criminology at the University of Central England, said that he was unsure whether Britain was becoming more violent. But he said that the rebranding of inner cities as places where young people should go to have a good time had increased enormously the potential for stranger violence.

“There are more young people in town centres late into the evening and there is therefore much greater opportunity for stranger violence,” he said. He added that alcohol must be to blame for some of the rise in violence on the streets.

“What is happening at the moment is the young people are drinking on an unprecedented scale in inner cities and this is causing problems in all kinds of ways for the police.”

A study in Britain found that alcohol is a factor in just over half of murders by men of men. The group at the highest risk of murder is babies under the age of 1, followed by men aged 21.

Official figures for violent crime may mislead the public because the overall definition includes 1.05 million offences that involve no injury to the victim, but homicide statistics are reliable. There are now more than double the number of homicides — murder, manslaughter and infanticide — than when hanging was abolished, in 1965. Homicides have risen from 734 in 1997 to 839 in 2004-05.

The official figures for serious wounding tell a similar story. They have increased from 12,531 in 1997 to a peak of 19,584 in 2004-05 before falling to 18,825 in 2005-06.

Daniel Dorling, of Sheffield University, found that a quarter of all murders were of men aged 17-32. His research revealed that between 1981 and 2001, the murder rate for men aged 20-24 had doubled. However, the rise had been concentrated almost exclusively in men living in the poorest areas.

    Lethal side of living the good life, Ts, 27.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2519647,00.html

He'll be loving the attention

Sunday, 24th Dec 2006
The News of the World
By Georgina Dickinson

THE HEARTBROKEN elderly mum of Steve Wright believes her confused son is LAPPING UP the notoriety of being a suspected serial killer.

Collapsing in tears, Patricia Wright, 67, revealed: "Steve is normally a bit withdrawn. I think now he is enjoying all the attention without realising the seriousness of it all.

"All of a sudden he is like a star. Everybody is talking about him and he's on the news. He doesn't understand how terrible this is."

But Patricia, who fled a violent marriage and moved to the United States when Wright was still a teenager, is convinced her son is innocent of the murders of five Ipswich prostitutes.

She said: "This is a serial killer, a monster. I don't think Steve is smart enough to be a serial killer and cover his tracks."

Patricia sobbed as she spoke exclusively to the News of the World at her home on America's East Coast hours after forklift driver Wright, 48, appeared in court charged with the Suffolk Strangler murders. She recalled how he:


SUFFERED a troubled childhood at the hands of his disciplinarian father Conrad, an RAF corporal.
HELD his breath until he passed out if he feared a smack from his strict dad.
ENJOYED having a string of girlfriends that he aways treated like princesses.
SAVED stray animals as a child and always looked after them.
TURNED against her under his father's influence after the divorce.
FELL out with her in a drunken, four-letter rage the last time they met.
Shattered Patricia told how she has been weeping ever since learning of her son's arrest.

She said: "My daughter Jeanette called and told me that they were questioning Steve for the five prostitutes that had been murdered. I said, ‘Oh my God'.

"Then I turned on the TV and there it was. I've been watching the news ever since. I have been crying for about three days. It's so unbelievable. I was worse when they actually charged him...then the floodgates really opened.

"Steve couldn't do anything like that. I don't believe he did it, but if he did, he needs help. It's not something a sane person does and he seemed pretty sane to me."

Retired veterinary nurse Patricia, who now lives with second husband Ron, added: "My heart and my prayers go out to the families of these young girls who did not deserve to die the way they did."

Patricia married Wright's father Conrad, an RAF corporal, soon after she got pregnant aged 16 in 1956. They had children David, now 49, Steve, 48, Tina, 47, and Jeanette, 45.

She says her second son was the apple of her eye. But he had a rough upbringing at the hands of his dad as they lived on RAF bases across the world before finally settling in Suffolk.

Patricia said: "Steve was shy — especially in a crowd — but he was such a love when he was a kid.

"He loved animals. One time in Singapore he and his brother brought home a snake. Then it was a turtle and then a puppy from the beach.

"I never saw any violence there. He definitely didn't have it in him when he was a little boy."

But her marriage to Conrad turned into a fiery one. She recalled: "As we went to Malta and then to Singapore the marriage became increasingly violent.

"Steve was withdrawn. He was afraid of his strict dad if I wasn't there. He would actually hold his breath and pass out if he thought his dad was going to smack him."

The family returned from the Far East and Patricia made the decision to get out. She intended to take the children too.

But when they arrived in Ipswich she says her husband grabbed their sons and told her: "You're not getting the boys."

Patricia was forced to abandon her children and move into a bedsit.

She said: "I went to the welfare people and tried to get my children back. But they wouldn't let me have them because I was living in one room.

"Conrad poisoned the children against me. He said I left them because I didn't care.

"I wrote a letter to him asking to be allowed to visit them but he wouldn't let me."

Patricia moved to the USA and didn't see any of her children again for more than 15 years.

But she was reunited with twice-married Wright when she visited him during Christmas 1992 at the pub he was running.

She recalled: "At first Steve was great. We talked a lot and we were fine. He lived above the pub on the outskirts of London and we stayed with him. He had a baby then.

"He had the prettiest hair still and he had a lovely smile. Then he changed completely before I went to the airport.

"When I got home he left this terrible message on my phone. He was drunk and I could hardly understand very much. It was F this and F that.

"If he could say those terrible things he obviously didn't want anything to do with me."

In another insight into her son's life, Patricia added: "Steve's had a rotten life but he doesn't go around killing people. I don't believe he would do that. He was never cruel.

"He didn't have any problems getting girlfriends. He always seemed very nice to them. But he never seemed able to stay with one woman."

Former QE2 steward Wright, who was arrested on Tuesday, is being held at London's Belmarsh prison in the same suite which once housed Soham murderer Ian Huntley.

He is accused of killing prostitutes Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24. whose naked bodies were found dumped on the outskirts of Ipswich.

Patricia is hoping to get a message to him in his cell. She sobbed: "I want to tell him I am here if he needs me.

"I'd tell him I don't believe he did what they are saying. I'm praying for him."

Additional reporting: CHRIS TATE

    He'll be loving the attention, NoW, 24.12.2006, http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news1.shtml

Forklift truck driver

remanded in custody

on charges of murdering

five Ipswich prostitutes

· Former QE2 steward Steve Wright does not seek bail
· Lawyer predicts 'one of UK's most serious cases'

Saturday December 23, 2006
Guardian
Karen McVeigh and Audrey Gillan

The door to the glass-panelled dock of Ipswich magistrates court opened at 10.10am yesterday to reveal a balding, grey-haired man dressed in a dark suit and tie. Steve Wright, 48, the man accused of murdering five women in quick succession, stood composed and still, his hands clasped in front of him.

In a courtroom packed with around 50 journalists, Mr Wright spoke quietly by answering "Yes" when asked by the clerk to confirm his name, date of birth and address.

He was told that he is charged with the murders of Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, all of whom worked as prostitutes in the town.

Their bodies were dumped at various locations near the Suffolk town over a period of 10 days.

Mr Wright, a forklift truck driver and former QE2 steward, looked across at the court bench as details of the case against him were briefly outlined. He was flanked by two police officers throughout the eight-minute hearing.

Paul Osler, representing Mr Wright, said his client would not be seeking bail. He was remanded in custody to appear at the town's crown court on January 2.

Speaking after the hearing, the solicitor, appointed to represent Mr Wright from a duty roster, said: "Anybody accused of these offences is going to be distressed by the mere fact of the accusation. Given those circumstances he is bearing up well."

Mr Osler said that his client had been charged at 10pm on Thursday night, 15 minutes before police and the Crown Prosecution Service held a press conference to announce that one man had been charged and another had been released on bail. Mr Wright had "wanted to appear smartly dressed in court" and had been bought a suit, tie, shirt and shoes by police.

Media coverage of the detention of Mr Wright and Tom Stephens, 37, who was arrested on Monday morning at his home in Felixstowe and released on Thursday night, has caused concern over the possible prejudice of a trial.

Mr Osler said the defence team would analyse all coverage and would consider if "the prosecution has become an abuse of process because there can no longer be a fair trial".

A QC and a barrister would be appointed to represent Mr Wright in January in what was going to be "one of the most serious crown court cases in UK history". The solicitor said that he was not in a position to discuss what his client would be pleading to the charges.

Mr Wright was arrested on Tuesday in a pre-dawn raid at his home on London Road, at the edge of Ipswich's red light district, following the series of killings which occurred at a speed that shocked investigating officers.

The naked body of Ms Adams was the first to be found, on December 2 in a brook at Hintlesham, Suffolk. She had last been seen on November 15. Ms Nicol was the next woman to be found, having disappeared on October 30. Her body was also discovered in the same fast-flowing waterway at Copdock Mill, not far from the site where Ms Adams was found.

On December 10 the body of Ms Alderton was located in woodland at Nacton, outside Ipswich. She had been strangled. She had a son and was three months pregnant.

Two days later Ms Clennell, a mother of three, was uncovered at Levington, a village five miles from Ipswich. Although aware that two of her friends had been killed, she had felt compelled to return to the streets because of her drug addiction, the same habit that afflicted all the dead women. She died as a result of "compression to the neck".

The fifth victim, Ms Nicholls, also a mother, was found within an hour at the same location. All the women were naked and none had been killed where their remains were discovered. It is still unclear how three of them died.

Friends of some of the women had gathered to greet the convoy of police vehicles when it arrived at the court at 9.30am.

Members of the public jostled with television crews, photographers and reporters at a security cordon in attempting to catch a glimpse of Mr Wright as he was driven into the red-brick court building.

Amanda Smith, 33, who briefly lived in the same guesthouse as Ms Nicholls, said: "I knew her for a couple of weeks. I used to give her clothes and she used to paint my little girl's nails. She always had a big smile on her face. I was gutted when I heard what happened."

    Forklift truck driver remanded in custody on charges of murdering five Ipswich prostitutes, G, 23.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1978082,00.html

10.45am

Man remanded over Ipswich murders

Friday December 22, 2006
Staff and agencies
Guardian Unlimited

A lorry driver charged with the murder of five women who worked as prostitutes in the red light area of Ipswich appeared before magistrates today.

Police drove 48-year-old Steven Wright, of London Road, Ipswich, to the rear entrance of the Suffolk town's magistrates court at 9.30am.

Half an hour later, he appeared in court three, where allegations that he killed Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 25, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24 and Annette Nicholls, 29, were put to him.

Mr Wright, wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt and a blue striped tie, showed no reaction as the charges were read out during the five-minute hearing. Flanked by three police officers, he spoke only to confirm his name, address and date of birth.

Robert Sadd, prosecuting, gave a brief outline of the case to magistrates Peter West, Renu Mandal and Mark Shackell.

Paul Osler, Mr Wright's solicitor, told the court he was not making any application for bail. Mr Wright was remanded in custody until January 2, when he will appear at Ipswich crown court.

"He is bearing up well," Mr Osler said prior to the hearing. "Of course anybody accused of these sorts of offences is going to experience trauma, but he is bearing up well.

"Anything to do with the case, facts and evidence is for the courtroom. I would remind everybody about the presumption of innocence."

Mr Wright, a former steward on the QE2, was charged last night after being arrested at his home, in the heart of the red light district, at 5am on Tuesday. He has been kept in custody at an unnamed police station for the past three days.

Another man, 37-year-old Tom Stephens, arrested on Monday at his home near Felixstowe, Suffolk, was released on police bail last night.

"There have been significant ongoing inquiries and interviews during the period that these men have been in custody," Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull told a press conference late yesterday.

Michael Crimp, a senior prosecutor for the Suffolk Crown Prosecution Service, reminded journalists they should exercise care in reporting the case.

"Steven Wright stands accused of these offences and has a right to a fair trial before a jury," he said. "It is extremely important that there should be responsible media reporting which should not prejudice the due process of law."

The naked body of Ms Adams, the first victim to be found, was discovered on December 2 in a brook at Hintlesham, Suffolk. She had last been seen in Ipswich's red light area on November 15.

Ms Nicol was the next woman to be found, having disappeared on October 30. Her body was discovered in the same waterway at nearby Copdock Mill.

On December 10, Ms Alderton, who was three months pregnant, was found dead in woodland at Nacton, outside Ipswich. She had been strangled.

Two days later, Ms Clennell's body was found at Levington, a village five miles from Ipswich. She died as a result of "compression to the neck". The body of Ms Nicholls, the fifth victim, was found at the same location within an hour.

    Man remanded over Ipswich murders, G, 22.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1977700,00.html

Man charged

with murder of Suffolk sex workers

Friday December 22, 2006
Guardian
Karen McVeigh and Audrey Gillan

Police last night charged a man with the murder of five young women who worked as prostitutes in Ipswich's red light district. Steven Wright, 48, will appear this morning at Ipswich magistrate's court, charged with the murder of Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 24, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24 and Annette Nicholls, 29.

Mr Wright, a lorry driver, was arrested at his home in the heart of Ipswich's red light district on Tuesday at 5am. Another man, Tom Stephens, 37, who was arrested on Monday at his home near Felixstowe, was released last night on police bail.

"There have been significant ongoing inquiries and interviews during the period that these men have been in custody," said Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull.

Michael Crimp, a senior prosecutor for Suffolk Crown Prosecution Service, said his team believed there was "sufficient evidence" to charge Mr Wright with murder. He reminded the gathered journalists that they should exercise care in reporting the case. "Steven Wright stands accused of these offences and has a right to a fair trial before a jury," he said.

"It is extremely important that there should be responsible media reporting which should not prejudice the due process of law."

The series of murders were conducted at a rate unprecedented in modern British criminal history. The naked body of Ms Adams was the first to be found on December 2 in a brook at Hintlesham, Suffolk, she had been last seen in Ipswich's red light area on November 15.

Ms Nicol was the next woman to be found, having disappeared on October 30. Her body was also discovered in the same fast-flowing waterway at Copdock Mill, not far from the site where fellow sex worker Ms Adams was found.

On December 10, Ms Alderton, who was three months pregnant was found dead in woodland at Nacton, outside Ipswich. She had been strangled.

Two days later, Ms Clennell was found at Levington, a village five miles from Ipswich. Aware that two of her friends had been killed, she felt compelled to return to the streets because of her drug addiction, the same habit that afflicted all the women who were killed. She died as a result of "compression to the neck". The fifth victim, Ms Nicholls was found within an hour at the same location.

None of the women were killed at the locations where their bodies were discovered and it is unclear how three of them died.

    Man charged with murder of Suffolk sex workers, G, 22.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1977585,00.html

'Accused has a right

to a fair trial before a jury'

· Suffolk prosecutor warns media after man charged
· Goldsmith's concern is echoed at press briefing

Friday December 22, 2006
Guardian
Audrey Gillan and Karen McVeigh

A senior prosecutor added his voice to concern over media coverage of the Suffolk killings last night as detectives charged a suspect with all five murders.

Police officers who had been questioning two men all week convened a press conference to announce that Steven Wright, a 48-year-old lorry driver and former QE2 steward, had been charged with murdering the five women.

Michael Crimp, a senior prosecutor for the Suffolk Crown Prosecution Service, which decided there was enough evidence to bring charges against Mr Wright, warned against media coverage that might jeopardise the suspect's right to a fair trial.

Echoing concerns expressed earlier by the government's chief law officer, Lord Goldsmith, Mr Crimp called for responsible reporting of the case. Police had earlier complained that some media coverage was hindering their investigation.

"At this time I would like to remind you of the need to take care in reporting the events surrounding this case," Mr Crimp said. "Steven Wright stands accused of these offences and has a right to a fair trial before a jury. It is extremely important that there should be responsible media reporting which should not prejudice the due process of law."

Hundreds of journalists have descended on Ipswich following the discovery of the bodies of the women, all of whom worked as prostitutes in the town's red light area. Mr Wright and another suspect, Tom Stephens, who was released without charge last night on police bail, have been named and pictured in newspapers, along with features on their backgrounds. Last night, police refused to name Mr Stephens.

One of the concerns raised by Lord Goldsmith is that some of the people interviewed by the press could be potential witnesses. "Editors must avoid the publication of materials which may impede or prejudice the complex and ongoing investigations by the police and avoid the risk of prejudicing potential prosecutions or prejudging their outcome," he said in a statement earlier yesterday, adding that speculation or information relating to the activities or connections of suspects should be avoided.

Suffolk police have been faced with a daunting array of problems as they gather evidence to identify the killer of Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 25, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.

More than 500 officers have been drafted in for the inquiry. So far, 31 forces have been called upon to bring their expertise to the investigation, and a team of five investigating officers - one for each of the dead women - has pored over the available evidence on the killings.

Sifting evidence has proved to be fraught with difficulties. The women who died may have seen several men each night and may have been driven away from the district to other places.

Examining the forensic evidence was complicated because, due to the nature of the women's work, DNA from a number of men may have been found on their bodies and at the places where they were dumped.

Mr Stephens had to be charged or released by 7.30am today, while Mr Wright had to be charged or released by 5am tomorrow.

    'Accused has a right to a fair trial before a jury', G, 22.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1977381,00.html
 

Remember Colin Stagg

Media antics in Ipswich risk not just contempt of court
but contempt for suspects' future lives

Friday December 22, 2006
The Guardian
Mark Lawson

Some years ago, while driving in the middle of the night through a county in which a series of rapes had occurred, I was tuned to local radio for traffic news when a phone-in presenter suddenly exclaimed: "Phew! Women will sleep easier in their beds now because we've just heard that the police have got him! They've caught the rapist!"

The hostess then handed over to a crime reporter at police HQ, who, audibly swallowing hard, interjected: "We are, of course, only reporting at this stage that a suspect has been arrested. He has not, of course, yet been charged and there is no proof of any wrongdoing."

Relieved text messages were presumably soon sent to the man on the scene for saving the night and keeping the managing editor out of jail for contempt of court. But that was a temporary victory for law and responsible reporting. The "Phew! They've got him!" school of journalism seems to have triumphed in much of the reporting of the five Suffolk murders.

Although they were merely participating in a process that does not inevitably lead to charges, the characters, habits and deeply personal experiences of two men arrested have been published and discussed at a level that - even two years ago - would only have followed conviction and imprisonment. The voice of one man was broadcast after his arrest on the 6pm BBC1 news, in an interview recorded for background the previous week.

I'm not advocating a return to the time when the reporting of arrests would be limited to the fact that "a 48-year-old man is helping the police with their inquiries". Fragmentation and democratisation of the media make anonymity of suspects impossible. Even if the press and broadcasters observed the old omerta imposed by the attorney general, a neighbour or relative of the arrested would be able, without practical censure, to post their identity on a website or blog.

Indeed the internet is central to this crisis in crime investigation. The new liberties being taken in reporting on suspects are not primarily driven by journalistic irresponsibility but by the vastly increased availability of information.

As was demonstrated by this week's cases, the average Briton now leaves a massive data footprint; one of the Suffolk suspects had both a personal website and a MySpace.com entry. Relatives, friends and former wives were immediately traceable through school reunion and directory-information sites. People involved in public controversies now, like crashed planes, leave a computer trace - a personal black box - showing everything that led them there. In a culture in which people so willingly surrender so much privacy, it's hard to impose anonymity when emergency circumstances occur.

Prominent lawyers and journalists argue that this visibility of the not-yet-guilty doesn't matter. The slowness of the British legal system means that, if suspects become defendants, their trials will occur at least a year after the publicity splurge, by which time what was read or seen will either have been forgotten or should be ignorable.

This reassuring answer, though, is addressing the wrong question. What is at issue in the publicising of suspects is not contempt of court but contempt for future life. Two words should be written on the cover of the notebook of every editor and reporter covering the Suffolk killings. They are Colin Stagg.

For more than a decade, he was generally assumed in media coverage to be guilty of a gruesome murder on Wimbledon Common, despite the inconvenient failure of any charges to stick. By the time he was cleared of involvement, the media hunting of the aptly named Stagg had caused great pyschological cost to him, and the financial cost to the taxpayer of compensation.

Imagine that either of the men arrested in Suffolk is eventually released without charge. He would become another Stagg, already convicted in the court of public no-appeal of being an oddball, an imperfect partner, somebody whose lifestyle throws up so much smoke that there really must be some fire there somewhere, mustn't there? - although officially he would be, of course, utterly innocent.

Perhaps, as Colin Stagg did, he would give interviews or, the technology having advanced since Stagg's case, blog or webcast his innocence, seeking to regain his reputations by the ruinous method of exposing it to further scrutiny.

The biggest worry now is that any charges that ensue will be seen as vindicating the post-arrest coverage. But every case is different, and the change in reporting rules will eventually ensure another Stagg elsewhere.

These are not simple issues, a matter of goody-goody journalists versus bad ones. The legal system and the media need new procedures to deal with a culture of information-trail and self-publicising. But a situation in which off-the-record interviews are broadcast, and private incidents are emblazoned on the front pages, assumes that suspects have no rights at all: a Guantánamo Bay attitude that will one day, if not now, have terrible consequences.

    Remember Colin Stagg, G, 22.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1977581,00.html

Strangler suspect No2 charged

By JOHN TROUP
The Sun
DECEMBER 22, 2006

TRUCKER Steve Wright was charged last night with the Suffolk Strangler murders of five prostitutes.

Wright, 48, will appear before magistrates today in Ipswich.

A second suspect — 37-year-old Tom Stephens — was freed on bail yesterday evening. He had been arrested on Monday.

Wright is accused of killing Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24. Their naked bodies were found dumped on the outskirts of Ipswich.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull announced the charges at a press conference at Suffolk Police HQ at 10.15 last night.

He said: “There have been significant ongoing inquiries and interviews during the period these men have been in custody.

“As a result of these inquiries, the 37-year-old man from Trimley was this evening released on police bail.

“The second man, Steven Wright from Ipswich, has been charged with the murder of all five women.”

Father-of-three Wright, a former steward on the QE2 liner, was arrested at his flat in the red light district of Ipswich on Tuesday. Police had powers to detain him until tomorrow unless he was charged.

Michael Crimp, senior prosecutor for Suffolk Crown Prosecution Service, said last night: “We have been carefully examining and assessing the evidence in order to come to a charging decision at the earliest possible opportunity.

“This evening we have made the decision there is sufficient evidence and authorised that Steven Wright should be charged with the murder of Tania Nicol, Gemma Adams, Anneli Alderton, Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell.

“Mr Wright will be kept in custody to appear before Ipswich Magistrates’ Court tomorrow.”

    Strangler suspect No2 charged, S, 22.12.2006, http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006590396,00.html

Midday

Welsh farm siege ends

as two are arrested

Thursday December 21, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matt Weaver and agencies

An overnight siege at a Welsh farmhouse after a row over a fence got out of hand ended peacefully after two men were arrested today.

Police in bulletproof vests surrounded the farm near Tregaron, west Wales, yesterday afternoon after reports that shots had been fired. A police helicopter hovered over the scene, and roads in the surrounding area were closed.

However, two men gave themselves up today after their statements on a dispute with Ceredigion County council about a fence were read out on a local radio station.

Radio Ceredigion agreed to broadcast a message from one of the men at 8.04am. The message, which criticised the council, said a judge should have handled the dispute.

The row came to a head yesterday when council workers tried to remove a section of fence that the farm's owners had repeatedly refused to take down.

A trained negotiator was brought in and contact with the two men was maintained throughout the night. The deadlock was broken soon after the message was read out.

"As a result of continued negotiations with the people in the premises, police can confirm that two males have been arrested and are in police custody," A Dyfed Powys police spokeswoman said.

"The investigation into the incident is continuing and the premises is currently being searched. Police are pleased the incident has been brought to a safe and successful conclusion."

Eifion Williams, the manager of Radio Ceredigion, said the station was "pleased to have played our part".

However, after the message was broadcast, Tommo - the radio presenter Andrew Paul Thomas - said: "Personally, I think that the whole situation is a waste of time and money.

"It is unbelievable that this is all basically over a fence in a one dog community - it's all so petty. We have had people ringing in, bemused by the fact that roads in the area have been closed overnight."

He added that he had refrained from criticising the smallholders on air for fear of making the dispute worse.

A Ceredigion County council spokeswoman said: "Council workers had commenced action to remove a row of posts and fencing material which had been erected without permission.

"The existence of the fence had been the subject of complaints by members of the public. The landowner had therefore been required to remove the obstruction following service.

"Unfortunately, however, the landowner had failed to remove the fence, and the council officers were carrying out work in default."

    Welsh farm siege ends as two are arrested, G, 21.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1976948,00.html

4pm

Reports of shots fired at Welsh farm

Wednesday December 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke and agencies

Police set up a wide exclusion zone around a rural Welsh farm today after receiving reports of shots being fired.

There were suggestions - unconfirmed by police - that a siege was under way and cars had been set alight at the farm or smallholding near Llangeitho, near Tregaron, in Ceredigion, west Wales.

A county council spokeswoman said the incident began after its workers were sent to take down illegal fencing and were threatened by a landowner.

Witnesses said they heard shots fired and there was a smell of burning in Llangeitho, around two miles away, the BBC reported.

Jane Williams, the landlady of the Three Horseshoes pub in Llangeitho, told Guardian Unlimited that police had closed the road out of the village, heading north-west towards Aberystwyth.

"We understand there is something going on at a farm but we don't know which because the roads are closed. There are stories of two police cars being set alight and also that a siege is taking place," she said.

A Dyfed-Powys police spokeswoman confirmed officers were in the area and a force helicopter had been deployed to the scene but offered no further details.

A Ceredigion county council spokeswoman said: "An incident took place near Llangeitho this morning when council officers were threatened and the private vehicle of one of the officers was damaged.

"The situation is being controlled by the police and there is no current risk to members of the public or council officers.

"Council workers had commenced action to remove a row of posts and fencing material which had been erected without permission along the carriageway of the B4578 by an adjoining landowner.

"The existence of the fence had been the subject of complaints by members of the public for some time. The adjoining landowner had therefore been required to remove the obstruction, following service of a notice under the Highways Act 1980.

"Unfortunately, however, the landowner had failed to remove the fence and the council officers were now carrying out work in default."

Several marked and unmarked police vehicles were understood to have been deployed to the area.

BBC News 24 reported that police cars had been told to turn their sirens off as they approached the scene.

Local farmer Ieuan Jones said: "We can see a helicopter on top of the hill. It has been there since about 12 [noon]."

John Emrys Davies, who lives nearby, said: "There are fire engines, ambulances and quite a few police [at the scene]. They have been there since before midday. The helicopter is there as well."

He said he saw plumes of smoke coming from the smallholding earlier this morning.

Fire and ambulance services for the area confirmed they were at the scene and on standby.

A spokesman for the ambulance service said: "The police have surrounded a house, but we have not been involved yet. We are at a rendezvous point nearby."

Another eyewitness she had seen the helicopter in the area most of the day and traffic had been stopped. There was a heavy police presence near the village with officers wearing bulletproof vests, she said.

Llangeitho is in a rural area, 15 miles south-east of Aberystwyth.

    Reports of shots fired at Welsh farm, G, 20.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1976178,00.html

11am

Inquests open into Suffolk murders

Wednesday December 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke and agencies

Information from the public is still needed by police investigating the murders of five women working as prostitutes in Ipswich, a coroner said today, as police continued to question two suspects and search their homes.

The Greater Suffolk coroner, Peter Dean, made the plea at Ipswich crown court as he opened inquests into the deaths of Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24.

"We would still ask anyone who may have any information which may assist these officers to contact the police," he said as he paid tribute to the efforts of police working on the investigation.

Dr Dean told the hearing that the women died in "tragic and appalling circumstances" and sent his condolences to the victims' families, who were not present at today's hearing.

Before adjourning the inquest for a full hearing at a later date, Dr Dean was told brief details of when the women went missing and when their bodies were discovered. Detective Superintendent Andy Henwood said Ms Nicholls died of asphyxiation and Ms Clennell was killed by compression to the neck. Postmortem examinations of the other women gave no clear cause of death. An inquest into the death of Gemma Adams, 25, was opened last week and adjourned.

Earlier today, detectives were given a further 12 hours to interview Steve Wright, a forklift driver arrested at his home in Ipwich yesterday on suspicion of murdering all five women. Mr Wright, of London Road, can now be held until this evening before a magistrate's order is required for his continued detention without charge.

Police were yesterday granted a further 36 hours to continue to question Tom Stephens, a supermarket worker from Trimley St Martin, Felixstowe, who was arrested on Monday on suspicion of murdering the five women. Police can apply to hold both men for up to 96 hours from the time of their arrest before having to charge or release them.

Forensic experts and search specialists were continuing to work at the suspects' homes today. Police had erected scaffolding covered by a sheet at the front of the Ipswich house and the road remained cordoned off.

The naked bodies of the five women were found near villages south of Ipswich during a 10-day period this month. More than 500 police are working on the inquiry, including officers from neighbouring forces and detectives from Scotland Yard.

Ms Adams was found in a stream at Hintlesham on December 2; Ms Nicol, was discovered in the same stream at Copdock on December 8; Ms Alderton was found in woods at Nacton on December 10; and Ms Clennell and Annette Nicholls were found in woods at Levington on December 12.

    Inquests open into Suffolk murders, G, 20.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1976026,00.html

Police arrest second man

in hunt for serial killer

Wednesday December 20, 2006
Guardian
Sandra Laville and Esther Addley

The hunt for the Suffolk serial killer yesterday turned to a second suspect when police arrested a 48-year-old man who lived in the red light district where the five women worked.

Steve Wright, a forklift truck driver and former steward on the QE2, was being questioned after being taken from his home in London Road, Ipswich, at 5am yesterday.

Police said Mr Wright was being questioned on suspicion of all five murders, as was Tom Stephens, a supermarket worker arrested on Monday morning. He also remained in custody last night after detectives were granted a further 36 hours in which to question him.

Police sources indicated that the arrest of Mr Wright was significant, however they do not believe the two men are connected or knew each other. They insisted the inquiry was focused and making progress.

Shortly after Mr Wright was arrested, police erected a white tent on the front lawn outside his two-bedroom flat within an Edwardian conversion, which is on one of the main roads bordering the red light district.

Officers wearing white forensic suits were later seen removing articles from the building. Mr Wright's blue Ford Mondeo Zetec, was removed from the road outside on a flatbed lorry shortly after 9am.

His girlfriend of five years last night protested her partner's innocence. Pamela Wright, 48, told a friend she had spent the day with detectives and had insisted to them that her partner had nothing to do with the murders.

"Pam is distraught," said Sheila Davis, who has known the couple for several years. "She is shattered and she is tired; she is not allowed to go home and she is not allowed to speak to Steve."

The couple, who are not married but share the same surname, moved into the rented flat about three months ago. Previously, they were living in a privately rented one-bedroom flat in Bell Close, near the newly fashionable docklands area of the city.

Friends at Mr Wright's local pub, the Uncle Tom's Cabin, yesterday described him as a shy man, a golf fanatic, who sometimes played 36 holes a day, and was "entirely ordinary."

Eddie Roberts, the landlord, said: "He was a member of Hintlesham Hall golf club. He would come in here a couple of times a week and enjoy a few Carlsbergs."

Detectives refused to be drawn on the details of the arrest. At a press conference within hours of the arrest, Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull said only that a 48-year-old man had been arrested at his home in Ipswich.

"He has been arrested on suspicion of murdering all five women," he said. "The man is currently in custody at a police station in Suffolk, where he will be questioned about the deaths later today. Police will not be naming the police station where the man is being held."

Forensic teams were also continuing their search at the home of Mr Stephens, a former special constable from Trimley St Martin, Felixstowe. Officers were seen in the garden on their hands and knees probing the grass with gloved fingers. Police applied to a magistrate last night and were given extra time to question Mr Stephens, who protested his innocence of any involvement in the murders in a newspaper interview published at the weekend.

The naked bodies of the five women were found near villages south of Ipswich during a 10-day period this month. More than 500 officers are working on the inquiry, including officers from neighbouring forces and detectives from Scotland Yard.

Gemma Adams, 25, was found in a stream at Hintlesham on December 2; Tania Nicol, 19, was discovered in the same stream at Copdock on December 8; Anneli Alderton, 24, was found in woods at Nacton on December 10; and Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, were found in woods at Levington on December 12. Police said Ms Alderton had been strangled and Ms Clennell had died as a result of "compression" to the neck. but as yet there is no cause of death for the other three women.

    Police arrest second man in hunt for serial killer, G, 20.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1975764,00.html

Girlfriend insists

new suspect is innocent

as forensic teams search their home

· Forklift truck driver, 48, taken from flat at 5am
· Friends voice shock at arrest of shy golf fanatic

Wednesday December 20, 2006
Guardian
Sandra Laville and Esther Addley

Pamela Wright was delighted when she moved into a new flat in an Edwardian conversion in Ipswich with her boyfriend of five years.

She told friends that her partner, Steve Wright, was enjoying having a garden after living in a small flat with no outside space. While she worked nights at a call centre in the town, Mr Wright, a forklift truck driver at Felixstowe docks, told her he was spending his spare time doing DIY in the flat in London Road, on the edge of the town's red light area.

Last night Ms Wright, 48, walked into her local pub, the Uncle Tom's Cabin, in tears, her life shattered by the police inquiry into the serial killings of five young prostitutes. She told the landlady, Sheila Davis, a close friend, that she had left Mr Wright in a police cell, where he is being held on suspicion of murdering the five women whose bodies were dumped within 10 miles of each other.

Ms Wright had been at work when her partner, a former steward on the QE2, was arrested at their flat at 5am yesterday.

"Work gave her a lift to the police station and she has been with the police talking to them all day before she arrived at the pub," said Ms Davis.

"She was very upset. But she said she had spoken to the police and she said she had been able to confirm that none of it was true. I think she feels quite confident now that it's not true. She feels the police believed her."

Ms Davis took her friend upstairs when she arrived, out of the way of a crowd of journalists who had arrived at the pub. "I offered her a bed for the night, but she decided to go elsewhere because of the media attention," said Ms Davis.

The small pub has been the scene of many happy events in the lives of Pamela and Steve Wright, who met five years ago in Felixstowe, the Suffolk town where he was brought up. They were close friends with the landlady and her partner Eddie Roberts, and went on holiday to Ireland with them two years ago.

Mr Wright, the son of a retired RAF corporal who lives in Felixstowe, was well known in the pub. "They are a lovely couple," said Ms Davis. "He is very, very quiet, always immaculately turned out in a polo shirt and trousers, never jeans. She is lovely."

Ms Wright used to tell her friend that she was a "golf widow" because of the amount of time Mr Wright spent at Hintlesham Hall golf club, where he won a number of trophies. Until September this year the couple were living at Bell Close, in Ipswich, in a small rented flat. They decided to move to London Road because they wanted a garden and moved in three months ago. Mr Wright worked 2pm to 10pm shifts at the docks.

Mr Wright was born on April 24 1958 in Erpingham, Norfolk. His father, Conrad, divorced Mr Wright's mother in 1977 and remarried, moving to Felixstowe almost 30 years ago. Mr Wright's father and stepmother Valerie were refusing to answer the door to reporters yesterday. His brother, Keith, said only: "I don't want to get into this."

One neighbour, who declined to be named, said Mr Wright had spent eight years as a steward on the transatlantic liner QE2 when younger.

Describing Mr Wright as "a little bit shy in conversation", the neighbour said he had come to live with his father and stepmother for about a year after the breakup of his first marriage but in recent years he had not been seen at the house. Before his retirement, the man said Mr Wright's father had been an officer in the Port of Felixstowe police and now played cricket for Suffolk over-50s.

His son, who was being questioned by police last night, lived at Stonelands House, Runnacles Way, Felixstowe, between 1997 and 2000. He is also understood to have run a pub for a time in Plumstead, south-east London. In 2002, he moved to Ipswich and met Pamela, who shares his surname.

The couple moved into their flat in Bell Close, near the Uncle Tom's Cabin pub and the bookies shop, which Mr Wright frequented. Ms Davis said of him: "He was always so quiet; he hardly ever spoke."

Police have taken CCTV footage from the pub and also, it is understood, from a CCTV camera located on London Road. It is understood medical records have also been seized by police from a doctor's surgery in Felixstowe.

A close friend of Mr Wright and his girlfriend, who gave her name only as Sally, said: "He is a very gentle man. I can't believe he would be mixed up in this. It is awful."

Last night after finishing a glass of brandy, which Ms Davis had thrust into her hand at the Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ms Wright was smuggled out by her friend to find a safe place to stay, still protesting her boyfriend's innocence.

    Girlfriend insists new suspect is innocent as forensic teams search their home; G, 20.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1975766,00.html

3.30pm update

Police hold second Suffolk suspect

Tuesday December 19, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

A second suspect was today arrested by police investigating the murders of five women working as prostitutes in Ipswich.

The 48-year-old man was arrested at his home at around 5am, Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull announced.

"He has been arrested on suspicion of murdering all five women," Mr Gull said. "The man is currently at a police station in Suffolk, where he will be interviewed about the deaths later today."

There was a large police presence at a residential address on London Road, west of Ipswich town centre, this morning. Local people said the road was part of the red light area.

Suffolk police erected a large white tent outside the house, which Sky News reported was divided into bedsits.

Officers dressed in white forensic suits were searching the property, and a long cordon had been set up on the road. Police loaded a dark blue Ford Mondeo on to a transporter.

A police source cited by the Press Association described the latest arrest as "significant".

At a brief news conference earlier today, Mr Gull said the 37-year-old man arrested yesterday on suspicion of murdering the five women remained in police custody.

Tom Stephens, a supermarket worker, was arrested at his home in Trimley St Martin, Suffolk, at around 7.20am.

He can be held until around 7.20pm tonight without charge after a police superintendent permitted detectives to continue to hold him for another 12 hours.

Police can ask magistrates for further time to question the suspect once the 12 hours have elapsed. Neighbours said police took a car away from his home yesterday, and forensic officers and search teams spent much of the day at the address. Police remained there today.

Mr Stephens was formerly a police special constable in Norfolk, and has also worked as a taxi driver.

At London Road today, locals said the arrested man was "thickset" and thought he lived with a woman in her 40s, who they assumed was his partner.

Joe Franey, a 50-year-old resident, said: "The police arrived at about 5am. There was just a hammering and a banging on the door.

"We saw him being led out - he was dressed. He seemed quite composed, quite normal. He was just led across to the police car and led away."

Mr Franey said the couple "kept themselves to themselves".

The naked bodies of the five women were found near villages south of the town over a 10-day period earlier this month. They were Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, also 24, and 29-year-old Annette Nicholls.

Postmortem examinations revealed that Ms Alderton was asphyxiated and Ms Clennell died as a result of "compression to the neck". Police said the cause of death of the other three women was unclear, and they were waiting for the results of toxicology tests.

Earlier this month, neighbours at an address in London Road said Ms Clennell had lived there until around two years ago. The property was believed to be a brothel.

In an interview in the Sunday Mirror this weekend, Mr Stephens said he was a friend of all the women, but denied any involvement in their deaths.

He said: "I know that I'm innocent," and claimed the women "trusted me so much". He described himself as "sad and lonely", and said he had made "compromises on my morals" to visit the red light district.

Mr Gull said police would not disclose the identity of the police station or stations where the suspects were being held.

    Police hold second Suffolk suspect, G, 19.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1975218,00.html

Suffolk murders:

police statement in full

The full statement given today
by Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Gull
following the arrest of a second man
in connection with the Suffolk killings

Tuesday December 19, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

"A second man has now been arrested by detectives investigating the murders of five women in Suffolk.
"The 48-year-old man was arrested at his home address in Ipswich at approximately 5am this morning.

"He has been arrested on suspicion of murdering all five women: Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls.

"The man is currently in custody at a police station in Suffolk where he will be questioned about the deaths later today.

"Police will not be naming the police station where the man is being held.

"The 37-year-old man who was arrested at his home in Trimley yesterday remains in custody.

"Police will not confirm or deny the identity of the people in custody.

"As legal proceedings are active, Suffolk police will not be issuing any further comments or appeals at this stage."

· Read Mr Gull's statement from yesterday here

    Suffolk murders: police statement in full, G, 19.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1975234,00.html

11am

BBC rapped for Suffolk interview

Tuesday December 19, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk
Leigh Holmwood

The BBC has been criticised for broadcasting an interview with a man arrested in connection with the murder of five prostitutes in Ipswich.
Media lawyers have said the broadcast yesterday of a radio interview with Tom Stephens could be prejudicial if the case ever went to trial.

Meanwhile, Mr Stephens' MySpace page - from which details and pictures have been widely used by the media - has been taken down.

A note on the page said: "This user has either cancelled their membership or their account has been deleted."

Police have been given until later today to question Mr Stephens, while the Suffolk force also confirmed this morning that they had arrested another suspect in connection with the case. Police have said their inquiries are ongoing.

The BBC's decision to broadcast the interview with Mr Stephens - undertaken for "background purposes" early last week by radio reporter Trudi Barber - was criticised by Christopher Sallon QC, who said he felt it was "absolutely wrong" on the grounds that "it is contrary to the Contempt of Court Act" and "contrary to the spirit" of that legislation.

"It [the broadcast] can only encourage speculation and in my view, having seen the interview, prejudice the trial," he told last night's Newsnight.

Defence lawyer Julian Young added that such reporting "can be prejudicial" as the court may decide "there can't be a fair trial".

"The ultimate public interest must be a fair trial," he told the BBC2 programme.

The BBC news deputy director, Adrian van Klaveren, defended the broadcast, saying he considered it to be "in the public interest" and that it was "not the case" that it "could be prejudicing any potential legal action".

However, he added there had been discussion about releasing the interview as it had been conducted for "background purposes" with Mr Stephens specifically asking for it not to be broadcast.

"We then had to think about the ethical issues around actually deciding to release a conversation which had been done on a different basis," Mr van Klaveren said.

"We felt in these very extraordinary and very rare circumstances there was actually a justification for doing that."

Mr Stephens also undertook an interview with the Sunday Mirror in which he protested his innocence and said he feared he would be arrested.

    BBC rapped for Suffolk interview, G, 19.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1975318,00.html

First suspect held

— but hunt for killer goes on

Special constable was questioned a month ago

Five other men under close investigation

December 19, 2006
The Times 
Sean O'Neill, Michael Horsnell and Stewart Tendler

Detectives interrogating a former special constable about the murders of five Ipswich prostitutes fear that the real killer may still be at large.

Police close to the investigation told The Times that they were looking at five other suspects and that they were no more than 50 per cent sure they had their man.

Tom Stephens, 37, was arrested at 7.20am yesterday, the day after a lengthy interview with him appeared in a Sunday newspaper. “Stephens is probably no more than midway on a scale of ten — about four or five,” a senior detective said.

Yesterday it emerged that Mr Stephens was first interviewed by police after only one woman had disappeared. Police have spoken to him three times since and his home and car had been searched. But no charges were brought against Mr Stephens, who knew all the victims and used to drive them to meet their drug dealers.

Between November 15 and December 10 the killer struck on four more occasions, accelerating the pace of his attacks after the bodies of the first two women were discovered.

Last night Mr Stephens’s father Douglas said: “I have heard what is being said on the news and all I am prepared to say is that Tom Stephens is my son.”

Mr Stephens worked at a Tesco store at Martlesham Heath, beside Suffolk Constabulary headquarters, and was a part-time taxi driver. His car was taken away for examination and search teams spent the day removing materials from his semidetached home in the village of Trimley St Martin, near Felixstowe.

A further search was being conducted at the house of his mother, Ellen Kite, in the village of Eye. Detectives can hold him for questioning until Friday morning.

Mr Stephens was born in Ipswich but grew up in Norwich, where he was a special constable with the Norfolk force in 1992-97. He married in February 1998 and lived in Ipswich with his wife Judith, a nurse. They separated in 2003 and about 18 months ago Mr Stephens began to use the services of prostitutes in the Ipswich red-light area.

In weekend interviews Mr Stephens said he knew all the dead women, that they trusted him and sometimes spent the night at his house. He said he had no alibis for the times of their disappearances and expected to be arrested before being released without charge.

According to reports last night, all five of the murdered women attended a house-warming party at Mr Stephens’ home two months ago. Police are trying to trace other men who were also there.

    First suspect held — but hunt for killer goes on, Ts, 19.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2511336,00.html

'I know I fit the profile

- but I also know I'm innocent'

Suspect has told police he knew the dead girls
and has said that he has no alibi for the time of their deaths

December 19, 2006
The Times 
Sean O'Neill and Adam Fresco

Jacci Goldsmith has heard a lot from Tom Stephens over the past couple of weeks. He has been calling her often, wanting to talk about Gemma, Annette, Anneli, Paula and especially Tania. Mr Stephens has been increasingly distressed as he talks to Ms Goldsmith, who used to ply her trade on the same Ipswich streets from which the murdered women disappeared.

Then last Friday evening he arrived unannounced on her doorstep and asked if he could come in and talk. “He was just sitting talking — he was upset about what was happening so he came round to talk,” Ms Goldsmith told The Times yesterday, shortly after Mr Stephens was arrested on suspicion of murdering all five women.

“He said that he felt bad because he had not picked up Tania on the night that she disappeared. He was meant to pick her up from her house and take her to work. He said that she was one of the innocent ones, because she was new to it.”

Ms Goldsmith was not the only person that Mr Stephens was talking to about the murders that night. He also spent two hours sitting in the car of a Sunday newspaper reporter, crying, talking and predicting that because he knew the dead women, because they trusted him and because he had no alibi, he was certain to be arrested. “I know I am innocent and I am certain it won’t go as far as me being charged,” Mr Stephens, 37, told Michael Duffy, of the Sunday Mirror.

“I am completely confident of that. It’s not unusual for someone to be arrested, released without charge and then someone else be arrested and charged.” He added: “I don’t have alibis for some of the times — actually I’m not entirely sure I have tight alibis for any of the times. But I’m not worried about being charged, I’m innocent.

“From the police profiling it does look like me — white male between 25 and 40, knows the area, works strange hours. The bodies have got close to my house. If new information, coincidental information, crops up, I could get arrested.”

He is also understood to be the man who left a bunch of flowers at the junction of Handford Road and London Road, the edge of the red-light area. A card attached to the bouquet read: “Tania, Gemma, Netty, Paula, Annie — I knew some of you better than others but I miss you all. Tom x.”

Mr Stephens, who often works nights at a Tesco superstore, said that by the end of last week, police had already spoken to him four times. His purple Renault Clio car and his semi-detached home in Trimley St Martin, near Felixstowe, had been searched in connection with the disappearances of Gemma Adams and Tania Nicol.

At the time of those earlier interviews, Suffolk police were already running a large-scale inquiry. The two women had been classified as “high-risk” missing persons because their work meant that they were likely to get into strangers’ cars and be vulnerable to attack. Criminal profilers had been drafted in to help to paint a picture of the kind of man who might have abducted the women.

Mr Stephens has said that he was spoken to by police within a week of Ms Nicol being reported missing.

He said: “I spoke to a couple of officers in a car for an hour. They asked me and I went voluntarily to the police station. They wanted to put it on tape so that nothing would be lost. No information would be lost. In notes things can be lost.”

Three further conversations followed at police stations, as did a detailed search of Mr Stephens’s home. Geoffey Bond, 53, a neighbour, said: “The forensics guys in white suits spent four or five hours walking backwards and forwards between his home and their vans.

“The police helicopter was also hovering overhead at the time. I didn’t know the guy so I had no idea what it was all about.”

Mr Stephens was not interviewed under caution.

At the beginning of this month, what had been a difficult inquiry became a rapidly moving “crime in action”. The bodies of Ms Adams, 25, and Ms Nicol, 19, were discovered within a matter of days, only a few miles apart in the Belstead Brook. Then within the space of a few days, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clenell, 24, were also killed.Operation Sumac, the codename for the hunt for the serial killer, has a complex structure. There are five separate incident rooms headed by senior investigating officers, each focusing exclusively on one of the victims. The five SIOs report each day to Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, Suffolk’s head of crime management, and relevant information is shared with an over-arching command cell.

The geographical profile of the murders had also pointed to Mr Stephens as a man that police had to question. The bodies of the five women were dumped near Trimley St Martin, where Mr Stephens lives. The first body, that of Ms Adams, was discovered at Hintlesham. The most recently discovered remains, of Ms Nicholls and Ms Clennell, were found close to one another on the same patch of scrubland at Levington.

Mr Stephens asked one newspaper last week for a large amount of money to tell his story. He said that he had known Ms Nicol and Ms Adams best and then sought out the other women only to urge them to go to the police with any information they had.

Talking to a radio reporter, Mr Stephens said that he first met the women as a client in the Ipswich red-light area.

“I wanted sex and I paid for it,” he told the BBC. “Then I befriended the girls. I quite often gave them a lift to get their drugs — it was better for me like that.” He had been in love with Ms Nicol, the first of the women to be taken off the streets and the youngest of the killer’s victims.

Mr Stephens said: “She was a lovely, sweet girl. It’s so easy to believe her mother didn’t know what she was doing because she didn’t fit the image at all. She was tiny, you could pick her up with one hand. Because the drugs do make the girls skinny, it didn’t look out of place on her because she was so tiny. Some of the girls do look like walking skeletons. She had worked in a parlour. She was separate from the other girls on the street and I was trying to persuade her to go back into a parlour.

“But because she was sliding away she was getting less organised. She looked like a young girl going to a party. She still spent money on clothes, not simply drugs. She would sometimes stay overnight with a client — it was better money. She would always tell her mother she was just staying at a friend’s place. She was 19, a little bit crazy, but no crazier than half a million 19-year-old girls across the country.”

Mr Stephens said that Ms Nicol “was the closest thing I had to a girlfriend”.


Ms Goldsmith said that Mr Stephens began to visit the red-light area 18 months ago and used to offer lifts to working girls in return for sexual favours. She said: “He used to drive them around to get drugs and in return had sex with them. He had a little purple car, I think. I have been in it loads of times.

“He told me that he had been to the police first to give them information. I don’t think he was dangerous or violent. I have stayed in his bed when he has taken me in but have never had sex with him. I don’t think he could have done this.”

Despite the flurry of police activity at Mr Stephens’s home, there is no slackening of the pace of the investigation. Police search operations are continuing and officers are continuing the painstaking trawl through thousands of hours of CCTV footage for clues.

In the centre of Ipswich there are still high-visibility patrols and police cars fitted with automatic number plate recognition technology cruise the streets looking for suspect vehicles. Police emphasise that Mr Stephen is only a suspect. Ipswich cannot afford to relax its guard.

How fear grew

October 30 Tania Nicol, 19, disappears after leaving her home in Ipswich

November 7 Suffolk police are “extremely concerned” about her disappearance

November 15 Police appeal for information about Gemma Adams, 25, who is reported missing

December 2 Ms Adams’s body is found in a brook at Hintlesham, Suffolk

December 8 Police divers find Ms Nicol’s body at Copdock Mill near Ipswich

December 9 Police say there are similarities between the deaths

December 10 Paula Clennell, 24, disappears in the early hours. A third body is found in woodland at Nacto. Identified as Anneli Alderton, 24

December 11 Police are concerned for Ms Clennell and Annette Nicholls, 29

December 12 Two more bodies discovered near Levington. Identified as Ms Clennell and Ms Nicholls

December 14 Police say they have received 5,500 calls from members of the public. It is now the largest inquiry seen in the area

December 16 Police confirm Ms Alderton was three months pregnant when she was killed. They release CCTV footage of Ms Alderton on a train shortly before she disappeared

December 17 Tom Stephens’s interview to a Sunday newspaper. He says he knew all the girls and doesn’t have an alibi for their disappearances. He says he did not kill them

December 18 Tom Stephens, 37, is arrested at his home in Trimley St Martin, near Felixstowe

    'I know I fit the profile - but I also know I'm innocent', G, 19.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2511231,00.html

Man arrested over Ipswich serial killings

Supermarket worker who saw himself
as friend of all five victims
questioned several times by police

Tuesday December 19, 2006
Guardian
Sandra Laville and Esther Addley


The suspect being questioned last night over the murders of five sex workers in Ipswich is a former special constable who was originally interviewed by police four days after the first woman disappeared, it emerged yesterday.

Detectives have confirmed that Tom Stephens, 37, a Tesco shopworker who spent five years as a police constable in neighbouring Norfolk, was questioned informally shortly after Tania Nicol, 19, went missing on October 30. At that time the other four women were still working in the red light area of the town. Mr Stephens, who is divorced, was spoken to once in his car and on other occasions at a police station last month.

His home at Trimley St Martin, Felixstowe, was also searched on November 22, seven days after the second victim, Gemma Adams, went missing, but before any of the bodies had been discovered. Neighbours said the police were at the house all day and were seen using metal detectors in the garden. Mr Stephens was not arrested or spoken to under caution at any stage, Suffolk police said, and he was allowed to return home.

Last night it emerged that one line of inquiry being followed by the police was that the five women had been incapacitated with large doses of the sedative drug valium before being killed.

Mr Stephens was one of several customers of the sex workers to be questioned during the inquiry. He has admitted knowing all the women who died and said he paid for sex with some of them. But in an interview with the Sunday Mirror, he insisted that he had not killed any of them, and thought of himself as their "protector".

Jackie Goldsmith, a former sex worker who knows him well, said she had met him last Friday, and that he was "upset and pretty down" about the murders. "He had all their numbers ... The girls trusted him," she said. He had regularly ferried them in his car to buy their drugs, though he was not himself a drug user. He had also bought Ms Nicol the glittery stiletto heels she was wearing on the night she died, and which police are still looking for.

Last night, he was being questioned at a police station after being arrested at 7.20am on suspicion of murdering all five women - Ms Nicol, Ms Adams, 24, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29 and Paula Clennell, 24.

At a hastily arranged press conference at the Suffolk force's headquarters, Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull told reporters: "Detectives have today arrested a man. The 37-year-old was arrested at his home address in Trimley, near Felixstowe, at approximately 7.20am. He has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of five women."

Neighbours in Trimley described how officers descended on 8 Jubilee Close early yesterday. Michelle Player, 25, who lives in a nearby second floor flat, said: "There were a couple of police cars parked in the close. Then I saw them place security tape across the entrance of the close to stop people going down. Every few minutes more police turned up in cars and vans."

Forensic teams were at the semi-detached house in Trimley last night and at the home of Mr Stephens' mother Ellen in Eye, Suffolk. Across the Ipswich area, similar teams are still working at the five locations where the bodies of the women were discovered between December 2 and December 12. Mr Stephens can be held for four days by police. If he has not been charged or released at that point, police can apply to a magistrate for an extension of his detention.

    Man arrested over Ipswich serial killings, G, 19.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1975080,00.html

'Sad and lonely' suspect

told reporters that he expected

to be arrested

Tuesday December 19, 2006
Guardian
Karen McVeigh

In a lengthy and emotional interview published 24 hours before his arrest yesterday, the man suspected of the murders of five women in Ipswich said he was "the closest thing" to a boyfriend Tania Nicol had and was close to Gemma Adams - the first women to be killed.

Tom Stephens told a reporter from the Sunday Mirror that he was bound to be arrested because he fitted the killer's profile, had no alibis and lived close to where the bodies of two of the dead women, Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell, were found. But he insisted: "I know I'm innocent and I'm completely confident it won't go as far as me being charged."

Mr Stephens, who described himself as being "sad and lonely", gave two media interviews in which he spoke at length about his relationship with the women. He said he had turned to prostitutes 18 months ago after his eight-year marriage collapsed and that he was involved with about 50 women who were working the streets in Ipswich.

He said he had been questioned by police without being cautioned in the first week in November, before the body of Ms Nicol was found, and questioned under caution since. He reportedly broke down in tears several times as he spoke of Ms Nicol. At one point, he said he came from a "good household" and had compromised his morals to visit the red light district.

Mr Stephens, who works for Tesco in Martlesham, told the newspaper that the killer had picked the five "prettiest" women, "Gemma and Tania, the ones I was closest to, are the best-looking girls who do this in Ipswich. In fact, they were probably the top five. Over time I have been involved with most of the girls. If you count, there are about 50 over the last year.

"I was close to others as well. But I should have been there to watch over them.

"If Tania hadn't been the first, I would be out there in the street watching over her now. I could have been there for the others. If I was out there tonight, I could watch over a girl but I would tell her that I can't keep her safe."

He admitted that he fitted the killer's profile and predicted his imminent arrest. "I could get arrested," Mr Stephens told the newspaper. "That is quite likely, let's not say likely, let's say possible."

Asked why he thought he could be arrested, he replied: "I would have complete opportunity, the girls would have trusted me so much. If I had blindfolded them and taken them to the edge of a cliff and said take two steps but take three and you'll go over - they would have taken the two steps.

"From the police profiling it does look like me: white male between 25 and 40, know the area, works strange hours. The bodies have got close to my house."

He insisted he was innocent, adding: "But I don't have alibis for some of the times - actually I'm not entirely sure I have tight alibis for any of the times."

He continued: "Don't think I'm pointing out my guilt, because this is almost the worst example to give but in the case of the Yorkshire Ripper he was arrested, released and later charged. But in his case he was obviously guilty, but at that point they thought he was innocent."

He claimed he had been questioned four times by police, including once on November 22. When the reporter told him that was before the bodies had been found, he said: "I don't remember when the bodies were discovered."

He described Ms Nicol as a "lovely, sweet girl" and said: "We weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, but I was the closest thing she had to a boyfriend and in behaviour she was the closest thing I had to a girlfriend. I didn't love her. But I should have been there for her."

When asked why an "intelligent, good-looking" man would want to spend time with drug-addicted prostitutes, he replied: "On paper I should be attractive but there is something about me women do not like."

Later, he said: "I am from a good household. I have only told my mother today. I've been a terrible son, she is very ill. I was supposed to be looking after her on Monday, but I don't know whether I'm up to it now."

In a separate, half-hour interview with BBC Radio last week, Mr Stephens said that he did not know Anneli Alderton, another of the victims, and "have only spoken to her since Tania and Gemma went missing, just to say if you know anything, talk to the police or if you don't talk to the police, talk to me".

Mr Stephens told the BBC he paid for sex, and added: "But I know that I also wanted to chat to the girl, before and after, which is partly why I was always happy to give them a lift. They quite often want a lift to go and get their drugs."

    'Sad and lonely' suspect told reporters that he expected to be arrested, G, 19.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1975145,00.html

Profile

Secret life

of victims' protector and friend

Tom Stephens,
former special constable who helped sex workers

Tuesday December 19, 2006
Guardian
Esther Addley and Sandra Laville

"Tania, Gemma, Netty, Paula, Anni," reads the note attached to a bunch of fading pink roses left in tribute to the five murdered Ipswich sex workers. "I knew some of you better than others. But I miss you all. X Tom."

The flowers have been tied to a lamp-post next to a police cabin, erected last week at the junction of London Road and Handford Road on the corner of Ipswich's red light district. This is the very spot, a former sex worker told the Guardian yesterday, at which Tom Stephens would park his car most evenings and wait for the women working in the area to walk past, or to call him.

Yesterday Mr Stephens was being interviewed by police at an undisclosed location, after being arrested on suspicion of the five murders, which he denies. In an interview with a Sunday paper the day before his arrest, he admitted having paid for sex in the past with at least some of the women who were killed, but described himself as "a friend to all the girls" and their "protector". "If I was out there tonight, if there was a girl working, I would try to watch over her," he told the Sunday Mirror. "But I'd tell her, 'I can't keep you safe.' I'd try to give her some sort of support. Some of them have nobody else at all."

Most of the women who worked in Ipswich knew Mr Stephens well, said Jackie Goldsmith, the former sex worker, and would call him frequently to ask him to drive them to their dealers to buy drugs, or just let them sit in his car to warm up. Some women would have sex with him in return, others would not. On other occasions he would pay for sex. She was shocked at the news of the arrest. "It's not him. No way. He's just Tom. He would rather help them than kill him."

The women who Tom Stephens met in Ipswich's red light area, a place he began to frequent 18 months ago, knew little of his respectable middle-class background. It was only a few days before she died that Annette Nicholls, one of the dead women, told her friend Ms Goldsmith: "Did you know Tom was a copper?"

Tom Stephens was born in Ipswich on May 27 1969. As a young boy his mother, Ellen, and father, Douglas, divorced, and he moved with his mother and brother, Jack, a year his junior, to Blowfield, near Norwich, where Mrs Stephens took up a job as a teacher at Hemblington primary school. He was known as a quiet boy by his schoolfriends at Thorpe St Andrews school in Norwich, a specialist sports college. "He used to wear really tight trousers, he was very uncool," one said yesterday. "He would hang around on the outside of groups, a bit of a nerd." As a young boy he loved sport, particularly football.

By the age of 23 he was living in Norwich and working as a special constable with Norfolk police. He would patrol central Norwich, which includes the red light district, and was said by a friend to love the job. In 1997 he left the force and the area, moving to Ipswich where in February 1998 he married Judith Kirk, a nurse.

A fitness fanatic who said on his MySpace website that he loved sport, Mr Stephens had an idiosyncratic hero: Hong Kong Phooey, the children's cartoon character. He also gave himself a nickname, The Bishop.

During his marriage he lived with his wife in a semi-detached Victorian house in Cavendish Street, on the eastern outskirts of Ipswich.

Around 2003 they separated, and Mr Stephens moved to a flat in Pearson Road, sharing with three others and paying £280 a month for a single room. "He was an ordinary tenant," said Stuart Kantor, the estate manager. "He never held parties, he was never noisy. We are all amazed that anyone like that could be arrested."

Mr Stephens had no car at the time, and would cycle the five miles to his job at the 24-hour Tesco in the village of Martlesham, east of Ipswich, where he worked shifts.

In September of this year, he moved to a 1960s semi-detached home in Jubilee Close, Trimley St Martin, close to Felixstowe. He would drive his purple two-door Renault Clio up the A14 to the supermarket, a few hundred yards from the Suffolk police headquarters. Early yesterday morning his car had been taken away on a flatbed lorry.

Neighbours in Trimley said they did not know Mr Stephens well. His ex-wife, a nurse in Ipswich, stayed away from her home yesterday. Samantha Gray, a close friend, said: "I spoke to her at the weekend and she said she was very upset about something. She asked me not to say anything if anyone came round here."

Mr Stephens' mother, who is remarried and lives in Eye, Suffolk, is also unwell, her husband Richard Kite said yesterday, declining to comment further. Mr Stephens regularly visited his mother, helping to look after her during her illness. He said in his interview with the Sunday Mirror that he had disclosed to his mother very recently that he had turned to prostitutes and had known all of the dead women well. The news, he said, had hit his mother like "a bolt from the blue".

Mr Stephens' father, Douglas Stephens, who lives in the Northamptonshire village of Isham in a £360,000 stone cottage, told the Guardian: "There is nothing I can say. I am his father yes, but I don't want to say anything further."

The arrested man's brother, Jack Stephens, who lives with his partner in Sprowston, Norwich, was not at home yesterday. His partner, Dawn Royal, refused to comment.

Mr Stephens' family had not seen him recently; he appeared to be spending increasing amounts of time with the prostitutes in Ipswich.

Ms Goldsmith told the Guardian that she last saw Mr Stephens on Friday night, when he came round to her flat close to the red light district to talk about the murders. "He just wanted to chat because he was upset and pretty down," she said. Since the first women disappeared he had been calling her every night to check she was all right and to discuss the news. "He had all of their numbers. Most of the girls who were working would have known Tom. The girls trusted him."

Mr Stephens grew very attached to two of the women, Tania Nicol and Gemma Adams. He bought Ms Nicol the glittery stiletto shoes she was wearing on the night she died, and which police are still looking for.

Some of the women had become used to his attentions, the former sex worker said. For the girls he was just another punter. He was a bit persistent. He would hang about ... outside their houses."

At the same time as calling on the women who worked the streets, it appears Mr Stephens was also contacting tabloid journalists offering to speak about the dead women, and the fact that he had been interviewed by police, for a fee. He also talked to the BBC, telling them: "I wanted sex and I paid for it but I befriended the girls."

Ms Goldsmith was particularly surprised at Mr Stephens' arrest because none of the women appear to have been sexually assaulted, whereas, she said: "He's after sex. He's all for sex."

Mr Stephens' message on MySpace states: "Well here I am trying to make my laptop work and I've ended up here." Under "Who'd I'd like to meet", his reply is: "Goddoh" [Godot]. Under the heading "children" he says: "Love kids but not for me." He states his occupation as team leader in Tesco "from 1997 until they sack me".

He last visited the site on October 27. He has posted several pictures, including one of him wearing a union flag tie and another in what appears to be fancy dress, with his eyes rimmed with black kohl. He says he is single and is looking for a serious relationship and friends.

Detectives will be questioning Mr Stephens about his relationship with the women, while examining his home and his car for any forensic evidence. He acknowledged to the Sunday Mirror that he could be a suspect, but insisted he had nothing to do with the murders.

At her home at Eye, Suffolk, Mr Stephens' elderly mother was also visited by detectives last night. For the answer to why her son decided to pay women for sex, she has what he said in his own words.

"I am sad and lonely," he told the Sunday Mirror. "I made compromises on my morals to go down [to the red light area] the first time, so I suppose getting involved with them isn't a huge leap. They would quite often want a lift to get their drugs and I would give them a lift. It was better for me like that. That is how it developed into a friendship."

· Additional reporting by Karen McVeigh

    Secret life of victims' protector and friend, G, 19.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1975091,00.html

2.15pm update

Man held over Suffolk murders

Monday December 18, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

Police today arrested a man on suspicion of murdering five women working as prostitutes in the Ipswich area.

The 37-year-old man, named in a series of reports as Tom Stephens, a supermarket worker, was arrested at his home near Felixstowe, in Suffolk, early this morning, Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull told a news conference.

"Detectives investigating the murder of five women in the Ipswich area have today, Monday 18 December 2006, arrested a man," he said in a brief statement read out to reporters.

The man was arrested at his home in the village of Trimley at about 7.20 this morning. "He has been arrested on the suspicion of murdering all five women: Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls," Mr Gull said.

"The man is currently in custody at a police station in Suffolk, where he will be questioned about the deaths later today. We will not be naming the police station where the man is being held," he added, refusing to say more or take questions.

Mr Gull did not name the arrested man, and Suffolk police refused later to comment on the reports naming him as Mr Stephens.

Police sealed off Jubilee Close, a small street of semidetached suburban houses in Trimley, where Mr Stephens lives. Officers later erected a protective screen around the front of the building as forensic examinations began inside.

Yesterday's Sunday Mirror carried a lengthy interview with Mr Stephens in which he admitted having used the services of the murdered women and said he was a suspect, though he strongly maintained his innocence.

"I am a friend of all the girls," said Mr Stephens, who told the paper he had begun seeing prostitutes 18 months ago, after his eight-year marriage ended. He added: "I don't have any alibis for some of the times.

"From the police profiling it does look like me - white male between 25 and 40, knows the area, works strange hours. The bodies have got close to my house," he told the paper, adding that police had already questioned him four times. The first interview had taken place days after Miss Nicol was reported missing on October 30, he said.

Mr Stephens also said officers, some wearing protective forensic suits, had searched his house and car on November 22.

Asked in the interview why he thought he could be arrested, Stephens said: "I would have complete opportunity, the girls would have trusted me so much."

He added: "I know I am innocent and I am completely confident it won't go as far as me being charged," he added.

Later it emerged that the arrested man had a profile on the internet social networking site MySpace, with eight other people listed as his "friends".

Clicking on the photographs section reveals six images of Mr Stephens. In one he is holding up a can of custard; in another he appears to be wearing eyeshadow.

There are also lots of images of the 1970s cartoon character Hong Kong Phooey, whom Mr Stephens describes as "my hero".

On the site, he says he is a "team leader" working for Tesco.

The arrest follows one of the biggest police operations in recent UK history, which severely stretched the resources of the small Suffolk force. In all, 30 police forces around the country have contributed officers to the 500-strong investigation team.

The hunt for a suspected serial killer was launched when the naked bodies of Ms Nicol, 19, Ms Nicholls, 29, Ms Adams, 25, and Ms Alderton and Ms Clennell, both 24, were found dumped in countryside around Ipswich over a 10-day period.

As yet, police have a cause of death for only two of the victims: Ms Alderton, who was strangled, and Ms Clennell, who died of compression to the neck.

Earlier today, police announced that coroner's inquests into the deaths of Ms Nicol, Ms Alderton, Ms Clennell and Ms Nicholls had been postponed. An inquest into the death of Ms Adams was opened and adjourned last week.

Concerns were first raised publicly on November 7, when Suffolk police said they were "extremely concerned" about the disappearance of Ms Nicol. Just over a week later, they added that they were also worried for the safety of Ms Adams.

On December 2, the body of Ms Adams was found in a brook at Hintlesham, outside Ipswich. Six days later, a body later identified as Ms Nicol's was found two miles downstream.

On December 10, Ms Alderton's body was found in woodland. A day after that, police announced the disappearance of the other two women and urged sex workers in and around Ipswich to stay off the streets.

The naked bodies of Ms Clennell and Ms Nicholls were found within minutes of each on December 12 near the village of Levington.

The manhunt saw officers track the last known movements of the dead women. Police contacted friends, clients and other contacts, and checked the whereabouts of a list of possible suspects that was swiftly narrowed down to about 50 men.

As well as prostitutes, female shoppers and nightclubbers in Ipswich were warned by police to be careful and not walk alone at night.

An appeal for help from the public prompted more than 10,000 calls to police. Mr Gull did not say today what had provided a breakthrough in the operation.

At the weekend, police retraced the movements of Ms Alderton, who was three months pregnant when she was killed, over the fortnight prior to her disappearance.

She was last seen on CCTV footage taking a train from Harwich to Manningtree on the evening of December 3. From there police believe she then caught a train to Ipswich.

Last night police boarded the same train to talk to passengers who may have seen Ms Alderton on board two weeks ago.

The absence of any signs of a struggle on the women's bodies had led police to believe they may have been incapacitated, perhaps with a large dose of narcotics, before being killed.

At the weekend, Mr Gull said they were no longer looking for a murder weapon, strengthening fears the women had been in a state of drug-induced unconsciousness when they were killed.

    Man held over Suffolk murders, G, 18.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1974612,00.html

1.45pm

MySpace profile

details life of Tom Stephens

Monday December 18, 2006
Mark Oliver
Guardian Unlimited

Tom Stephens, the man arrested today on suspicion of murdering five women in Ipswich, has a profile on the MySpace website in which he calls himself "The Bishop".

The grainy main photograph on the 37-year-old's profile on the top social networking website shows him smiling and wearing a fishing hat. He has eight people listed in his "friends space".

Clicking on the photographs section reveals six images of Mr Stephens, including one in which he is holding up a can of custard and another in which he appears to be wearing eyeshadow.

There are also lots of images of the 1970s cartoon character Hong Kong Phooey, who Mr Stephens describes as "my hero!".

Mr Stephens, who is currently detained at an undisclosed police station in Suffolk, describes himself as straight, single and says he is using the site for "dating, serious relationships, [and] friends".

On the section about whether he has or wishes to have children he says he "loves kids but [they are] not for me".

Mr Stephens says he is "athletic" and his interests are most types of "keeping fit", and going on days and nights out. Where he is asked to describe his favourite film he jokes "sorry I haven't starred in any" and he says he does not watch television "very often".

The supermarket worker last logged on to the site on October 27 this year.

In the companies section, he says he is a "team leader" and has worked for Tesco "from 1997 until they sack me".

He says he has been educated to "high school" level, listing Thorpe St Andrew school, a specialist sports college, as the school he attended between 1980 and 1987.

Playing in the background when you open his profile page is a classical piece of music, Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel.

Only one of his MySpace contacts, Sebastian, of Merseburg, Germany, has left a message on Mr Stephens's page. Sebastian writes: "Heya Tom crazy football guy, greets from Germany."

    MySpace profile details life of Tom Stephens, G, 18.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1974747,00.html

Suffolk murders:

police statement in full

Here is the full statement read out today
by Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull of Suffolk police

Monday December 18, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

"Detectives investigating the murder of five women in the Ipswich area have today arrested a man.

"The 37-year-old man was arrested at his home address in Trimley, near Felixstowe, at approximately 7.20am this morning.

"He has been arrested on suspicion of murdering all five women, Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls.

"The man is currently in custody at a police station in Suffolk where he will be questioned about the deaths later today.

"We will not be naming the police station where the man is being held.

"As legal proceedings are now active, Suffolk police will not be issuing further comments or appeals at this stage."

    Suffolk murders: police statement in full, G, 18.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1974640,00.html

Abductors and stalkers

to go on sex register

Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
Gaby Hinsliff

Convicted stalkers will be put on the sex offenders' register and may be banned from sensitive jobs, while thieves whose crimes appear sexually motivated - such as stealing women's underwear - will also face registration. Registered offenders can be blacklisted from careers such as teaching or nursing and forced to undergo supervision after release from jail.

Child abductors will also be registered for the first time. This follows the case of Terry Delaney, who was jailed for four years in April for a failed attempt to abduct a 13-year-old girl. The judge in his trial said the law 'makes no sense' after discovering that he could not put Delaney on the register because of the offence with which he was charged.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, will lay regulations in parliament this week to amend legislation covering the register, which already holds around 30,000 names nationwide. While some offences, such as rape, automatically lead to registration, the police and courts would decide if the new categories of offender was to be be added.

    Abductors and stalkers to go on sex register, O, 17.12.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1973846,00.html

The sordid society

Last Updated: 1:28am GMT 17/12/2006
Sunday Telegraph
By David Harrison

The killings in Ipswich have shone a dismal light on the extent of prostitution in Britain today. The figures are horrifying: more than 100,000 girls working in brothels, massage parlours and on the streets, while the number of men using their services, particularly in younger age groups, has doubled. As David Harrison reports, the stark truth behind the sex trade is abuse, violence, exploitation and addiction

The Evening Star in Ipswich summed it up succinctly: "Things like this are not supposed to happen in our part of the world." Serial killers are meant to strike in big, edgy cities, not in an unassuming agricultural town whose last claim to national fame was the fleeting success of the local football team 25 years ago.

The murders of the five prostitutes have shone a disturbing light on Britain's dark underbelly, a seedy world of desperate, drug-addicted women who sell their bodies for their, or their pimps', next fix of heroin or crack cocaine. And they have highlighted an explosion in the availability of – and demand for – "sexual services" in 21st-century Britain.

If it goes on in Ipswich, with a population of 140,000, number 38 on the list of Britain's biggest urban centres, then, you might think, it must be happening everywhere. You would be right. There are an estimated 30,000 street prostitutes in Britain, and police and drugs charities say they can be found in every city and town. "Where there are hard drugs, there are pimps and street prostitutes, and there are hard drugs all over the country," says a senior Scotland Yard officer.

advertisementNinety-five per cent of street girls are addicted to drugs or alcohol or both, according to the Home Office. Most have been violently or sexually abused as children and groomed for prostitution by boyfriends, members of their own families or predatory pimps they meet when they run away from their miserable homes.

The drugs come early too: most are offered heroin by their abusers (many of whom are also addicts) in their early teens. Once hooked, the girls have a choice: steal, deal, or go on to the streets to make money to feed their habit and pay their pimps. For some, the forced prostitution comes first but the drugs always follow. "On the game, they call it," said one outreach worker. "But this is certainly no game."

The girls are usually "launched" as streetwalkers at about the age of 14, though some are as young as 12, says Wendy Shepherd who runs a Barnardo's project in Middlesbrough. Some will already have been abused by family members and "hired out" to paedophile friends from the age of eight.

Street prostitution is highly dangerous. The girls have to make instant judgments about complete strangers before deciding whether to get into their cars. The craving for drugs drives them to take enormous risks. About 90 prostitutes are known to have been murdered in England and Wales in the past decade but the real figure is almost certainly much higher. Street girls are easy prey for violent psychopaths because anonymity is part of the commercial pact and the girls' disconnected lives mean they can go missing for days, even weeks, before anybody notices.

Murder is a risk prostitutes face, but violent assault is almost a guaranteed part of their lives. More than half of all UK prostitutes have been raped or seriously sexually assaulted, and three-quarters have been physically attacked, according to government research. The figures for streetwalkers are even higher. "Nearly every woman I have dealt with has suffered some form of abuse from punters," says Ms Shepherd. "I've dealt with girls who have been punched, kicked, raped, kidnapped and dumped on the motorway. It's a grim, seedy life." A study by The British Journal of Psychiatry found that nearly seven out of 10 prostitutes met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, the same as victims of torture and war veterans undergoing treatment.

The street girls are the most desperate and vulnerable "workers" in Britain's expanding sex industry. In 2004 the number of prostitutes in the UK was officially estimated at 80,000 but the real figure has increased significantly since then and is now believed to be over 100,000. The rise has been fuelled by an influx of thousands of women from eastern Europe, most of them trafficked into this country and forced into sexual slavery. Brothels, thinly disguised as "massage parlours" and "saunas", have sprouted up in even the smallest market towns, while a bewildering array of sexual services, as prostitution is euphemistically known, is offered on the internet.

Demand, almost entirely from men, has risen sharply too. There are male prostitutes and "escorts" who cater for female clients, but the overwhelming majority of punters are male. A typical male user of street girls is white, often middle class, in his 30s or 40s, frequently married with children, and in search of anonymous and untraceable encounters, according to a study by researchers at Sunderland university. The punters come from all walks of life. "You get factory workers and labourers but also doctors, judges, policemen — and they can all be violent," says Ms Shepherd.

In a recent survey of 11,000 men, the British Medical Association found that the proportion of men who have had sex with prostitutes has nearly doubled in 10 years from just under one in 20 of the male population to one in 10, with single university graduates more likely to have paid for sex than married men and non-graduates.

The figures reflect a recent trend for younger men, in their late teens and twenties, to use prostitutes, albeit mainly those in massage parlours and other brothels rather than street girls. "Sex without strings" is seen as part of their night's entertainment. Diana Marshall, who runs the Poppy Project in south London, Britain's only government-funded refuge for trafficked women, blames society's "normalisation" of the sex industry.

"It used to be taboo to go with a prostitute, something to be done furtively, something that brought shame if you were found out," she said. "But now it has become something to do on a stag night or a night out with the boys. It's considered a bit of a laugh to go to a lap-dancing club or a brothel and pay for sex."

Other indicators, she says, include the rapid spread of lap-dancing clubs, "lads' mags", internet pornography and "punters' websites" on which hundreds of prostitutes are "reviewed" in graphic detail in the manner of a mock theatre or restaurant review. "It's disgraceful that this has been allowed to happen," says Ms Marshall. "This is basically society saying it's okay to exploit women in the 21st century."

Pole-dancing is a sensitive topic. "It is inextricably linked to prostitution and the exploitation of women," she says. The BBC scrapped plans for a programme called Strictly Come Pole-Dancing in July after objections from women's groups, and Ms Marshall complained unsuccessfully to Tesco when the supermarket chain began selling a "pole-dancing kit", complete with pole and fake dollars to put into the dancer's garter. Tesco says it is for "people who want to improve their fitness".

No woman chooses to be a prostitute, the charities say, least of all a streetwalker, and there is always coercion. The world's oldest profession is really the world's oldest oppression. "A job in which drug addiction, homelessness, rape and murder are occupational hazards is hardly a career choice," says a spokesman for Women for Justice. The reality is a brutally far cry from the romantic film Pretty Woman, in which Julia Roberts plays an implausibly beautiful street hooker "rescued" by a millionaire businessman played by Richard Gere.

Most groups say more must be done to target the men who use prostitutes. They want the law to be changed to make it a criminal offence to use a prostitute - though not to be a prostitute — a reform that in Sweden has helped to cut the number of street girls by two-thirds. British police carry out occasional undercover operations to arrest kerb-crawlers but admit they have limited resources and "competing priorities".

This situation is not helped by the UK's muddled laws. Prostitution is not illegal but soliciting for purposes of prostitution, keeping a brothel and kerb-crawling are. Prostitutes fined for soliciting simply return to the streets to make money to pay the fine, while still, of course, having to feed drug habits costing hundreds of pounds a week. As a result, they will take even more risks. A woman can "work" from home or visit a client in a hotel room, but a flat or house where two or more women are so working is deemed an illegal brothel. In a review published last January, the Government announced its intention to allow up to three women or men (two prostitutes and a "maid") to work in "mini-brothels" to give them better protection, though the plan has met with fierce opposition and there is no sign of it being implemented. Ministers are more likely to push through a less controversial proposal to send kerb-crawlers on "education courses" rather than fine them up to £1,000 as at present.

The search for solutions has produced bitter divisions between advocates of "zero-tolerance" and supporters of "tolerance zones", similar to those in Continental cities such as Amsterdam. Middlesbrough has led the way with a "zero-tolerance" approach allied to attempts to get prostitutes into drug rehabilitation. The scheme has reduced the number of girls on the streets from 250 (including 14-year-olds) in 1999, to about 15 today, and there has not been a murder of a prostitute for three years.

Opponents say that zero-tolerance simply displaces women to neighbouring towns. Bolton has taken the opposite view and has created a de facto tolerance zone between 7pm and 7am, when prostitutes are given condoms, clean needles and advice on getting off drugs. Officials say the scheme has helped some women to leave the trade. Brian Iddon, the MP for Bolton South East and chairman of the parliamentary Misuse of Drugs group, said the women should be given free drugs to get them off the streets and, in the meantime, brothels should be legalised. "Criminalising these women will drive them underground and make them even more desperate," he says.

The Association of Chief Police Officers recognises prostitutes as "victims" but is opposed to "decriminalisation" and "tolerance zones". Ann Lucas, the chairman of the Local Government Association's prostitution task group, said: "We don't tolerate murder or paedophilia. As a local authority we don't want to manage prostitution. We want to eradicate it."

A growing body of doctors, drugs charities, social workers and some senior police officers, however, agrees with Dr Iddon and wants all addicts to be given hard drugs free on prescription. A "maintenance dose" taken under supervision, along with counselling and safe houses, would help addicts start to lead a normal life and, they say, wipe out much of the crime linked to hard drugs. Such a radical initiative would cost much more than the £597 million the Government has allocated for drug treatment this year but proponents say the extra funding would be more than recovered in savings made by the criminal justice system as the drug-related crime rate tumbled.

For some there is a more immediate solution: keep men off the streets. "It makes me furious that the police are telling women to stay in because of what happened in Ipswich," says Diane Marshall. "Women are not the problem. It's men who should be under curfew."

    The sordid society, STel, 17.12.2006, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=BN0TS5VJBLC5HQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/12/17/nkiller17.xml

No 10 'blocked move

to legalise prostitution'

· Insider reveals how red light zone plan was axed
· Police reveal new killer inquiry breakthrough

Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
Gaby Hinsliff, Mark Townsend and Anushka Asthana

Downing Street blocked moves that would in effect have legalised prostitution because the Prime Minister was so concerned that 'hostile headlines' would wreck plans to make sex workers' lives safer.

In a passionate article in today's Observer, Katharine Raymond, a senior adviser to the former Home Secretary David Blunkett, reveals that he wanted to liberalise the law, allowing 'managed areas' for prostitutes similar to those in mainland Europe. Experts say that such areas would mean that sex workers, such as the five women killed around Ipswich over the past month, would be at less risk of attack.

Today Raymond, who was one of Blunkett's trusted special advisers overseeing prostitution policy for more than three years, calls for the legalisation of prostitution and argues that current policy is 'a disgrace' caused by 'political cowardice' and public indifference.
'The uncomfortable reality is that, while these pitiful girls and women cater to an eternal consumer demand, their lives are being put at greater risk by the lamentable failings of both government and law enforcement,' she says.

Raymond's attack is significant because it is the first account from inside the Home Office of how attempts at liberalisation foundered. She worked closely with ministers in drawing up a consultation paper called 'Paying the Price', which she said was designed to trigger a 'serious debate' about legalised brothels and red-light zones managed by local councils.

It comes as The Observer can reveal that Interpol has now been called into the Suffolk inquiry amid suspicions that the murderer may have fled abroad and that he is thought to have killed with his bare hands.

Yesterday Suffolk police released poignant CCTV images of what is thought to be one of the last sightings of one victim, Anneli Alderton, on a train between Harwich and Colchester on 3 December. Detectives are appealing for information about where Alderton - who was about three months pregnant when she died - went next, including where she left the train.

In the footage, she is seen wearing a black jacket with fur-lined hood, grey top and jeans, with her hair in a ponytail. Seven days later, her naked body was found in woods near Nacton, outside Ipswich.

In her article, Raymond argues that the Ipswich murders illuminate the double standards that govern prostitution, with politicians and senior police officers frightened to wreck their careers by endorsing reforms. She said the consultation paper she helped to write - which proposed, among other options, managed zones patrolled by police, where sex workers could safely take their clients and a register of licensed prostitutes - ran into trouble almost immediately:

'In Whitehall, only a handful of politicians and officials wanted 'Paying the Price' to see the light of day. At the Home Office, the department ultimately responsible, we were divided between those eager to publish - and be damned if necessary - and those wanting the whole issue simply to go away.'

Raymond says there was 'opposition from Number 10, which was terrified of a hostile media response'. The paper eventually surfaced only because Blunkett wanted what he called a 'grown-up debate'. However, a few months later he resigned following allegations over his lover's nanny obtaining a visa and the issue passed to his successor, Charles Clarke.

The result, says Raymond, was a 'watered-down series of proposals' that has still not been implemented.

Blunkett, who has remained loyal to the government from the back benches, insisted yesterday there was no pressure from Downing Street and blamed the previous reticence of many commentators now advocating reform for the fact that it came to nought.

A spokesman for Blunkett said: 'His only regret is that insufficient contributions were forthcoming from so many of those now commenting on the circumstances surrounding the tragic murders in Suffolk and, had they done so at the time, it may have been possible to have had a sensible debate about the issues then.'

When the paper was eventually published in July 2004, it duly triggered hostile comments from media and, more crucially, the police.

After consultation the then minister, Fiona Mactaggart, published proposals in January this year offering only a minor change, allowing a maximum of two prostitutes to work together for safety from a flat. Tolerance zones were ruled out.

Home Office sources last week declined to say when the law might be changed to allow even this limited reform: John Reid, the Home Secretary, is said to be reluctant to debate the issues while the murder hunt continues.

Raymond, however, argues that the 'useless' laws governing prostitution should be scrapped and brothels legalised, with pilot experiments to show whether managed zones can work, too. Liverpool council had been poised to start such a pilot in the wake of the Home Office's initial consultation, but needed a go-ahead from ministers that it did not get.

    No 10 'blocked move to legalise prostitution', O, 17.12.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1973888,00.html

Comment

Brothels and safe red light areas

are the only way forward

Katharine Raymond argues
that we need a complete rethink
of the laws protecting Britain's sex workers

Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer

Prostitution policy in Britain is a disgrace created by the interlinking scandals of political cowardice and public indifference.

Sex workers lead difficult and dangerous lives and the truth is that most people, including politicians, don't care what happens to them.

The uncomfortable reality is that while these often pitiful girls and women cater to an eternal consumer demand, their lives are being put at greater risk by the lamentable failings of both government and law enforcement.

Now, it has taken a grotesque murder spree to bring light to this bleak underbelly of Britain.

Home Office figures show that 60 prostitutes, possibly more, have been murdered in the past 10 years. In the UK, the average conviction rate for murder is one of the highest in the world at over 75 per cent. But that impressive rate drops sharply to around 26 per cent when it comes to killings of prostitutes.

Calls for reform of the laws are growing as the Ipswich story unfolds. In the Commons last Wednesday, the Prime Minister expressed his shock but urged caution. Policy should not be revisited until the investigation is over, he said.

The problem is that current strategy on prostitution was forensically examined just two years ago. I helped prepare a government paper called 'Paying the Price' which described our laws as 'outdated, confusing and ineffective', and called for people's views on legalised brothels, registration for prostitutes and local-authority sponsored red light zones. But it did not work in the way we had hoped. In Whitehall, only a handful of politicians and officials wanted the report to see the light of day. At the Home Office we were divided between those eager to publish - and be damned if necessary - and those wanting the whole issue to go away.

In the end, and despite opposition from a No 10 terrified of a hostile media response, the 'damned' won, not least because the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett wanted what he called 'a grown-up debate'. In January this year the government finally came up with a watered-down series of proposals that took a small step in the right direction - a change of rules allowing prostitutes to work together, a crackdown on kerb crawlers and new methods to help women addicted to class-A drugs. Almost a year later, even these mild measures have not been enacted.

What we now need is a lasting and honest solution. I believe we must scrap our current laws and start all over again. That basically means decriminalising prostitution. The argument that the State should not, through its laws, condone a lifestyle that most find distasteful and demeaning is not good enough.

Brothels, giving women a safer place to work, should be made legal, and subject to licensing conditions. In Australia and New Zealand, brothels are regulated in the same way as other businesses, and strict laws prevent soliciting in streets, or near homes and schools. We should pilot managed areas such as in the Netherlands, regularly patrolled by police, where sex workers are given an area where they can safely take their customers. These so-called red light zones have their problems. But their existence can help reduce crime, and enhance the women's safety.

Politicians are fond of telling people that theirs is a world of hard choices. It is time they made this one.

· Katharine Raymond was special adviser to David Blunkett from 2001 to 2004.

    Brothels and safe red light areas are the only way forward, O, 17.12.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1974091,00.html

Commentary

This man is no Hannibal Lecter,

he's an inadequate underachiever

I've been described as a daring writer with a dangerous imagination,
but even at my bravest and most inventive I would never have come up with the two mysteries that have dominated the tail-end of 2006

Minette Walters, leading crime writer
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer

I've been described as a daring writer with a dangerous imagination, but even at my bravest and most inventive I would never have come up with the two mysteries that have dominated the tail-end of 2006. The extravagant murder of an ex-KGB agent with a lethal dose of polonium 210, and the frantically paced serial killing of five Suffolk working girls within a period of days.

The reviewers would slate me if I tried. 'Unrealist ... Walters resorts to melodrama to spice up her plots.' And I wouldn't disagree with them. Both these stories have echoes of bygone times - poison-tipped umbrellas from the Cold War and the frenzied slayings in Whitechapel in the autumn of 1888. As a thriller writer I'd be wary of using either as the basis for a book.

Behind these real deaths lie the human tragedies of young lives cut short and families bereft, but the mystery surrounding them makes their stories as suspense-laden as a John le Carré or a Thomas Harris. We are touched by their sadness but something in our psyche is deeply fascinated by their unfolding drama. Our appetite for horrific murder appears insatiable. Perhaps we need reassurance that we could never commit such acts ourselves, or perhaps, less commendably, we enjoy the sensations that shock gives us.

By far the majority of murders in the UK are 'domestic', yet most of us would be hard-pressed to name a man or woman who has been convicted of killing a partner. We don't fear the husband who strangles his wife in the way that we fear the unknown predator - our imaginations more easily project evil on to strangers - so partner-killers are quickly forgotten while random lust-killers become fixed in our memories.

Thriller writers play on these fears to create demonic characters that keep our readers awake at night. In Hannibal Lecter, Thomas Harris has given us one of the most iconic 'bad guys'. Lecter is an OTT portrayal of a manipulative, murderous sociopath with a passion for culture and a powerful sexual attraction. But he bears little resemblance to reality. Men and women who kill for pleasure are notable for their inadequacies, not for their sex appeal or their love of classical music and good cuisine.

I used the 'inadequate' model to create a serial rapist and killer in my last book, The Devil's Feather. MacKenzie's deficiencies - an inability to relate to others, poor education, carelessness about hygiene, a rootless existence - make him no less frightening than Lecter, but I hope he's a more credible sociopath than his glamorous counterpart. For most of the story, the reader sees him only through flashbacks as the narrator tries to come to terms with his brutal treatment of her, but her fear is so intense that he assumes monstrous proportions in her mind.

This is the same agonising cycle that rape victims have to go through. When confidence is stripped away through violation, the fear of the violator remains. For women who can find the courage to face their rapists in open court, they're often surprised by how diminished they seem. It is often said that a longing for notoriety forms part of the serial killer's motivation. He wants his 'work' to be recognised. I suspect this is a myth, almost certainly fostered and propagated by novelists in search of a twist. I wouldn't deny that sociopaths get a filthy, perverted buzz out of what they do while they're doing it, but I've yet to hear of one who boasts of his 'work' in court. Apart from Fred West, who hanged himself before his trial, UK serial killers have consistently tried to distance themselves from their crimes, either by denying their guilt or pleading diminished responsibility.

Harold Shipman protested his innocence. Dennis Nilsen slumped his narrow shoulders and cried. Rosemary West said her husband dominated her. Peter Sutcliffe blamed the voices in his head. Myra Hindley claimed it was Ian Brady who was the murderer. Brady accused Hindley of lying, arguing that she played more of a part than she ever admitted. All were notable for refusing to lay claim to their sick and disgusting activities.

On any tally of murder victims, where the murderer and victim are unknown to each other, street prostitutes top the list as the most preyed-upon group. The reasons are tragically obvious. Predators, human or animal, always stalk the weakest, easiest and most accessible targets. It was no accident that Jack the Ripper chose 'women of the night', that Sutcliffe's preferred quarry were 'working girls', or that Jeffrey Dahmer and Nilsen used the pretext of paying for sex to lure young men back to their flats with the intention of killing them.

Such murders say more about the courage of the prey than they do about the predator's. Every sex worker knows how dangerous the job is. Even without a lust-killer on the loose, the chances of being beaten, infected or gang-raped are high. So what does the ease with which a young working girl can be lured into a car say about her killer? That he's clever, that he's cunning, that he's earned the notoriety her death achieves for him? I don't think so.

Serial-killer thrillers make great reads. They contain all the ingredients to shock, frighten and excite. But no one should assume that the larger-than-life characters we authors create exist outside the pages of our novels. When the murderer of these five women is caught - which he will be - it won't be Hannibal Lecter who stands in the dock but a weak and unattractive man who harbours a long list of resentments about his lack of achievement.

He will certainly deny his crimes, probably by pleading paranoid schizophrenia and religious zeal. God seems to have a habit of telling lust-killers to get rid of prostitutes. But the one thing I can predict with certainty is that he'll be afraid. Very afraid. Of us - this tolerant society that doesn't share his view of his victims and that demands justice for the innocent lives he has ended.

· Minette Walters is one of Britain's leading crime writers

    This man is no Hannibal Lecter, he's an inadequate underachiever, O, 17.12.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1974014,00.html

Focus

The Killer of Handford Road

The shadow of a serial murderer stalks Ipswich. At night, the town feels deserted. Even during the day, pupils are not allowed out to play without an adult. Mark Townsend and Anushka Asthana trace the lives of the five victims as police work around the clock to find the vital link between their deaths that will help to bring the killer to justice

Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer

She wrote 11 kisses inside the card. Maybe there would have been more had Paula Clennell realised it would be the last message she would ever send to her youngest child. A few weeks later the girl, her third daughter, was taken away for adoption, another victim of a developing family tragedy of a mother hooked on heroin and crack cocaine. Paula never saw her daughter again.

Last Thursday in a plain house on a plain street in Ipswich, the children's grandmother, Anita, placed the card on her living room floor and stared ahead. On the television in the corner, news was breaking that another body in a horrific murder case had been identified. Scrolling across the bottom of the screen was confirmation of Anita's worst fear; police said that the body found two days earlier in a bleak Suffolk field was that of Paula. She had been murdered. 'I knew it,' Anita said. 'But she was dead the moment they took her kids.'

Paula was the fourth woman to be identified as a victim in a week unparalleled in British criminal history. Most serial killers leave a long gap, often years, between the first and second murders. But here in a matter of weeks, five Ipswich women who all worked as prostitutes have been killed. Four of the bodies were found in just five days.

The monickers are already flowing thick and fast. The Suffolk Strangler. The new Jack the Ripper, the Victorian bogey-man whose toll the killer of the women in Suffolk has already equalled. Brazen. Swift. Whoever he is, and we will have to suppose with no evidence to the contrary that it is a lone killer and not a group or a woman, the man remains at large. Much of Ipswich is quiet at night. People are afraid. This man is killing at a rate three times faster than Jack, more than hundred years ago.

Jack killed his victims with a knife. This man appears to have taken considerable measures to leave his victims unblemished. Barely a mark was found on the five women. There were no signs of struggle. Nor was there any sexual contact. All had been strangled. All were found naked.

In life too the victims shared similarities. Family photographs portray Paula, Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton and Annette Nicholls as bright-eyed and attractive. Some of them had happy childhoods and bright prospects. Two hailed from middle-class families. Gemma, 25, went to pony club and learnt the piano. Anneli's mother, an English teacher, was looking forward to a new grandchild - police confirmed yesterday the 24-year-old had been three months pregnant.

Tania, 19, was a happy-go-lucky teenager devoted to her mother. Annette, 29, was hoping to become a beautician. Paula wanted to get married and have a family.

Each of their lives had to a greater or lesser extent come apart. All were addicted to crack cocaine and heroin. Aside from the shock of the murders, the events of last week exposed a world most are ignorant of, back street districts where young women walk, meet 'punters' and have sex. Men can pay as little as £15, enough for a bag of heroin, another fix, another few hours of oblivion.

Whether the killer is caught before he strikes again, the events of last week are certain to be remembered for ever. The rolling farmlands that encircle Ipswich are destined to become as synonymous with tragedy as Saddleworth Moor. The villages of Copdock, Hintlesham, Levington and Nacton are infamous for their part in this terrible tale, the locality where the murderer dumped the women's unclothed bodies.

As the murder inquiry enters its 15th day, detectives believe they are making progress. A collection of 'interesting' individuals has been identified, say police. Criminologists anticipate the perpetrator will strike again. The clock is ticking down, but will it be to capture, another death or simply silence?

It seemed remarkable, in the era of CCTV footage, that somebody could walk through an English town centre and then, to all intents and purposes, disappear off the face of the earth. On 12 May this year a teenager, Luke Durbin, appeared to do just that after a night out in Ipswich. Despite a massive police search, no one has seen or heard from the 19-year-old since. Scores of 'missing persons' posters were plastered by police outside nightclubs. A widespread media campaign was orchestrated by Suffolk police.

Almost six months later, on the eve of Halloween, Suffolk police received a frantic call from another parent. Her daughter, also 19, was missing. She went out in Ipswich one night, but never came back. It was unusual behaviour for Tania Nicol. She always returned home to care for her mother.

Officers made routine inquiries with friends and relatives. Her name was placed on the missing persons database. That was it. There was no media appeal, no posters featuring her smiling, pretty features displayed by officers around town. No attempt was made to trawl through CCTV footage to retrace her last known steps. Her disappearance seemed to matter little to anyone but her parents. The police suspected Tania was a sex worker. Even so, patrols in the red light district were not increased despite one of the 'regulars' mysteriously vanishing.

Tania was, by far, the most naive and impressionable of the five victims. In hindsight, her vulnerability meant she was the perfect first victim for a serial killer whose audacity would escalate with each strike.

Gemma was a very different proposition. The Observer has been told that she never worked the streets without her boyfriend. He would stand nearby assessing potential clients.

Yet in the early hours of 15 November when she was last seen alive, Gemma was working alone. Why? Police were again told that a young daughter had gone missing. Though it was unusual for people to disappear on the streets of Ipswich - Suffolk has one of the lowest crime rates in the country - the police response was muted. Only a month after Tania's disappearance did house-to-house enquiries begin in the dense maze of streets that form the town's red light zone.

Perhaps encouraged by the lack of publicity, the serial killer continued targeting the small knot of women working the district. He struck again. The last sightings of Annette and Anneli were recorded on the same day that Gemma's body was dragged from Belstead Brook.

'They did nothing, the police left it too late to prevent another attack,' a friend of Paula's said. Amid the fallout of the so-called Suffolk Strangler, questions are emerging over the initial police response to the disappearance of Tania and Gemma.

Some counter by asking what police force could have foreseen such horrors. The unprecedented speed of the serial killer may well provide the biggest defence for the Suffolk Constabulary.

But any delay may have contributed to vital evidence being lost. Technicians have a limited time frame to track the 'farewell' signal of a mobile phone before it disconnects from the network, a technique that would prove pivotal in catching Ian Huntley, the Soham murderer. Detectives have still not ruled that the victims were lured to their deaths by arranging to meet the murderer over the telephone.

What is clearer is that by the time Suffolk police officially declared they had launched a major inquiry on Sunday 3 December, it was probable that four of the five women had already been killed. The strangest case of all is the murder of Paula. She was the most streetwise of the five. The tough nut. The one who relished making enemies. And who, it is said, had a fair few.

Friends have told The Observer that, following the news that Tania and Gemma had been murdered, Paula had started carrying a large pair of scissors for protection. Whoever killed Paula seems to have done so without her ever being aware she was in danger until it was too late. Whoever Paula went off with, their meeting happened when the town's red light district was already thick with police patroilling the streets. The killer either thinks he's invincible or is taking massive risks.

The last sighting of Paula was beside an unkempt garden off Handford Road in the red light district at 12.20am last Sunday, pitching for business in a grey hooded top, jeans and Reebok trainers. Yet The Observer has talked to colleagues who suggest that Paula may have been alive as late as last Monday, the day before her body was found in farmland near the village of Levington. If so, where on earth had she gone?

Of the hundreds of police officers, detectives, forensic experts, doctors and psychologists currently working on tracking down the serial killer, the thoughts of one individual may prove pivotal. Such are the efforts to conceal his identity, few have ever heard of Adrian West. Even fewer would recognise him.

Yet even before the bodies of Paula and Annette were found late on Tuesday afternoon, West had been summoned to Ipswich. He is regarded as the most eminent criminal psychologist in Britain, the real-life 'Cracker-style' profiler with the nous to worm his way into the mind of the Ipswich murderer.

Jacqui Cheer, Assistant Chief Constable of Suffolk, who acts as Gold Commander in charge of the inquiry, told The Observer: 'You've got to get the best. And he is.'

West was studying inmates' behaviour at Ashworth top security hospital when he received the call last Sunday. His brief was simple: what drives a man to embark on such a frenzied spree of murder? Where would such a character be likely to hide? West quickly deduced that explaining the killer's unusual eagerness to avoid harming his victims before he killed them was the key to the murderer's mental make-up.

His initial profile helped police to identify a provisional pool of 60 people they want to question. Yesterday that was refined to a core of more likely suspects that could number as low as five, although police sources are cautious of narrowing one of the biggest inquiries of its kind at such a relatively early stage. Working alongside them is Scotland Yard commander David Johnston, the Metropolitan Police's head of homicide and serious crime unit. Both receive continuous bulletins from the ground floor of the Suffolk Constabulary headquarters, a nondescript building in the town centre, where officers manning five incident rooms, one for each of the victims, sift through incoming information.

Detectives are seeking 'commonality' between the five murders to help construct a comprehensive picture of the serial killer. To ensure potential leads are not missed, all data is fed through the Holmes (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System) computer which alerts officers to links emerging in the inquiry.

Despite these technological aids, collecting information in any murder investigation remains a laborious, painstaking business. Scores of officers will again spend today walking the streets of Suffolk for witness statements. Around 5,000 have so far been collected in Ipswich; almost every occupant in its red light area has been tracked down. Officers have had to return to some addresses half a dozen times to ensure no one slips the net.

'It only takes one person saying one thing to get that lead,' said one officer, seconded from Lowestoft to help assist the inquiry. 'But we get told nothing in order to avoid prejudicing our questions. What we get is fed straight into the computer and on we go.'

Murder investigations typically fail from a lack of information. In this case a very different problem has emerged. By last Wednesday, Suffolk police had received 2,000 calls from members of the public offering information. Within a day later this had risen to 5,500, with calls at one point arriving, on average, every 10 seconds. More than 1,000 emails have been sent.

Dick Holland, the retired Detective Superintendent who was number two on the inquiry which led to the conviction of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, warned that 'overloading' after the first media appeals can be a problem.

'At one point there were a third of a million people suspected of being the Yorkshire Ripper,' he said. 'Every time the detectives checked through the data it would slow the operation tremendously.' Technology has eased the burden, but the minds of some members of the public remain as baffling as ever. Holland's inquiry was hampered by the hoaxer Wearside Jack, and the ongoing investigation is starting to receive its fair share of crank callers. Chief Constable Alistair McWhirter has complained that a significant number of emails had been sent by 'dreamers'.

And those most likely to come forward are those least likely to prove valuable. Although police insist that some of Ipswich's kerbcrawlers and prostitutes' clients have come forward, many are thought to be lying low for obvious reasons. Every prostitute, traditionally wary of the police, working in Ipswich was tracked down and interviewed by officers last week. It is understood that none, however, has given evidence that might lead to a prime suspect. It had been hoped that the murderer might have carried out a number of 'behavioural try-outs' - dummy-runs - where he visited sites where he might later kill.

In the absence of robust leads from those involved in the sex trade, the bodies of the victims have assumed even greater importance - in particular those of Paula and Annette, the freshest and least contaminated of the five corpses. Experts from the Forensic Science Service (FSS) are currently analysing swabs for DNA, fingerprints, hair or fibres from the two bodies.

A single strand might be sufficient to locate their man if he has offended previously, which criminologists believe is likely. The FSS laboratory results could also help determine the time of death. Police believe it is possible that Annette was kept for days at a secret hideaway - possible where she was killed - before being left alongside Paula yards from the Old Felixstowe Road.

Soil samples are still also still being examined for fluids, footwear patterns and imprints that may betray the height and weight of the murderer. Plants around the bodies have been examined by forensic entomologists, tests that could also help add to an insight into the mind of the killer. The condition of grasses and soil around the bodies would reveal if they had been thrown down hurridly, suggesting the killer was losing his cool. Minimal disturbance could indicate that a calm, calculating, forensically aware serial killer was behind the crimes. The simple fact the two bodies were left so close to the side of the road is of great interest to West. Privately, police sources believe the perpetrator was disturbed, perhaps by a passing motorist, and panicked. Murderers are never more vulnerable than when they are 'muddy or bloody', making their getaway.

Toxicology studies are also under way to ascertain whether the murderer gave the women any drugs or chemicals to render them unconscious. Detectives are baffled how five women, some of whom would certainly fight back, seemed to be so easily subdued before they were strangled. As evidence grows that the killer murdered women with his hands, rather than with a ligature, leaving no other sign of injury, it now appears almost certain that the victims were in some kind of drug-induced stupor before they died. Did the killer offer them heroin or cocaine that was purer than they normally had? Is he a drug dealer?

Elsewhere, the search goes on to piece together the victims' missing final hours. At the hi-tech suite in Grafton House, Ipswich borough council's headquarters, a rotating team of police officers from around the country is spending 24 hours a day staring at the vast bank of screens replaying CCTV footage. Already 10,000 hours of footage from 60 cameras have been studied.

Those mounted at either end of the Orwell Bridge, which carries the A14 across the River Orwell south of Ipswich, could prove pivotal. Police sources are convinced the killer crossed the bridge to dispose of the bodies. Film from cameras equipped with mobile automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) is being analysed to establish whether a pattern can be detected of vehicles on the fatal nights.

So far, though, police have not been able to identify a single vehicle from the footage that they have singled out as 'suspicious'. Privately, sources anticipate that tyre prints taken from the laybys where some of the bodies were disposed of may provide the first clues.

In essence, the hunt for the killer is a national murder inquiry. Ten police forces are helping Suffolk and a number of 'persons of interest' are located beyond the county's borders - though most of the prime suspects are believed to have been identified through a trawl of more than 1,000 known sex offenders registered within Suffolk and neighbouring counties.

Officers are paying particular interest to Felixstowe's transient population, among them the 4,000 lorry drivers that use the A14, the artery road linking East Anglia to the Midlands. All the bodies have been found within a mile of the dual carriageway.

Police think it is unlikely that any of their suspects have fled abroad, even though Interpol is now providing intelligence on possible suspects on the continent.

'We have the edges of the jigsaw in place,' said Alastair McWhirter, the Chief Constable of Suffolk. 'Now we have to fill in the middle.' There's the 'chubby man' who wears glasses and drives a BMW similar to one some of the women were seen getting into shortly before they died. There is the fact that none were wearing jewellery. There's 'The Uncle', the mysterious man obsessed with Christianity who used to pick up prostitutes, talk to them about God and give them drugs.

Glaring gaps in knowledge uncovered by the inquiry, however, remain. For instance, the investigation has yet to discover where Anneli got off the train she caught from Harwich to Colchester at 5.53pm on 3 December or whether she went to Ipswich after that. Could the murderer have struck in another town?

'It's vital that we box in the last time that any of these women were seen,' said Cheer. She is acutely aware that if, in another week, no arrests have been made, no cars impounded, no search warrants executed, the pressure will be truly on.

Paula sounded tired but in good spirits. As usual, she was looking for a place to crash for the night. Late last Sunday night - police believe it may have even been Monday morning - Paula made her final known call. She contacted a local man, a friend who knew all five victims and often let them stay at his small flat off London Road.

Clutching a can of Special Brew, his mid-40s face hooded by a Gap top, Dave (not his real name) said it was an insult all five women should be remembered as prostitutes.

'They were all just human beings, each with their own personality,' he said. 'Paula did have a big thing for smack but she was the same as everybody else. She talked about losing her three daughters all the time. That broke her completely. Paula never got over it.' He shook his head. Beyond, in the alleyway outside the Handford Hall primary school, ran the dark walkway at the top of Surrey Road where the dealers dropped the sex workers their rocks of crack.

There was no pimp protecting them. They all 'freelanced'. All the dead women had complained that the police, rather than protect them, simply ushered them on or threatened them with Asbos. Those who knew the victims said that the women resented their life of prostitution, in particular Tania. They talked constantly about finding a way out. The grip of the drugs proved too strong.

Dave described Annette, 'Netty', as a thinker who was always writing poetry. Gemma was courteous and adored her family. Anneli was the brashest - shopkeepers dubbed her Bianca when she popped into buy her £2.39 Martelli miniatures, the small cognac bottles that double as crack pipes. Paula was the most headstrong, explaining why she kept working even after the first murders were confirmed. Yet, like many in Ipswich, her friends do not accept that Paula would have climbed into a stranger's car. 'I believe they knew the person,' Dave said.

Another friend, Page, 42, who has worked as a prostitute for nearly 30 years, worked with Paula in the days after the discovery of Gemma and Tania's body. Her eyes hollow, her features etched by decades of substance abuse, she explained: 'The trouble with people is they don't necessarily look like lunatics. They can look normal. I wouldn't say there were more than 15 or 20 women who work here - he wiped out a third of the prostitutes. Look at how small the beat is.' Page said that '99.9 per cent' of women worked on the streets to feed their addictions. Heroin killed her brother, her boyfriend and an ex-boyfriend. Infected needles paralysed a friend and cost the arm of another.

'Before you know it you are no longer controlling it, it is controlling you,' she said. 'If all those girls had a choice between food and heroin they would choose the drug every time.'

Clues as to what may have motivated the murderer remain impossible to second-guess at this stage. The lack of a sexual aspect and his reluctance to mutilate his victims has left many experts baffled. Is he, like Sutcliffe, obeying voices in his head telling him to murder victims? Was the spree inspired by crime writer PD James's 1989 novel, Devices And Desires, which describes an East Anglia haunted by a serial killer who strangles five women under the dead of night?

The real reason may prove more prosaic. Paula, for one, had numerous enemies. One shopkeeper told how she recently ran into his shop to hide after being chased by two women she'd stolen from. A boyfriend also claimed she had taken £1,000 from a client. Vengeful drug dealers are another line of inquiry.

Criminologists and psychologists also disagree on what the killer might do next. Some believe that he will embark on another frenzied round of killing before almost deliberately being caught. Others anticipate a period of lying low before he strikes again. Clinical psychologist Clive Sims, based at St Clement's Hospital, Ipswich, warned that the next victim would be chosen carefully and that the killer would be driven by the need to maintain the thrill of killing.

Last Friday night there were just three sex workers on the streets of Ipswich, still driven by whatever motivation to put their lives at risk. But there were few other women out in a town that is now fearfully wondering what will happen next. Rape alarm sales have increased tenfold. Free self-defence lessons for women are being advertised. Marks & Spencer's security guards escort female employees to vehicles in the nearby car park. Pupils at schools near the red light zone are not allowed even to enter their playground without a member of staff.

In a plain house in a plain street in Ipswich sits a card, from a mother, telling her daughter she loves her. It was sent by Paula Clennell, a name which will be for ever associated with the serial killer whose shadow casts terror across the streets of Suffolk.

On the continent


France

Though tourists know the Parisian hotspots of the Rue St Denis and Pigalle, most prostitution in France is far less high-profile, relying on the internet, small ads and massage parlours. One reason is a law introduced in 2003 by the interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy. As in the UK, prostitution itself is legal but soliciting and living on illegal earnings are not. Under the new legislation, 'passive soliciting', i.e. walking the pavement, as well as 'active soliciting', is now illegal. Though local municipalities have a significant say in where sex workers are tolerated, the result has been a steady shift away from the pavement.


The Netherlands

Prostitution has been legal since 2000. There are 180 official 'sex businesses' in the De Wallen quarter, the Amsterdam red light district, which employ about 2,000 prostitutes who are registered, thoroughly inspected and pay tax. In Rotterdam and some provincial towns, there are less celebrated but still flourishing zones. One problem is EU labour laws that do not permit non-EU citizens to work. The result is that eastern European and African women, who make up 47 per cent and 26 per cent respectively of Amsterdam-based prostitutes according to recent government figures, are vulnerable to abuse, blackmail and extortion. If they go to the police, they risk being deported.


Germany

A series of laws passed in the past five years has legalised almost all aspects of prostitution. Most large German cities have regulated brothels. The best known is the Pascha centre in Cologne, a 126-room complex with its own restaurant, beauty centre, boutique, laundry, tanning salon and bistro. Sex workers can join unions, get health insurance or a pension plan. Income from prostitution is taxed, at a slightly higher rate than usual. The areas where prostitution is allowed are equipped with CCTV cameras and regularly patrolled, leading to a decrease in violence, campaigners say.


Jason Burke

    The Killer of Handford Road, O, 17.12.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1973815,00.html

EXCLUSIVE

Baby is killer's 6th victim

December 16, 2006
The Sun
By JOHN TROUP

ONE of the Suffolk Strangler’s victims was PREGNANT, The Sun can reveal.

Vice girl Anneli Alderton, 24, was around three months into her pregnancy, cops confirmed last night.

The news of a sixth life being claimed emerged as police said they had the killer in their sights — after narrowing the hunt to just a handful of men.

Police found out about Anneli’s condition following a post mortem. A police spokesman said last night: “We can confirm that Anneli Alderton was around three months pregnant.

“The information was not made public as soon as we became aware because it was not deemed relevant.”

The post mortem also revealed that Anneli died from asphyxiation.

Her naked body was spotted in woodland at Nacton, to the south of Ipswich, by a passing motorist on Sunday.

Her family yesterday said they were stunned by news of the pregnancy. Mum Marie, 49, was said to have “howled with pain” when cops told her.

And Anneli’s grandmother Joan Molloy, 84, collapsed.

They believe the vice girl was planning on breaking the news to them in a few days.

A close family friend said: “We had no idea Anneli was pregnant, none at all.

“Words can’t describe how much more pain the news has caused.

“We thought what in the world can be worse than the murder.

“But this makes it much worse. Marie howled with pain when she heard.

“That bastard has now taken two lives from this family.”

COPS breathed a sigh of relief last night after a former Ipswich prostitute, feared to have become another victim, was found safe and well.

    Baby is killer's 6th victim, S, 16.12.2006, http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2006580277,00.html

Suffolk murders

Manhunt targets five key suspects

December 16, 2006
The Times
Sean O'Neill, Michael Horsnell and Stewart Tendler

Police inquiry team increasingly confident

Victim’s parents appeal for information

An intensive search and surveillance operation has been mounted on as few as five key suspects in the hunt for the Ipswich serial killer.

Detectives are increasingly confident that they are closing in on the murderer, who has dumped the naked bodies of five women around the edge of the Suffolk town.

One man in particular has come to the fore. A senior police source described him to The Times as “very interesting”.

Despite the progress, the investigation is likely to be a lengthy and painstaking one as police amass sufficient evidence — especially from closed circuit television footage — to make an arrest. The movements of some of the prime suspects are being monitored closely but the exact whereabouts of others is not known.

Operation Sumac, the codename for the inquiry into the murders of Anneli Alderton, 24, Gemma Adams, 25, Paula Clennell, 24, Tania Nicol, 19, and Annette Nicholls, 29, is moving fast and the list of suspects is being constantly whittled down as information is analysed.

They include known sex offenders from Suffolk and other areas, men who travel to Ipswich to pick up prostitutes and people associated with the drugs trade.

Police family liaison officers have told the family of Ms Alderton, 24, whose body was discovered near the village of Nacton last Sunday, that she was in the early stages of pregnancy.

The parents of Ms Nicol made a public appeal yesterday for information that would help to trace their daughter’s killer. Jim Duell, her father, appeared alongside Kerry Nicol, the dead girl’s mother, and described Ms Nicol as “a caring, loving, sensitive girl” who was taken away by drugs “into her own secret world”.

Mr Duell said: “If anyone has any information, however small, please tell us.”

Police patrols, including vehicles with numberplate recognition technology, have been looking for cars and vans associated with the men on the suspect list. Recovery of the vehicle used in the murders is crucial to the inquiry because it may be not only the killer’s means of transport but the place where he murdered his victims.

The source said: “The focus of the inquiry has narrowed significantly. We are looking at a small number of individuals and are at a key stage of the investigation. There are a number of cars and other vehicles associated with these individuals and we are on the lookout for all of them.”

Police believe it is “very significant” that none of the bodies of the murdered women shows signs of injuries associated with a fight or a struggle and that none was sexually assaulted before being killed.

Their remains were found naked but in the cases of Ms Nicol, Ms Adams and Ms Nicholls the killer left their bracelets, necklaces and rings on the bodies.

A post-mortem on Ms Nicholls, the last of the victims to be identified formally, did not return a conclusive cause of death. However, detectives are proceeding on the assumption that all the women were strangled or suffocated.

There were fears that the killer might have struck again when another prostitute was reported missing last night. Police were alerted when the woman failed to check in with her probation officer. She was later found safe.

    Manhunt targets five key suspects, G, 16.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2507692,00.html

Suffolk murders

The diary of an Ipswich working girl

December 16, 2006
The Times
Lucy Bannerman

Natasha is scrolling down the names on one of her four mobile phones: Tosspot, Idiot, No Show, Haggler. One is listed only as “Strange”, but she can’t remember why.

As a prostitute working from a two-bedroom flat near Ipswich, fielding calls from these clients and arranging when and where to meet them takes up a great part of her working day. The hardback diary that she uses to juggle her one and two-hour appointments not only keeps her organised, it also helps her to remember which clients to watch out for.

Beside the contact details she jots notes. One recent entry, describing a 1.30pm appointment, reads: “Stank, kept ringing both of us. Weirdo.”

“He was a strange one,” she says, cheerfully, as she flicks through the pages of her black book in a pub in the centre of Ipswich. Pointing to another, she said: “I gave that job to someone else. He had some sort of muscle-wasting disease. That one was gorgeous, but you could smell him from a million miles away.

“There he is,” she said, her finger finally resting on one name pencilled in for last May, in Enfield. Her tone changes. “I will never forget that one.”

“That one” was an unassuming man in his late sixties who attacked her with a cricket bat at his house.

“Really, you wouldn’t have expected it,” she says. “He was just being rough, then took out a bat that was hidden by the bed. He seemed to actually have planned it. It shook me up. I really did think I’d come a cropper.” Natasha was put in hospital for two weeks. She lifts her arm to show permanent muscle damage.

Unlike the five prostitutes who have been murdered in Ipswich, Natasha, 26, from Essex, is not a street worker. Neither does she have the hollow cheeks or hollow-eyed stare of a drug addict. She claims that she is a web designer with five A levels, and that she joined “the industry” four years ago, just after being raped by someone she met at a nightclub.

“I just thought, sod it, no one can do any worse to me now.”

With years of experience, she now treats her work with the same businesslike manner as any other financially independent, self-employed young woman, and talks of rising interest rates and her concerns about paying the mortgage. She also believes that the vetting procedure that she has developed over the years will give her the protection that eluded the five dead Suffolk girls.

Natasha will “see” between two and five clients a day. Occasionally, she will work seven days a week, subsidising regular work with photoshoots. In the calendar inside her diary, she notes the amount that she makes each day; £340, £500, £120, £800. In an average week, she will earn £800.

“There are so many hours that go into it. Doing the advertising, the security checks, as well as getting your hair done and all the beauty treatments,” she says, as if it really is a business as legitimate as any other.

After waking at about 10am, she will go to the gym, starting her first appointment at 11am or noon. The rest follow in one or two-hour slots. All are arranged by telephone.

On a slow day she will receive about ten calls from clients who have found her number on a website. On a good day, more than a hundred men will ring.

“The ones who annoy me are the ones who call in the early hours of the morning and get unreasonable because you can’t get to them right now.”

Until 6pm, clients will visit her at a two-bedroom flat that she rents in Essex. After that, she will go on “outcalls” — appointments at houses or hotels.

All unidentified numbers are fed into her laptop, in case any match the 200 former violent clients that she has on a blacklist. The job must be arranged before 6pm, and callers have to satisfy her criteria. “The name they give has to appear on the electoral roll at that address,” she said. “If it’s not their home, they have to give a previous address. If not, I do a credit card check.”

She admits that sometimes she enforces these rules less stringently than others. And, just occasionally, her “gut instincts” let her down. “I had heard about one guy who was well known for booking girls just to rough them up, give them a beating.”

Unknowingly, she booked him in. “He was Asian, in his late twenties to mid thirties, like most are. He started getting really aggressive and I knew straight away. He overpowered me, and pinned me down.”

Last summer, a regular client turned up unannounced between her appointments at 11am and 1pm. He assaulted her, throwing her against a cooker so hard that she suffered internal haemorrhaging.

Most girls try to look out for each other, she said, posting warnings on websites called punterlink, escortwatch and forum x. Others don’t.

“Lots of girls think, ‘Well, it’s not happened to me’ so they don’t care. They don’t give the details. They don’t check their clients. But you’ve got to do it. You owe it to people.”

She shares some stories from the past couple of months. A friend, Jodi, was held captive at the home of a client in September. When she escaped, he chased her down the road with a hammer. One anecdote, which is particularly chilling in light of the recent attacks, involves a close friend whose regular client liked to asphyxiate her. “He would strangle her until she nearly passed out.”

For Natasha, violence, threats and risk are part of her routine. She recognises one number instantly. It has flashed up 64 times in a single evening. “He’s always really aggressive, saying, ‘I’m going to do this to you, I’m going to do that’.” She has never booked him in, but she knows a girl who has. He got obsessed with her and starting making threatening calls.

Then, there is the client who likes to video himself, or JC, who likes 14-year-old girls. “He got talking and said he’d slept with his mate’s baby sister.” Chuck is so named because of his sexual fetish for Chucky, the murderous plastic doll in Child’s Play, the Eighties horror film. “Yeah,” she says, brightening, “you do get them.”

As she talks, a news bulletin flashes up on the large television screen behind her, and the buzz of pub chatter stops. It says out loud what she has been thinking as she organises next week: he’s still out there.

“We probably know him. He is probably known to us,” she says, adding that the police have shown little interest in her various client databases.

Despite her efforts to treat as a job like any other, she knows about the risks. She counts five “bad ones”. This week has been quiet. Monday was spent consoling a suicidal client. No sex, just listening. After the discovery of two more bodies, she took Tuesday off. The next day, she saw three people — “two new ones who were extremely nice, and the other was a bit of a dickhead” — and, on Thursday, a German businessman who “rubbed me up the wrong way on the phone, but he was lovely in the flesh”.

On Friday she said no to a number of unidentified callers, again because of the murders.

However, many clients, she emphasises, “are just really nice guys”. “You are so vulnerable. But there is a lot of ignorance about what we do.”

The phones rings. Apologising to the caller, she explains that she is only accepting bookings from clients she knows. “I’m so sorry, but unless the situation improves I’m not seeing anybody I don’t know from the area — only guys who the other girls can vouch for.”

But does that reliance — upon word of mouth, blacklists and gut instinct — really provide enough protection? “No,” she replies immediately. “Not at all.”

    The diary of an Ipswich working girl, G, 16.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2507117,00.html

Suffolk murders

Once they were lost ...

how the Church rediscovered

its humanity in the prostitute

December 16, 2006
The Times
Libby Purves

Sympathy for the Ipswich victims has revealed a shift in attitudes among the public and clergy

If anything about the unfolding horror in Ipswich could lift the spirits a little, it is the widespread refusal of local people — even of the most churchgoing and old-fashioned persuasion — to judge, blame or belittle the victims for being prostitutes. You do not need to embrace the euphemistic language of “sex workers” or call prostitution an “industry” to give proper respect to the deaths of the young women.

The Rev Andrew Dotchin, a local vicar, has observed and praised the way that local people — all those who have spoken publicly, at least — have eschewed condemnation and offered sympathy and support to the families. “These are very ordinary girls,” he says, “and in every conversation I’ve had there has been concern for them, and realisation that, well, this is just one of our community who’s found her way out to the edges of society.

“There may be people who think in hardline hellfire terms but they aren’t saying so at the moment. I would hope that anybody’s first response would be simple compassion. These girls — not everyone’s going to engage with them directly, but there’s a generally kind response. Perhaps it’s partly a rural, Suffolk thing.”

Mr Dotchin has a good understanding of the downhill progression of these young lives. His parish of Whitton is one of the bleaker Ipswich estates, “one of the most socially deprived areas in East Anglia. It’s a reservoir for girls like this, who tend to move from helpful lifestyles into worse ones.” He knew Tania Nicol a little when she used to gather with other young people near the church a couple of years ago. There is, he says, always local gossip about which girls are going through phases of streetwalking, and in Tania’s case he had the impression that she was being groomed by an older man and that she was “a girl who was frightened about how her life was going to turn out”.

Drugs, he says, are the “linchpin” of the problem. His parish supports the Iceni project in the town, a drug treatment and counselling charity. “The hope is always that the route they take into this time spent in prostitution is two-way — you hope that these girls will come off the streets. There’s a road there, and our job is to make it as smooth as possible.”

Asked whether this attitude of not thundering against “sin” is universal among local clergy, he hesitates. “Well, we could all name the usual suspects who talk differently — but they aren’t saying anything, not in these circumstances. And note that even the most hardline churchmen have been involved in our new Town Pastors scheme.” This is a year old: a group of churches in the middle of the town have taken on the nightlife. “Because of this binge-drinking, kicking-out time crisis, when young people who’ve drunk too much get sick or lost or robbed. It’s a very gentle street patrol, just lifting people out of the gutters, calling taxis or emergency services, getting them home.”

Ipswich’s approach and the churches’ involvement is, perhaps, emblematic of the way that Christian churches have cast off Victorian ferocity and relearnt a New Testament gentleness and humility during the past century. When William Ewart Gladstone, the Prime Minister, was “rescuing” prostitutes in the name of Christ (with limited success, by his own admission) the process of redemption offered by Victorian Christianity was unattractive to any girl of spirit. It involved hard, manual employment, emigration or a tough stay at the “Houses of Mercy” at Clewer and Rose Street in Soho. Jane Bywater, one rescuee who didn’t last long, wrote to Mr Gladstone in 1854 saying: “I have no doubt that you wished to do me some service, but I did not fancy being shut up in such a place as that for twelve months. I should have committed suicide.”

Churches have always had trouble with the dual responsibility of condemning the sin and loving the sinner, most particularly where temptations of sex are concerned. A degree of self-righteous sadism marked social attitudes to unmarried mothers and to prostitutes as late as the mid-20th century. As far as prostitutes were concerned that attitude lingered for a long time. When the Yorkshire Ripper’s crimes were taking place in the late 1970s it was not difficult to hear casual condemnation of the victims. Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney-General, prosecuting Peter Sutcliffe, famously said: “Some were prostitutes, but perhaps the saddest part of this case is that some were not. The last six attacks were on totally respectable women.”

The times have changed. Interestingly, it is not just the awareness of abuse and trafficking and the general loosening of sexual mores that have moved opinion on; though both must be part of it. The route into prostitution, especially for the very young, is better understood now and for girls who are of age it must be relevant that sex itself is considered less momentous than it used to be. When magazines and chick-lit encourage young girls to go out on the pull and regard sex with a stranger as a reasonable ending of a night out, there is not quite so big a leap to the idea of taking money for it. One of the women in Ipswich was quoted — before her death — saying that she had to do it because it was “better than shoplifting”; which you could interpret as rather a fine moral statement, since a prostitute steals only her own wellbeing and dignity.

But, in addition to these changed attitudes, it is the churches as much as any other influence that are pushing forward the idea of prostitutes’ rights and humanity. “NCAP”, says Mr Dotchin “in particular, has been very useful indeed in encouraging people to move away from black-and-white attitudes towards more understanding ones. Look it up.”

Indeed. NCAP is the National Christian Alliance on Prostitution: it began a decade ago with informal links between church projects working to help prostitutes. In 1998 it organised a conference to discuss the many problems and complexities of the work, and in 1999 became an organisation in its own right. It has become a registered charity, and links 40 projects in the UK and others overseas. Its mission statement says: “Prostitution is survival, not sexual behaviour . . . Jesus was described as a friend of prostitutes and sinners. It is vital for the Church to speak up for the oppressed.”

In one sense this is an obvious attitude for Christian churches to take, echoing the New Testament passages about the woman taken in adultery, Mary Magdalene and other female sinners. Christianity, however, has not always been so humane since. For centuries it grew away from the gentle universal humanity of its founder. In the Middle Ages in Europe a paradoxical attitude reigned: cynical tolerance mingled with condemnation. Prostitution was technically a sin — fornication — but was considered a lesser evil because it channelled male desires and protected respectable women from seduction or rape. St Augustine says smoothly and unattractively: “If you expel prostitutes you reduce society to chaos through unsatisfied lust.”

When societies and churchmen began to panic about brothels and disease, however, it was always the women — the commodities — who got it in the neck, not their clients.

That has been the prostitute’s fate through history: banned, punished, or tolerated with contempt as a way to keep other women’s chastity safe. Christianity has been complicit in all that, and played a few ignoble parts in its time.

It did not start that way, however: it began with gentle affirmation of the human value of the lowest and most desperate lives. If churchpeople today are returning to those ancient and easily forgotten values, there is perhaps something to be glad about.

    Once they were lost ... how the Church rediscovered its humanity in the prostitute, Ts, 16.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2506962,00.html

Suffolk murders

A community prays for the killer,

his victims and an end to the brutality

December 16, 2006
The Times 
Michael Horsnell and Adam Fresco

Rector calls for justice to prevail

Parents appeal for public's help

A clergyman led prayers last night for the killer of the five murdered Ipswich women during a candlelit service that commemorated the lives and deaths of the young victims.

The service took place at a 15th-century church in Copdock, close to Belstead Brook, where two of the victims were found. Before it began, Chris Wingfield, the rector, said: “We are praying for the circumstances of the killer. He is living in an horrendous, dark world that we cannot imagine, and we hope light will come into that darkness so he realises the havoc he is causing.

“Everyone wants the brutality to stop, and one way of doing that is to make him realise what he is doing.”

He described the victims as “beautiful and wonderful girls” and said: “We pray for the person or persons who have committed these atrocious crimes. To us they are evil works of darkness. We cannot even begin to understand the motives that drive such anger and hatred.

“Yet in the midst of this darkness and horror, we ask you to bring light and understanding of the chaos they have caused and the turmoil they have reaped.

“In their disturbed and dreadful world, let realisation dawn so that their brutality will cease. Let justice prevail.”

Candles for all five were lit near the altar. After the hymn, Be Still for the Presence of the Lord, and the reading of a poem, the rector prayed for the families.

“Lord, help the families and the friends of all those who mourn the girls so tragically taken,” he said. “Help them to remember the laughter and the good times they have shared, and give thanks for the privilege of knowing them.”

Mr Wingfield added: “It’s a simple twist of fate that takes us down one path rather than another. All the events of the past few weeks only underline the fragility of life.”

The service ended with the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm before worshippers were invited to light candles and to stay behind in prayer and reflection.

More than 60 people attended the service for the women — Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls. Most were local people, but friends of the victims also joined the prayers.

A schoolfriend of Ms Nicol said: “It was a lovely service but I find it difficult to talk. We didn’t know what she had been doing in recent times. To me she was just a lovely girl.”

The grieving parents of Ms Nicol spoke yesterday of the drugs that seduced her into “her own secret world” as they appealed for help to catch her killer. Kerry Nicol and Jim Duell said: “Tania was a lovely daughter — she was a caring, loving, sensitive girl who would never hurt anyone. Drugs took her away into her own secret world, a world that neither of us were aware of.”

Mr Duell went on to urge the parents of the four other victims to take courage. “They can’t take away our memories, they can’t take away our love, our fortitude, our courage,” he said. “Grieve for our daughters but not unnecessarily. They would want to see us getting on with our lives and not going around with our heads down.”

The Bishop of St Edmondsbury and Ipswich will lead prayers today before the Championship football match between Ipswich Town and Leeds United, which will be followed by a one-minute silence in memory of the women.

    A community prays for the killer, his victims and an end to the brutality, Ts, 16.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2507610,00.html

These bilious outpourings

We do victims of murder a disservice
when we appropriate their deaths
to prop up our prejudices

Saturday December 16, 2006
The Guardian
Duncan Campbell


So who is responsible for the murders of the five young women in Suffolk? In the Daily Mail, AN Wilson suggests that Kate Moss, Peter Doherty and Mick Jagger should end up in the dock beside the murderer. They "all have the blood of these young women on their hands," Wilson writes, because they are associated with the glamourisation of drugs. Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express believes "politically correct indifference" to drugs and prostitution has created a climate that has led to their deaths. Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph blames the "cadre of liberal opinion formers" who have made drugs acceptable and thus helped to enslave the unfortunate "tarts" on the street.

In 1949, Britain was transfixed by the arrest and trial of John George Haigh for five murders which were also carried out with sinister brutality. He claimed to have taken his victims' blood from their jugular veins before dissolving them in acid. Three years earlier, the country was equally fascinated by the case of Neville Heath, who killed and mutilated women in unspeakable ways. Every night of the week in London, if you are so inclined, you can go on a Jack the Ripper tour of the part of the East End where he carried out his own murders in 1888. "For the ladies, it's a great night out," says one of the many competing "ripper" tour companies on their flyers.

All of these killings took place long before drugs were an issue. And cadres of liberal opinion formers were a big feature neither of Victorian society nor of the immediate post-war era. Vulnerable and desperate young women have been on the streets of Britain since there were streets. Vicious and sadistic men have been killing and mutilating women since there were men and women.

Simon Heffer says that most prostitutes are now enslaved by drugs: "Ask any policeman and they will tell you it is true." If you were also to ask said policeman - and any policewoman, as they do, amazingly, now exist - they will tell you also that what really fuels violence in the Britain of today is alcohol.

Some boring statistics: alcohol is involved in 48% of all crimes of violence (drugs in 18%), in 60% of attacks on strangers (14% drugs) and 53% of all domestic violence (11% drugs.) So should journalists who patronise off-licences, who serve their dinner guests wine, or who drink too much beer at cricket matches be up in the dock alongside every violent mugger and wife-beater? Do we all have blood on our hands?

When Fred and Rosemary West were finally arrested in 1994 for the murders of more than a dozen young women, there were similar charges made against a liberal and permissive society. Yet the Wests were just the sort of people to win the stamp of approval from the conservative commentariat: they were a married couple with a large family, Fred was in work, and neither drugs nor cadres of liberal opinion formers played much of a part in their world at 25 Cromwell Street.

This week has seen the conclusion of an inquiry into another tragic death of a young vulnerable women in which accusations, many of them absurd, have been made, not least by one of the newspapers listed above. Pointing fingers is a dangerous game. We can argue about what the best way is to deal with drugs and with prostitution, although both debates have been largely sterile recently, but assigning blame should be a complex procedure.

We do not know the man, or men, who is, or are, carrying out these murders in Suffolk. We do not know what motivates or drives them. We do not know if they are driven into a frenzy by reading regular outpourings of bile about permissiveness in some of our daily newspapers, or by constantly seeing pictures of famous drug-takers in those publications. And Moss and Doherty didn't ask their "friends" to rat on them to the press.

When the perpetrator is finally caught, we can hope to learn some lessons, but one lesson that need not wait for it is that, very sadly, there are murderous people at large now, as there were in the last century and the century before. And we do a disservice to the victims by trying to drag them from the murder scene to display them casually as exhibits for our personal moral prejudices.

    These bilious outpourings, G, 16.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1973259,00.html

Addiction that drove victims

to life on the street

A desperate craving for heroin or crack
drove all five victims to sell sex,
reports Esther Addley

Saturday December 16, 2006
Guardian
Esther Addley

Stacey Rolfe is resolved to remember the good times with her friend Netty, when she lived across the road from her and they would have waterfights in the garden with her daughter and her friend's little boy. Or the times when they were at beauty college together, and Netty would lend Stacey clothes and do her eyebrows and makeup before they all went clubbing in Ipswich town centre. Not the bare, sorry facts of an almost unrecognisable friend, reduced to climbing into strangers' cars in a desperate attempt to buy heroin.

"I just keep thinking why, why it all happened," she says. "She didn't need to do that. She was so lovely. She didn't need to do that."

Annette Nicholls - Netty to those who loved her - was yesterday confirmed as the last of the five women whose bodies have been dumped in the past six weeks in the countryside around Ipswich. But while police look for the murderer, for the families and friends of the five women, almost as pressing a question this week has been that terrible why. Why five young girls, remembered again and again by schoolfriends, siblings and parents as lively and loving young people, grew up to become sex workers, some of them homeless, vulnerable to a monstrous killer.

The crude answer to that question is what Tania Nicol's grieving parents yesterday called the "secret world" of drugs. All five of the women were addicted to drugs, mostly heroin, though Anneli Alderton is reported to have avoided opiates in favour of crack cocaine. Netty Nicholls, by the end, was so desperate for heroin that even her fellow sex workers disapproved of the lengths she would go to in order to get it.

Two days before she was last seen, she stole a phone from a customer and sold it for £20 to a dealer. On one occasion she agreed to join Paula Clennell, another of the murdered women, in "doing the double" with a client whom Ms Clennell had robbed to buy drugs in an attempt to placate him. Her friend Suzanne, another sex worker, had fallen out with her shortly before her death because she offered to sleep with Suzanne's boyfriend if he would just give her heroin. She had a "sugar daddy", says one of the women, and sometimes would stay with him. At other times she would have nowhere to sleep at night.

It was a simple question of survival, says Brian Tobin, manager of Iceni, an independent drugs treatment centre in Ipswich. Like others working in drugs services in the town, he wants to respect the women's privacy after their deaths and prefers not to say if any of the five had used the centre's services. But while they treat 60 people at any one time, and between 20 and 30 women each year working in the sex industry, including escorts and parlour workers, only five or six street workers would come for treatment in any one year.

"They are tremendously difficult people to connect with, just because of the desperation of their circumstances," he says. "Men can commit the physical crimes, burglary for instance, if they are desperate for money. But with these women, if they have sunk this low, all they have left is their bodies. People have got to understand the potency of addiction."

Ipswich has had sex workers for decades, says Mr Tobin, and they have always used drugs in some form. The difference in the past three to five years is that dealers from London and other big cities have come to regard small, rural market towns as their next big opportunity. Ipswich is the second cheapest place in the country to buy crack, at £20 for a rock, according to the national drugs charity Drugscope. Heroin is £20 a bag. A 10ml dose of methadone, sold on by someone supposedly withdrawing but apparently still desperate for heroin, costs £1. In September the charity identified a rise in the town of "speedballing" - mixing crack and heroin together before injecting. Since the effects of crack wear off quickly, users find themselves injecting more often, and in greater amounts.

Ten or 15 years ago the people he saw with serious drugs addictions were 40 or 42, Mr Tobin says. Today they have terrible problems by their 20s. "For some I would say the average life, once you're a heavy heroin user, is about five years. Death isn't rock bottom for most of our clients. I have seen the desolation and the lack of hope. There's no life left in some of these girls."

Since drug-using sex workers started being murdered, Ipswich's drugs services have begun to fast-track those who want treatment; instead of having to wait up to three weeks to get a methadone prescription, those who want one can now get it within a day.

But, says Harry Shapiro, editor of Druglink magazine, helping women like these out of heroin addiction is much more complex than simply getting them on a "script". "It's not life-threatening to withdraw from heroin, but for people who have little or no support, it's something many of them cannot face trying to go through. The problems are what happens afterwards."

Sex workers can access sexual health services, drug addicts can get drug treatment, homeless people can find hostel accommodation. But if you have all three problems, and especially if you throw mental health issues into the mix, your problems can quickly appear too complex to manage. Most women's hostels, for instance, will not accept drug users. Addicts who are verbally or physically abusive to their doctors can find themselves barred from the surgeries and thus denied medical treatment.

"The system breaks down when you have people with these kinds of problems together," says Mr Shapiro. In Ipswich, a survey two years ago found that more than half the street sex workers were homeless, 93% were heroin users, 82% used crack. Of 21 women with children, only three had not lost them to the care system or placed them with families. More than half were being treated for depression. Some of the murdered women took part in the survey.

Neither Annette Nicholls's large, close-knit family, her many friends, nor the women with whom she worked will ever really know how she found herself in the terrible position she did before her death. Her cousin Tanya has described the change in Annette as "like flicking a switch". Sue Hindle, who knew her from when their children were at nursery together, noticed when she saw her a few months ago that she had lost a lot of weight. Her uncle, David Nicholls, blames an old boyfriend who, he says, introduced her to heroin before he was jailed a couple of years ago.

Adrian Carpenter, another old friend, last saw her a couple of months ago when she called round at his house. "She had been a really stunning woman. When she knocked at the door I said, 'Is that the same woman?'

What did he think had happened? "I didn't want to think about it."

    Addiction that drove victims to life on the street, G, 16.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1973297,00.html

Police draw up shortlist of suspects

· Parents pay tribute to 'sensitive, loving' girl
· Fifth body identified but cause of death unknown

Saturday December 16, 2006
Guardian
Steven Morris and Hugh Muir


Detectives hunting a serial killer who has murdered five prostitutes in the Ipswich area are focusing on a shortlist of suspects, including known offenders and clients of sex workers, it emerged yesterday.
A senior police source said the search had not been narrowed down to one person but officers were looking carefully at "several" men, some local and some who had been flagged up by other forces.

Police officially linked the murders of all five women for the first time yesterday and confirmed that none had been subject to a violent sexual assault or suffered "significant" trauma injuries.

Officers also confirmed that the body discovered at Levington, near Ipswich, this week was that of Annette Nicholls, 29. Like the other four, her body was naked, though, in common with two of the other victims, her jewellery had been left on her.

A postmortem examination failed to reveal how she died and toxicology tests are being carried out. Officers are waiting for test results on two of the other women; one theory is that the killer may have drugged them before murdering them.

The scale of the investigation continued to grow, with almost 10,000 phone calls and emails from the public being processed. More than 300 officers from 26 forces are involved.

For the first time Suffolk police hinted that the net was closing on the killer. Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, leading the inquiry, said: "We are looking at a number of interesting people and pursuing a number of interesting lines of inquiry. We have got a range of individuals who have been suggested to us. Some are local but some are not. Some are not punters." Mr Gull would not be drawn on how many men were being looked at but a source revealed it was only a few.

Other forces have supplied the names of possible suspects. Police are paying particular attention to red light districts which traditionally have links to Ipswich's, including Norwich and Southend. The focus of the investigation is on men based in Britain - not those coming into the area through nearby ports.

One important tool in the hunt is a fleet of police cars fitted with automatic number plate recognition which has been sent to Suffolk from Merseyside.

As the investigation progressed, the parents of Tania Nicol, whose body was found at Copdock Mill, west of the city centre, re-emphasised the human cost of the tragedy. During an emotional press conference at Suffolk police headquarters her father, Jim Duell, sitting beside her mother, Kerry, read a prepared statement drawn up with the police.

"Tania was a lovely daughter - she was a caring, loving sensitive girl who would never hurt anyone," he said. "Unfortunately, drugs took her away into her own secret world - a world that neither of us were aware of." He added: "Tania has been taken by someone who needs to be found. We ask for anyone who knows this person or persons to come forward."

He surprised officers and journalists by unveiling a second statement, handwritten on a crumpled sheet of paper and dedicated to the other four families "who have lost their daughters". His voice shaking, Mr Duell urged them to "live your lives through our departed daughters".

Suffolk police subtly changed its safety message to the public yesterday. Earlier they had emphasised that all women were at risk; yesterday it said there was "no suggestion that other women were at risk". The move indicated the police were much more confident about what type of man they are dealing with. But the jitters in the town were laid bare when another woman was briefly reported missing; she was later reported safe.

Police will today make an appeal for information at Ipswich Town's game against Leeds United. A minute's silence will be held before kickoff and prayers said.

    Police draw up shortlist of suspects, G, 16.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1973288,00.html

1.30pm

Fifth murdered woman named

Friday December 15, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
David Batty and agencies

The body of a woman found near Ipswich was today identified as the missing prostitute Annette Nicholls.

A postmortem examination failed to reveal the cause of the 29-year-old's death but Suffolk police said they were treating it as murder.

Detective Chief Inspector Stewart Gull said her death was linked to that of four other local prostitutes also believed to have been murdered.

Ms Nicholls' body was found in wasteland near the village of Levington, east of Ipswich town centre, on Tuesday along with that of Paula Clennell, another local prostitute.

Mr Gull said officers had a "number" of suspects.

"We are looking at a number of interesting people, pursuing a number of interesting lines of inquiry," he said.

"We have got a range of individuals who have been suggested to us. Some are local but some are not. Some are not punters."

He said it was unprecedented for Suffolk police to hold five separate murder inquiries simultaneously.

He said police had received 1,800 phone calls in relation to the five cases in the past 24 hours. This came on top of 5,500 calls since the investigation was launched.

Earlier this week it emerged that Anneli Alderton, 24, whose body was found on Sunday, had been asphyxiated. Toxicology tests are being carried out on the bodies of Gemma Adams, 25, and Tania Nicol, 19.

The parents of Ms Nicol, whose body was found in a stretch of water near the town, today appealed for anyone with information about the murderer to help police.

Kerry Nicol and Jim Duell urged anyone who had information, "however small", to come forward.

Mr Duell said: "Tania was a lovely daughter - she was a caring loving, sensitive girl who would never hurt anyone. Unfortunately drugs took her away into her own secret world - a world that neither of us were aware of.

"Tania has been taken by someone who needs to be found. We ask for anyone who knows this person or persons to come forward and contact the police."

Police have established that Ms Clennell, 24, died as a result of "compression to the neck".

    Fifth murdered woman named, G, 15.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1972995,00.html

Ipswich prostitutes

are paid to stay off streets

· Charity provides money to keep women safe
· Police investigate whether killer drugged victims first

Friday December 15, 2006
Guardian
Steven Morris and Hugh Muir

Prostitutes in Ipswich are being given money by police and drug workers to stop them risking their lives by touting for business on the streets, it emerged yesterday.

As officers continue to hunt for a serial killer feared to have murdered five women, it was revealed that women who work in the red light area of the Suffolk town are receiving cash handouts.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull urged prostitutes to stay off the streets, saying: "It's not safe to engage a client or punter at this time."

He would not say how much money the 30 to 40 women who work in Ipswich were being given, but added that because of the "financial support" there was "no reason to go with clients".

The money has been handed over by an unnamed charity to the multi-agency group, including police, which oversees community safety in Suffolk. Drug workers are also making sure prostitutes are receiving all the money they need. Julia Stephens, of Suffolk County Council, said the money was being used by the women to pay bills or meet loans repayments.

Police are considering the possibility that the women may have been incapacitated before they were murdered, possibly by being drugged. One line of inquiry will be to focus on the drug dealers they regularly used. Officers confirmed that toxicology tests were being conducted.

Mr Gull warned there was a chance that the killer could be forced into other areas by the massive manhunt taking place. He said neighbouring forces were taking extra precautions to make sure prostitutes working in cities such as Norwich and Cambridge were protected.

Questioned about the progress of the inquiry, detectives said they had made no arrests, executed no search warrants and seized no vehicles. They dismissed the suggestion that the killer or killers may have been taunting the police by continuing to target women in the midst of a huge manhunt.

But Mr Gull, who is overseeing the operation, said it was possible that the killer, who removed the women's clothes before dumping their bodies, might be keeping their clothes as a trophy.

Police denied some media claims that the victims' body hair had been shaved, a detail which had appeared to link the killings with an unsolved murder in East Anglia more than a decade ago.

Police have now established a cause of death for one of the two women, Paula Clennell, 24, whose bodies were found near Levington, east of Ipswich town centre, on Tuesday. She died as a result of "compression to the neck". Detectives also revealed they had learned that Ms Clennell was seen working on the streets in Ipswich in the early hours of Sunday morning - confirmation that the killer was confident enough to strike again even with dozens of officers already working on the deaths of three women whose bodies had been found by that time. Ms Clennell was seen at 12.20am in Handford Road, near where she lived.

The second body found near Levington, thought to be that of Annette Nicholls, 29, was removed from the scene yesterday and was being examined by a pathologist. Earlier this week it emerged that Anneli Alderton, 24, whose body was found on Sunday, had been asphyxiated. Toxicology tests are being carried out on the bodies of Gemma Adams, 25, and Tania Nicol, 19.

The investigators continued to receive a deluge of calls - 5,500 as of yesterday morning - and more than 1,000 emails. Many messages concerned the women's clothes and other personal belongings.

Officers are combing hours of CCTV footage and records of vehicles captured on number plate recognition systems. They are also examining phone records to try to find out who the women spoke to in the weeks before their deaths and to attempt to pinpoint their movements.

Police would like to speak to a woman who claimed she had seen Ms Alderton speaking to a "chubby-faced man with spectacles" driving a blue BMW, although the driver of the vehicle has been interviewed by police.

    Ipswich prostitutes are paid to stay off streets, G, 15.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1972643,00.html

Manhunt is now national in all but name

Friday December 15, 2006
Guardian
Hugh Muir and Steven Morris

The Suffolk investigation has become an unprecedented manhunt, drawing in more than 300 officers and specialists from 10 police forces. Neighbouring forces such as Essex, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and the Met are providing support. Help has also been drafted in from Durham, West Mercia, Gloucester, Merseyside and the Ministry of Defence police.

Yesterday detectives said the investigation was likely to grow as attempts were made to trace witnesses and to sift through hours of CCTV film.

The massive inquiry is led by Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, 43, the only Suffolk officer to have served in uniform and as a detective in every rank. A 25-year veteran, he has been the head of crime management for the past 18 months. He has experience of dealing with violence against the area's sex workers. In 2003 he led the inquiry into the killing of local prostitute Cara Martin-Brown, kicked to death by a resident who hated prostitutes working near his home.

He also led the successful murder inquiry after the dismemberment of an Ipswich librarian, whose body parts were dumped in the lakes of Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire.

Mr Gull has been the inquiry's public face, taking the regular morning briefing for the local, national and international press. But with Assistant Chief Constable Jacqui Cheer, who acts as Gold commander, his role is largely strategic.

Day to day management of the five murder teams is being handled by the deputy officer in charge, Detective Superintendent Andy Henwood of Suffolk's organised crime management department. A 24-year veteran, he has been a crucial player in a string of high profile murder investigations.

After the Soham hunt for Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, when the neighbouring Cambridgeshire force was overwhelmed by the inquiry, Suffolk has been quick to seek help beyond its boundaries.

The inquiry is following a Home Office template established after Soham, which has seen the small force use outside specialists to assist with issues such as forensics, soil analysis, search techniques and psychology.

The inquiry's base on the ground floor of Suffolk constabulary headquarters in Martlesham has five separate incident rooms, each led by a "senior investigating officer". Four are led by Suffolk detectives, one by an officer from Essex with a deputy from Suffolk. An "intelligence cell" on the same floor serves all five teams.

Thousand of calls and emails are fielded by officers and civilians from eight forces who send all credible information for further sifting by the intelligence cell.

Managers prioritise the information, deciding which bits of intelligence apply to a single murder investigation and which might apply to all five.

They record the intelligence on the Holmes computer system, which should ensure common themes are recognised and developed.

The Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers have sent observers to monitor the advantages and disadvantages of cross border co-operation on this scale. With more personnel and expertise being called upon, the investigation is now a national police inquiry in all but name.

    Manhunt is now national in all but name, G, 15.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1972699,00.html

5pm update

Ipswich victim found

in woodland was strangled

Thursday December 14, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

A woman found dead in woods near Ipswich after she was strangled was identified today as the missing prostitute Paula Clennell.

Ms Clennell, 24, was one of the two dead women whose bodies were found in scrubland close to the village of Levington, in Suffolk, on Tuesday afternoon.

Police believe the second body - found around 150 yards away from Ms Clennell's - is that of the missing Annette Nicholls, 29. Her identity, however, has not yet been formally confirmed.

The dead women were the fourth and fifth found over 10 days in Suffolk. Police are hunting a killer who has been targeting prostitutes who work in the red light area of Ipswich.

Police said Ms Clennell had died from "compressions to the neck" - a description similar to cause of death given for the third victim found, Anneli Alderton, 24. Ms Alderton died from asphyxiation, and her body was found on Sunday near Nacton, close to Levington.

'Mischievous but wonderful'

Ms Clennell, who had no fixed address, was last seen alive late on Saturday. Before she went missing she was interviewed on a local television station.

She said she was worried about getting into clients' cars but would carry on doing so because she needed the money.

Speaking earlier this week, Ms Clennell's father, Brian, described his daughter as a "mischievous but wonderful person" who had been "led up the wrong path at the wrong time".

The body of the second woman found on Tuesday remained at the scene overnight and will probably be removed later today for examination by the Home Office pathologist Nat Cary, who has been carrying out all the postmortem tests.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull denied reports today that the five women had had their body hair shaved off by the killer or killers. The first women found dead, Gemma Adams, 25, and Tania Nicol, 19, were both dumped in a brook in woodland, and some of their hair had deteriorated because of the water, Mr Gull said.

He said it was possible the killer was "forensically aware" and being careful not to leave DNA behind. This was perhaps why their clothes had been removed. He added that it was also possible the killer was keeping items of clothing as trophies.

Search for clothes

Jewellery had been left on the bodies of Ms Nicol and Ms Adams but not on those of the other three victims, Mr Gull said.

Officers are urgently looking for the murdered women's clothes.

Mr Gull said he was particularly interested in recovering the clothes of the first two women found. "When she was last seen on October 30, Tania was wearing a light-coloured top, mid-blue cutoff jeans and pink, sparkly high-heeled shoes," he said.

"Gemma, who was last seen on November 15, was wearing a black waterproof waist-length jacket with a hood and a zip up the front, light blue jeans with studs on the pockets, a red top and white-and-chrome Nike trainers. She was also carrying a black bag.

"If anyone sees any of the items, please contact police immediately," Mr Gull said.

Police are trying to establish whether a jacket recovered from the river Orwell and a handbag found in Ipswich are significant to their inquiries.

Blue BMW

Mr Gull, who says it remains possible more than one killer is involved, said no mobile phone belonging to any of the women had been found, though mobile phone data was part of the inquiry.

Mr Gull also confirmed that officers wanted to speak to the driver of a blue BMW, who has been described in reports as being overweight.

Ms Alderton was reported to have climbed into a blue BMW with this person in Ipswich last week, Mr Gull said.

Of the area where the two bodies were found on Tuesday, Mr Gull said: "There are two laybys on the Old Felixstowe Road, just a few hundred yards from the site [where the bodies were found] ... I want to hear from anyone who saw any suspicious activity in these laybys since Sunday."

Police said that they had now received 5,500 calls from the public over the killings on the inquiry hotline (0800 096 1011) and more than 1,000 emails, which Mr Gull said was a "magnificent response".

Almost 250 officers from nine forces are helping detectives investigate the murders

Another force, Cleveland police, said today that prostitutes in its area would be given personal attack alarms.

    Ipswich victim found in woodland was strangled, G, 14.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1972142,00.html


 

Thursday, December 14th, 2006

Find the fat man in the BMW

December 14, 2006
The Sun
BY JOHN TROUP

COPS hunting the Suffolk Ripper were last night seeking a fat BMW driver in glasses — last seen with one of the five victims.

Vice girl Anneli Alderton was picked up by the punter, who police fear may have driven her to her death.

Fellow Ipswich hookers saw her get into his car. One, called Lou, said yesterday: “We never saw her again. As the guy drove past with Anneli beside him, he looked towards us. He had a chubby build, glasses and short dark hair.”

One victim, Gemma Adams, 25, was last seen outside a BMW garage.

As the suspect emerged, cops were last night examining a bundle of women’s CLOTHES, including a leather jacket. They were washed up on the River Orwell in Shotley, ten miles from the centre of Ipswich.

And a handbag was found a mile from the red-light district. Inside was a pair of knickers. A bag of women’s clothing was also found by a roadside in Coggeshall, Essex.

Meanwhile, one of two naked bodies found on Tuesday was taken away for a post mortem. A tent shielded the other corpse 150 yards away at Levington, five miles from Ipswich.

The two are feared to be missing prostitutes Annette Nichols, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24. In just ten days the naked bodies of Anneli, 24, and fellow vice girls Gemma and Tania Nicol, 19, have also been found dumped.

It was last night confirmed that all five victims were strangled or asphyxiated and left naked but for their JEWELLERY.

Detectives yesterday visited the mum of a hooker killed in Norwich 14 years ago.

Tragic Natalie Pearman, 16, was also strangled. But cops told mum Lin they were not linking the crimes yet.

Cops from other forces have been drafted in to form a 150-strong team.Police will also speak to cops in the US probing four prostitute murders in Atlantic City.

Det Chief Supt Stewart Gull — leading the Ipswich hunt — admitted officers had been “emotionally overwhelmed” at the scale of the horror.

He said “interesting” clues were being pursued after more than 2,500 calls in three days.

    Find the fat man in the BMW, S, 14.12.2006, http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006570781,00.html

Ipswich murders:

Anatomy of a manhunt

Published: 14 December 2006
The Independent
By Jason Bennetto and Louise Jack
 

Hundreds of police officers, analysts, profilers and forensic experts are trying to catch the Suffolk serial killer before he strikes again. They are drawing on skills learnt from investigating crimes such as the Soham murders and the Fred and Rosemary West case.

The Victims

Detectives will try to establish common links between the five victims. If they can discover "commonality", they will have a better chance of discovering whether the killer picked them randomly or not. Other links, such as a shared drug dealer, family members, friendships with other sex workers, will also be investigated in an attempt to build a picture of their lives.

Witnesses

Dozens of uniformed officers will be doing the "donkey work". They have been joined by detectives who will be interviewing friends and acquaintances of the victims, fellow prostitutes who work on the same beat, and the prostitutes' other clients.

The police will want to build a picture of the prostitutes working in the area and their clients. This should help in tracking the last movements of the victims, their likely meeting places, and the possible identity of the killer, particularly if he has used sex workers in the past.

Forensics

The condition of the five bodies and the positions they were left in will provide important clues.

The long delay in the discovery of the first three victims - six weeks in the case of Tania Nicol - means that much of the forensic evidence will have been lost, particularly because the first two women were dumped in a stream.

The scenes-of-crime officers will be looking for any tiny samples of blood, semen, hair or fibres left by the killer that could help give a DNA profile. They will also look for fingerprints and any shoe or tyre prints left by the attacker.

The bodies and soil samples will be examined by specialists from the Forensic Service Service. Any evidence that the killer has taken "souvenirs" from his victims will provide valuable profiling material.

Surveillance Cameras

Specialists are working through hours of footage recovered from the Ipswich red-light district and surrounding areas. As well as the dozens of cameras fitted onto Ipswich Town's football ground in Portman Road, which is at the centre of the city's small street prostitution zone, officers will have taken film from CCTV monitors in the surrounding roads. They are attempting to find film of the victims, which could reveal what type of clothes they were wearing, and help with appeals for when they were last seen. So far, very little is known about what the victims were wearing as all of the bodies were stripped. Glimpses of Tania Nicol, 19, were captured on CCTV on 30 October at 11.02pm.

Analysts will also examine film taken film from cameras fitted on the A14 and A12 and other roads that lead to where the bodies were dumped.

Post Mortems

These are being carried out by Dr Nat Carey, one of the country's most eminent forensic pathologists. A Home Office pathologist, Dr Carey will try to establish the cause of death. So far it is only known that one of the victims was strangled. Examination of the bodies should establish whether they were killed in a similar way, and thereby confirm the murders are the work of a single serial killer. If the killer is found to have inflicted other injuries, this could give clues as to his state of mind.

National Databases

Police have begun checking the whereabouts of nearly 400 registered sex offenders in Suffolk.

But neither Gemma Adams or Tania Nicol were apparently sexually assaulted, which suggests the killer's motives may be more complex than first thought.

Analysts in Suffolk will also check the databases of other police forces looking for possible linked attacks that could have been carried out by a serial killer. Most serial killers leave a long gap between the first and second murders, sometimes years.

Telephone Records

If the women had mobile telephones, the police will ask telephone operators to pinpoint the geographical location of when the telephone was used, or even the moment they were switched off. This is worked out by measuring the strength of signal to telephone base stations.

If the police can discover where the telephone was last used, it may help them find where the killer lives, or a building, such as a lock-up garage, used to carry out the murders.

Previous Unsolved Cases

While police have said they have not yet found any evidence to link the five murders to previous killings, they are investigating similar incidents in case the serial attacker has struck before - which is highly likely. Among the unsolved murders they are examining is the killing of Natalie Pearman, a 16-year-old prostitute who was killed in 1992 in Norwich.

In the following year, Mandy Duncan, 26, disappeared from Ipswich. In September 1999, the naked body of 17-year-old Vicky Hall was found at Stowmarket in Suffolk. A man accused of her murder was acquitted in 2001. In 2000, Kellie Pratt, 29, disappeared from Norwich and two years later Michelle Bettles, 22, also went missing.

The police will also be examining the whereabouts of criminals with histories of violence who have recently been released from prison.

Geography Clues

The location of the bodies provides important clues as to the whereabouts of the killer and his state of mind. The five sex workers were all abandoned close to the A14 and A12 on the outskirts of Ipswich. Police believe the killer murdered the women at a separate location before abandoning them. Geographical profilers will use previous investigations to calculate where the killer is likely to have come from. Detectives are examining suspects in the towns of Felixstowe and Colchester, which are at either end of the A14.

The fact that the last two victims were abandoned in a hurry - the bodies were found about five feet from the road- suggests he is either disturbed, or is becoming increasingly frantic or careless.

Public Assistance

The police have so far received more than 2,300 calls from the public offering information about the victims and possible suspects. The huge flood of information is being handled by specialist police officers, and extra help has been drafted in from the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire police forces. The information received is assessed and graded according to how quickly it needs acting upon.

The 'Murder Manual'

One of the first things the head of the murder inquiry will have done is turn to the "murder investigation manual" now used by all police forces in Britain. It lays out a series of measures that include setting up a team of analysts. Their job is to prioritise and summarise the most important bits of information. All the information is fed into the Holmes - Home Office Large Major Enquiry System - computer. The Holmes computer system is a stand-alone database that enables detectives to search for links within a murder inquiry.

The 'Timeline'

One of the key tools for the senior detectives is a computer timeline, which plots all the most significant pieces of information. These are fed into a computer programme produced by the software company i2, which helps detectives identify key trends and common themes.

Resources

Suffolk police have more than 100 officers working on the case, but because they are one of the smallest forces in the country, with a workforce of only 1,300 officers, they are drawing on other constabularies. This includes at least 123 detectives from the Norfolk, Essex and Metropolitan Police forces. The National Centre for Policing Excellence has also deployed a regional response team.

The Senior Homicide Officers

In overall charge is the Suffolk chief constable, Alastair McWhirter. The operational aspects are dealt with by assistant chief constable Jacqui Cheer. The officer in charge of running the inquiry is Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull. The murder inquiries are also being reviewed by Commander Dave Johnston, the head of Scotland Yard's homicide and serious crime unit.

    Ipswich murders: Anatomy of a manhunt, I, 14.12.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2073042.ece

Calls grow

for reform of laws on prostitution

Published: 14 December 2006
The Independent
By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent

Plans to get prostitutes off the streets by allowing two or three to work in "mini-brothels" are still being considered by ministers almost a year after they were first floated by the Government.

The delays provoked anger in the Commons yesterday as MPs called for an overhaul of Britain's prostitution laws in the wake of the serial killings in Suffolk.

The Liberal Democrats claimed that urgently-needed reform to the antiquated legislation on the sex industry had fallen victim to the recent upheavals in the Home Office.

The department set out plans in January to let prostitutes work together for their own safety and promised tough action against kerb-crawlers.

It also said it would create a new penalty so magistrates can divert street prostitutes, 95 per cent of whom have a heroin or crack cocaine habit, towards help for their addiction instead of forcing them back into vice to pay fines.

The Home Office said it was still "consulting with stakeholders" and hoped to announce its conclusions shortly. But a spokeswoman said last night: "We haven't got a date."

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, demanded urgent action. "While the Government has seen fit to legislate endlessly in the areas of criminal justice and counter-terrorism, it has failed to put forward serious proposals for the reform of prostitution."

Fiona Mactaggart, the former Home Office Minister, who drew up the proposals, said: "It's shocking it takes a tragedy like this to realise this is really urgent. But the best we can do is to make sure we take the steps we have already identified. It's what we owe those poor women who have been murdered by this evil individual or individuals."

In the Commons, Tony Blair said policy on prostitution should not be examined until the Suffolk police investigation had been completed. But he said: "There may well be lessons that we have to learn from the terrible events of the past few weeks."

The Home Office this year abandoned plans, put forward by David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, for "licensed red light districts" where vice girls can operate legally.

Mr Blair's official spokesman said: "There's no real evidence we can find that formal managed areas can actually deliver in terms of improving the safety of those involved in prostitution." Allowing up to three prostitutes to work together was an "active consideration", he said.

A former prostitute said that a police crackdown had given the killer in Ipswich the licence to roam.

Dee, 28, said prostitutes used to work yards from each other. But she said efforts to disperse the women away from the red-light area had driven them apart.

The blogs

Posted by: Vickiinipswich

The girls are asking for help and advice and we are letting people know where we are. Stay safe but remember, and this is for the guys, we can't do this without you and this nutter can't ruin this, what we have is good. I love my job, meeting you guys, the sex and just the company. Keep supporting us girls and thanks for being there.

Posted by: Pennydibble

When is this pathetic government of ours going to see sense and legalise the service we all offer, a service that is needed or none of us would get any work? When are they going to realise that by doing so, not only will our safety be assured but they will also benefit from taxes we would then pay? It would be a win-win situation.

Posted by: Stripteasejada

Lets cut the crap here lassies, stop this non communication and start looking out for each other over Christmas, this maniac could be anywhere, he might even be 1 of our next clients. Be very, very careful the next few weeks or until this guy is caught.

    Calls grow for reform of laws on prostitution, I, 14.12.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2073051.ece

Jewellery left on women's bodies

Revelation of possible signature of crime
gives police vital clue
as events take toll on community

Thursday December 14, 2006
Guardian
Sandra Laville and Hugh Muir


The Suffolk serial killer left jewellery on the naked bodies of his five victims in an apparent signature of his crime, the Guardian has learned. The revelation reinforces suspicions that the perpetrator was intent on targeting young women who sell their bodies and letting the police know that this was a campaign against prostitutes on the streets of Ipswich.

Sources said the individual who killed five prostitutes in the East Anglian town carefully stripped each victim leaving only the rings and necklaces on their person.

The development came as detectives in Suffolk appeared to be narrowing their hunt to a handful of regular clients of the five prostitutes.

Senior officers are hoping that the speed with which the individual has killed his victims means he has made mistakes and left vital clues.

"We are building up an intelligence picture and have a number of interesting subjects," said Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull of Suffolk police. "Clearly some of them [the clients] want to remain anonymous, but if they have been in Ipswich in the red light district, they need to come forward before we come knocking on their door."

As of last night, up to 4,000 members of the public had phoned a hotline with information for the murder investigation. An extra 100 officers are expected to be drafted in to double the size of the force working on the investigation, which is one of the biggest in recent years.

Detectives have begun tracing and interviewing men who regularly used the 30 or so sex workers in the red light district. One of them, an American known as Gary, told reporters yesterday he had spoken extensively to detectives but insisted he was "not at all" implicated in the murders. He said he knew the missing prostitute Paula Clennell and had put police in contact with people who may have seen her last.

Officers have yet to identify any vehicles or search any homes in their hunt for the deadliest serial killer of sex workers since Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. Police also believe the killer may have kept all or some of the women's clothes, perhaps as a trophy of his killings.

But police were last night investigating numerous reports of women's possessions being found in and around Ipswich. One suggested that clothes had been discovered in the river Orwell, near the town, while another claimed that a handbag had been found in Norwich Road, a street in Ipswich's red light district close to where a pair of trainers belonging to Gemma Adams were recovered. The trainers are believed to be the first item of the dead women's clothing to have been found by the police.

At least one of the women, Anneli Alderton, 24, was asphyxiated, and police were focusing on similarities in all five cases. "We have a number of promising leads," said Mr Gull.

Officers are trying to find out what happened between the last sightings of the five young women and the discovery of their bodies by analysing CCTV footage, speaking to other prostitutes and drug workers who knew them. Detectives are known to be interested in talking to a "chubby-faced man with spectacles" driving a blue BMW, who was seen by a group of prostitutes talking to Ms Alderton in the red light area three days before her body was found. The sighting is a new one. Until yesterday police believed Ms Alderton was last seen on Sunday December 3 after visiting her mother in Harwich and travelling to her home in Colchester.

The Guardian has also passed on details of the possible sighting of one of the victims, Annette Nicholls, 29, by a former sex worker who said yesterday Ms Nicholls had called at her house last Thursday or Friday, shouting through the letter box. This was two or three days after Ms Nicholls was last thought to have been seen alive. Police suspect she is one of the two bodies discovered near the village of Levington on Tuesday.

Mr Gull revealed the difficulty of the task facing his officers, who are being helped by forces from several other counties and a senior officer from the Metropolitan police.

"These tragic events have clearly overwhelmed us in terms of capability and capacity," he said.

Police have brought in a forensic psychologist from the National Police College for Excellence who is drawing up a profile of the killer. But they will draw on other professionals, including soil analysts and, if necessary, the FBI, where there is deeper knowledge of the methods of serial killers.

Detectives now know the killer took the lives of the last three women in the space of six days. Ms Adams, 25, was the first body to be discovered on December 2. Tania Nicol, 19 was discovered six days later in the brook where Ms Adams' body had been dumped.

The body of Ms Alderton was found last Sunday in woodland close to the village of Nacton, south of Ipswich, and on Tuesday the bodies of two women, believed to be Ms Nicholls, 29 and Ms Clennell, 24, were found 100 metres from each other in scrubland near the village of Levington.

Tony Blair, yesterday spoke of the "horror of the situation". David Cameron, the Tory leader, said: "We all want this monster to be caught and to be locked up."

    Jewellery left on women's bodies, G, 14.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1971689,00.html

'I've never done anything

for less than £15.

You can get a bag of heroin

for £15'

A former sex worker
who knew the murdered women
talks to Esther Addley

Thursday December 14, 2006
Guardian
Esther Addley

It was only the fact that she was abused as a child, Jackie says, that ever enabled her to go through with the sex. She hated the sex, she says, really hated it. "But I was abused when I was a kid, and when you have been abused by a bloke you just learn to turn yourself off. When you come out on the game you turn your feelings off."

Most of the women working on the streets of Ipswich have been abused, she says, and they all feel the same. "Everyone has the same past. I can't name one girl who likes the job."

A heroin habit also helps. "Heroin stops you feeling, it really does. If you want to cry, you just can't cry. The feelings are just not there. I know. And when your feelings are suppressed, that's when you come out to work."

Jackie was a street sex worker in Ipswich, on and off, for three years until a few months ago, and knew all of the women who are known or believed to have been murdered except Tania Nicol.

Most of the time, she says, she would come out every night. A good night would mean she'd take home between £40 and £80, representing two punters wanting full sex and paying full price. On a bad night there would be between 15 and 20 women working, and the customers were scarce or, worse, willing to exploit the women's desperation.

"The refugees - I shouldn't say this - but the refugees were the worst. They would offer you £5. Especially at this time of year, when it's freezing and the men know you need the money. But I've never done anything for less than £15. You can get a bag [of heroin] for £15."

Jackie, 34, doesn't use heroin any more - or at least not very often - and she's no longer working the streets. In March a man with whom she was living and who, she says, kicked her out every time she went to work, finally locked her out. "I thought, to hell with that, I'm worth more than that." That moment coincided with getting a methadone prescription from drugs services allowing her to reduce her habit, and gradually she stopped working. "I was determined not to go out again. But it was hard, it really was."

Jackie agreed to talk to the Guardian yesterday on Portman Road, the boulevard alongside Ipswich Town's football ground. Though one former cruising street was blocked off some years ago, and new, shiny glass buildings - among them the new homes of the borough council and Ipswich crown court - have sprung up on former wasteland, these streets have remained the sex workers' terrain, at least until the murders terrified many into staying away.

Like most of the women who have worked here, Jackie knew a number of the dead and missing women well.

Annette Nicholls's last official sighting was last Tuesday, but Jackie says that on Thursday or Friday, she can't remember which, Ms Nicholls knocked at her flat and shouted through the letter box. Because her partner was asleep she ignored her. "I feel really terrible about that. It's preyed on my mind ever since." Ms Nicholls, as far as Jackie knew, was homeless. So what did she do? "I think she would go home with the punters."

Paula Clennell was last seen on Sunday evening, and Jackie says she saw her the day before. In the summer, Jackie found a keyring belonging to Ms Clennell, which had pictures of her three daughters on it, all of whom had been taken into care. She returned it after bumping into her a few weeks later. Anneli Alderton, meanwhile, became a friend in prison a couple of years ago. Jackie last saw her a couple of weeks ago, dressed in white boots and hotpants and clearly heading out to work. As for Gemma Adams: "She was one of the good ones. Kept herself to herself, didn't really cause the punters trouble."

She doesn't like to criticise them, Jackie says, but Ms Clennell and Ms Nicholls occasionally resorted to tactics some other women never would. "They used to rob the punters, and that just gives us a bad name." Last Tuesday, she says, the day on which she was last officially seen, Ms Nicholls had stolen a customer's phone and sold it for "gear".

Jackie discovered heroin quite late, aged 28, after the father of her third child introduced her to the drug. "I had a three-bedroomed house, a front garden, two boys and a girl, everything I needed in life. As soon as I got into that life everything got taken off me."

Her parents, discovering she was on heroin, persuaded her to come to Ipswich, where they live, from Sunderland. Soon, however, she was living in a women's hostel, then, on and off, with a partner; at one point she lived in a tent in a cemetery. She lives with a new partner, but her two teenage sons are in foster care, her daughter has been adopted.

Recently, a newspaper report of an arrest for shoplifting called her a prostitute, a word she loathes. "We call ourselves 'working girls'. When you say 'prostitute' it's a dirty word." Neither of her parents have had any contact since. "They haven't even texted," she says.

So what does she hope for the future? "I hope to not go back to that way." All the same, she says she feels guilty. "I don't know why, it's just that the feeling's there. That's what I keep saying to my partner. I could have been out still working and it could have been me."

    'I've never done anything for less than £15. You can get a bag of heroin for £15', G, 14.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1971645,00.html

Deaths from dark causes


Thursday December 14, 2006
The Guardian
Leader

Placing blame on circumstances can verge on an evasion of human guilt. It must be remembered that official policy, on its own, was not the cause of the horrific abduction and killing this month of five women in Ipswich; the poisoned mind of whoever carried out the attacks was directly responsible. But it is already clear that two different prohibitions shaped the environment in which the women died and so must be at the centre of consideration of how other such deaths can be prevented. Prostitution and hard drug use are both at least partly outside the law and both much more common, and destructive, than society chooses to admit.

The five women; Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls (the deaths of the latter two feared but not yet confirmed); were linked by the way they lived as well as by the way they appear to have died, victims of the bleakest realities of life. What happened in Ipswich could have happened in any town and, in less dramatic ways, does happen, quite often. Every town has its hard drug users and every town has its sex workers. It has taken the horror of the Ipswich deaths to remind people of it.

Until the man - for it surely must be a man and, although police say they are keeping an open mind, just one man - responsible for the deaths is caught and convicted, much about what has happened will remain unknown. For now, all judgments must be interim ones. But already the incidents have taken on a significance which is not just media-generated, even if the sight of outside broadcast trucks queuing by the woods and fields where the bodies have been found is a sign of how such stories are treated in an age of constant news.

The deaths shock and fascinate in ways that touch people uncomfortably. Their rapidity, revealed as though in real time, has added a grisly (and perhaps intended) urgency. It is almost as if the boundaries between TV fiction and TV reality have crossed; the images on screen feel familiar from a score of detective shows. But these images are awful and real. It is understandable that people want to know what has happened and why, and right that they want society to act to limit future harm, responding with something more than emotion.

That response should run in one direction: towards a reconsideration of the way drugs and prostitution are policed. Already the deaths in Ipswich have opened debate about how that might be done. This debate has also shown that attitudes are changing. The Suffolk police have grappled with the case with a visible concern that eluded some past investigations, notably into the Yorkshire ripper. The media have treated the victims as individuals deserving of respect, not (as once might have been the case) women who brought their fate upon themselves. They have been shown to be children and mothers, with failed dreams and troubled lives.

If that attitude suggests prostitutes (if not prostitution) are being seen in a more honest light, the policing of can still be questioned. Driven into the dark corners of a small town, the women were vulnerable. But drugs are at the root of the desperation of almost all street workers: the need to pay for them and a lack of escape routes from addiction. The way prostitution is managed is evolving, but addicts will never find a place in a formal system, which has started to come into being. They will remain, threatened, on the margins. The priority is finding realistic ways to cope with the cheap drugs flooding towns such as Ipswich - which means consumption rooms and treatment.

Soon, hopefully, the horrid events in Ipswich will reach a conclusion, of sorts, in court. But in every town and city, other women will still be out on the streets, doing awful, dangerous jobs. If nothing else, a window has been opened into the wretched lives that they lead.

    Deaths from dark causes, G, 14.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1971548,00.html

Peter Brookes        The Times        December 14, 2006

British Prime Minister Tony Blair

Killer leaves crucial clues

Naked victims left wearing their jewellery

December 14, 2006
The Times
Stewart Tendler, Sean O'Neill and Adam Fresco

All five victims of one of Britain’s most prolific serial killers were suffocated or strangled and left naked but for their jewellery, senior detectives have told The Times.

Police sources said that as a result of the “striking similarities” uncovered they had been able to rule out any link between previous unsolved murders or attacks by strangers across the country in recent years. Last night items of women’s clothing were found in the River Orwell, which runs close to Nacton and Levington where three of the bodies were found.

Today the first of 100 specialist detectives from across the country will arrive in Ipswich to double the size of the investigative team by the weekend.

Serial killers frequently leave a “trademark” signature — following a particular pattern of behaviour in the way they leave their victims. Leads police are pursuing include:

That the killer could be a visitor to the area or working temporarily in Suffolk;

The killer, or killers, seem to have a good grasp of forensic science — dumping two of the victims in water, which can destroy DNA evidence, and stripping them of their clothes;

That he is more familiar with the area where he left the first two bodies, which is to the west of Ipswich, than the sites where the three later bodies were found, to the east along the A14;

A claim from a prostitute that the killer could be a “chubby man” driving a blue BMW. A friend of the third victim to be found, Anneli Alderton, told officers that she saw the man driving away with Ms Alderton beside him.

The inquiry hotline has receivedmore than 4,000 calls from the public in two days. Police forces across eastern England have been asked to pass any female clothing they find to the Suffolk inquiry.

Officers are also tracking CCTV footage along the A14, which links the locations of all the bodies and runs close to the town’s red-light area. But they are concerned that the attacker may strike elsewhere before he is caught.

Norfolk police have increased patrols in the Norwich red-light area and have urged prostitutes to keep in contact with local outreach workers. Cambridgeshire police told sex workers to be “extra vigilant, and report suspicious or unusual activity by clients”.

Last night police were playing down reports of a possible link between the Ipswich deaths and the murder of a young woman in Norwich in 1992 murder. Natalie Pearman, 16, was found strangled in the Ringland Hills area after disappearing from the city’s red-light district. Norfolk police this week paid a visit to members of the victim’s family but Suffolk police said this was purely routine.

Other reports this morning claim that a text message sent from Paula Clennell’s mobile phone to a concerned friend on the day she disappeared may have been sent from the murderer to buy time.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, who is heading the inquiry, said there were still significant challenges facing them. “These tragic events have clearly overwhelmed us in terms of our capability and capacity,” he said.

He said that his force had begun high-visibility patrols in the Ipswich red-light area since Ms Nicol went missing on October 30. Despite that, four other women had been taken from the streets and murdered.

Mr Gull defended his force’s record during what he called “a crime in action”. He added: “A number of prostitutes operate off-street, it may be they arranged to meet that person by phone.” Post mortems are likely to confirm the similar cause of death of all five victims.

Downing Street officials called the Chief Constable of Suffolk on Tuesday on Tony Blair’s orders to ensure that he had the resources he needed. He had replied that he did.

The Prime Minister told the Commons: “There may well be lessons that we have to learn as a result of the terrible events of the past few weeks but I think those lessons are best learnt in a considered, not a reflex way.”

    Killer leaves crucial clues, Ts, 14.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2502622,00.html

12.45pm

Police focus

on Ipswich women's last movements

Wednesday December 13, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

Police investigating the Ipswich murders today appealed to the public for information on when the five female victims, who worked in the town's red light district, were last seen alive.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, who is heading the inquiry, said the bodies had been "dumped and left" at five rural locations, but it was not clear when the women had been killed.

"In each of the three murder inquiries, we have a significant gap between when the women were last seen and the discovery of their bodies," he told a press conference.

"The timeline under which these girls disappeared is crucial for us."

Police yesterday received more than 2,000 calls from members of the public. "The response from the public to our appeals for information has been massive," said Mr Gull. "Our task now is to sift through this vast volume of information to prioritise our inquiries."

A new picture of Anneli Alderton, 24, from Colchester, Essex, was released today in the hope of unearthing more information about the last hours of her life. Her body, the third discovered in a week, was found in woodland on Sunday.

A walker on wasteland near the village of Levington, about five miles south of Ipswich, found two more naked bodies yesterday.

Mr Gull today said he feared they were the remains of Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24, but formal identification would not take place until the bodies had been taken to hospital for postmortem examinations.

They are likely to remain where they were found, protected from the elements to preserve evidence, until later today.

Ms Clennell and Ms Nichols were reported missing earlier this week after the discoveries of the naked bodies of Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, and Ms Alderton in woods and a stream.

Ms Alderton had been strangled but the bodies of Ms Adams and Ms Nicol showed no sign of physical trauma. The preliminary findings for their causes of death were inconclusive and further tests were being carried out.

Ms Clennell gave a television interview a week ago in which she said the murders had made her "a bit wary of getting into cars", but she would probably continue to do so because she needed the money.

Police said that during the night they had received three more reports of missing prostitutes, but all had been traced and found to be safe and well.

Mr Gull said it was important that if anyone had concerns for the safety of a woman working as a prostitute in Ipswich that they contact police immediately.

    Police focus on Ipswich women's last movements, G, 13.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1971184,00.html

Suffolk Ripper body count rises

December 13, 2006
The Sun
By JOHN TROUP and
MIKE SULLIVAN
Crime Editor

 

THE bodies of two more victims of the Suffolk Ripper were found yesterday — taking the monster’s grim tally to FIVE.

The dead girls are thought to be missing Ipswich hookers Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24.

Shaken cops described the shocking speed at which the fiend is claiming his victims as “unprecedented”.

He has murdered the five prostitutes — all were heroin addicts and three were mothers — in less than six weeks.

By comparison, it took Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe SIX YEARS to kill the first five of his 13 victims. And his reign of terror in the 1970s and 1980s spanned a total of 11 years.

Suffolk’s Chief Constable Alastair McWhirter told a hushed press conference: “No one has ever had to deal with this before.

“If you think of the Yorkshire Ripper, the murders took place over a long period of time.”

The “spree” killer has already equalled the toll of the original Ripper — Jack, who struck five times in East London in 1888.

It is thought the Suffolk monster murders girls, then STORES their bodies before dumping them in the dead of night from his car or a van.
Detectives also fear his tendency to ditch bodies close together betrays a chilling arrogance and indifference. Dr Glenn Wilson, a psychologist specialising in deviant sexual behaviour at London’s King’s College, said the Ripper could yet ACCELERATE his campaign.

And he believes the maniac may get kicks from sitting and TALKING to the dead women as it is the only way he can “control” them.

Yesterday’s grisly discoveries took place over just 43 dramatic minutes.

A walker stumbled across a naked corpse in woodland at Levington, five miles south of Ipswich, at 3.05pm.

Minutes later a police helicopter crew scrambled to take aerial photos of the scene spotted the second body a few hundred yards away.

Ground units were mobilised and reached it at 3.48pm.

The bodies of three other vice girls — Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, and Anneli Alderton, 24 — have been found over the past ten days.

Yesterday it was revealed that Victim No 3, Anneli, was strangled.

And Det Chief Supt Stewart Gull, leading a massive manhunt for the Ripper, said: “Because of the discovery of two further bodies close to where the body of Anneli Alderton was found we can only fear the worst.

“The natural assumption is that these are the bodies of the two missing women Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell.” Their families have been informed.

A police source revealed the “storage” theory by saying: “It seems inconceivable that the killer is targeting two girls and snatching them at the same time.

“With regard to the latest bodies, it seems likely that he killed one, kept her somewhere, then killed the second before disposing of them together.

“The bodies of the first two victims were found two miles apart in the same brook but we can’t rule out the possibility they were dumped together and water carried one away.

“This man is killing and disposing the bodies in a very organised way, almost certainly under cover of darkness.

“But he does not appear to be making any great attempts at concealing the bodies, particularly in the last three instances. Whoever is behind this is clearly getting his kicks not only on what they are doing, but also the publicity surrounding the killings.”

A detective on the case added: “This monster treats these girls’ bodies like bags of rubbish and just dumps them in isolated spots.”

Police fear the killer has a pathological hatred of prostitutes — and is picking them off one by one from Ipswich’s red-light district.

Detectives last night renewed their plea to hookers to stay off the streets around the town’s Portman Road football ground.

The warning appeared to be hitting home, with only the most desperate prepared to take the risk.

And they were vastly outnumbered by patrolling police. DCS Gull yesterday made a direct appeal to the Ripper to give himself up before another girl dies.

He said: “Make contact with Suffolk Police. You have a significant problem. Give me a call and we can deal with this.”

The police chief revealed officers have received 450 calls from the public offering information.

Another 25 came on a dedicated line set up for prostitutes — offered an amnesty by cops while the fiend is at large.

Mr Gull said: “I am not interested in any offences they may have committed. Their extra information could be crucial to the investigation.” The case that has rocked the nation was triggered on October 30, when brunette Tania disappeared. Her naked body was found in a pond at Copdock Mill five days ago.

Heroin addict Gemma, who disappeared on November 14, was discovered six days earlier in a stream at Hintlesham that flows into the pond. She had also been stripped.

Anneli, who lived in Colchester, Essex, but worked the streets of Ipswich, was found in woods at Nacton three days ago.

The killer made little attempt to hide her naked body, which was spotted by a passing motorist.

Before yesterday’s discovery of the fourth and fifth victims, the police investigation was focused on tracing Anneli’s final movements. She was last seen catching the 5.53pm train from Harwich to Colchester on Sunday December 3.

Mr Gull said: “It is essential we trace anyone who may have seen Anneli between that day and last Sunday.”

Experts offered a series of theories about the Ripper’s motives and actions.

Psychologist Dr Wilson, 63, said: “The killer seems to have embarked on a rampage — a kind of pre-Christmas spree.

“It is normal for a serial killer to go to ground or move their area of attack after so much attention is focused on them. But it’s possible the exact opposite is happening here.

“He seems to be racing against time to kill as many times as possible before he is caught.

“And he is certainly not going to stop until he is caught.

“He is killing at a much faster rate than Peter Sutcliffe did, possibly because he fears he could get caught at any moment and wants to pack in as much excitement as possible.

“He is not cooling off. His campaign is heating up.”

Dr Wilson added: “It’s interesting there is no sign of mutilation of the bodies and that they are found naked. This suggests that he may kill them and simply want to spend time with them.

“Being with them when they are dead may be the only way he can feel comfortable with women.”

Colleague Clive Sims said: “The terrifying difference between serial killers and spree killers is that the latter keep killing to stay on a sick high.”

Another top criminal psychologist said the maniac — likely to be a loner with a history of being dominated by women — may be trying to “goad” cops.

Mike Berry, of Manchester’s Metropolitan University, added: “He has taken their clothes off. It could be the case that he is worried about DNA or he could be taking them as a trophy.

“I would suspect that he has taken jewellery — like rings or earrings — with him as a trophy.”

    Suffolk Ripper body count rises, S, 13.12.2006, http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006570569,00.html

Deborah Orr:

Why these women

are paying the price

of a zero tolerance approach

to street prostitution

The way they get money
is usually just one more nasty and unpleasant detail
in a nasty, unpleasant life

Published: 13 December 2006
The Independent

On average a prostitute is killed on the streets of Britain once every couple of months, and few people take much notice. Tania Nicol, Gemma Adams, Anneli Alderton, and two women still formally to be identified, have lost their lives over a much shorter time-span, in one small town in England, and in chillingly similar circumstances. Killing one woman who is selling sex, it appears, is merely regrettable. Any more, and all hell breaks loose.

Many of the reasons for this are pretty obvious. Popular culture has given full expression to human fear and revulsion of, and fascination with, the psychopathic multiple killer. But a large part of the reason why one prostitute's death is easily ignored, and a connected series of them reviled, is driven by punitive ideas about how much a prostitute should be expected to risk for her sins.

A woman who works in this criminalised part of the sex industry is seen as someone who is deliberately putting herself in danger. When the worst happens, to a great degree, she is considered to have brought it on herself. But when there is clearly a maniac on the loose, systematically targeting women, then the balance of risk is disturbed. No woman deserves to be sought out for murder quite so intently. Not even a prostitute.

The harsh fact, unfortunately, is that it is just such attitudes that leave women in this most-hated corner of the sex industry vulnerable to violence or to murder, whether as part of a lurid series or as a tragic "one-off". In telling women in Ipswich to stay off the streets at this particular time, the assistant chief constable of Suffolk, Jacqui Cheer, is telling them what they are told every day of their working lives.

Government policy is designed to propel women off the streets, in a four-pronged strategy brought in almost a year ago. It aims to: challenge the view that street prostitution is inevitable and here to stay; achieve an overall reduction in street prostitution; improve the safety and quality of life of communities affected by prostitution including those directly involved in street sex markets; and reduce all forms of commercial sexual exploitation. Asbos are often used in pursuit of this agenda.

Essentially, it's an abolitionist strategy, that concerns itself least with the welfare of the unco- operative people among Britain's estimated 80,000 prostitutes who carry on working the streets. Maybe it deters some, and of course that's not a bad thing. But for those who continue with this work, it is a perilous policy. It propels women into the darkest and least policed places, where there are no CCTV cameras to record them or their clients, and it propels them to make no report to the police when they are assaulted or when they have reason to believe that one of their clients might be a dangerous character. It makes things easy for this killer. It's the reason why the women of Ipswich work on an industrial estate where few people go at night.

Even though some of the street workers in Ipswich expressed anger at police exhortations for them to give up their income while the danger is so great, most of them are adhering to the instructions. How long this can continue is yet to be seen. Few women work the streets because they like it. They do it because they consider themselves to have no alternative.

It might have been kinder for the authorities to have told the women at risk that they could go to their doctor and get prescriptions for their heroin, which might also be a way of keeping them off the streets more permanently. One study found that 98 per cent of sex workers on the street had a drug problem. Unfortunately, just as street prostitution is stubbornly seen as a feckless choice rather than a rock-bottom consequence of having no perceived choice at all, heroin abuse is viewed as a moral dereliction rather than an addictive illness.

Much, inevitably, has been made of the death of 25-year-old Gemma Adams, because she is from a middle-class background, and from a childhood strewn with Brownies, horse-riding and piano lessons. She "fell in with a bad crowd" and became addicted to heroin. She lost her job in an insurance company because of her chaotic drug use. She ended up on the streets. Bad choices, all.

The Government suggests that by at the same time relaxing restrictions on brothels so that three girls can work together on private premises, it is balancing a zero tolerance approach to street prostitution by facilitating further choices for safer "inside" work. Now, enterprising sex workers can work for themselves, as an alternative to working as escorts or in saunas.

The irony is that those who run escort services or saunas are no more enamoured of drug-addicted employees than are the managers of insurance offices. Addicted, chaotic, mentally-ill, care-leaving girls or abused women - even older, less attractive, or less personable women - find it hard to get work in other, less dangerous, parts of the sex industry, for much the same reason as they can't get work anywhere else. They're just not very employable. They're not good material for entrepreneurial self-employment either.

The most minimal help and protection that street workers can be given is for their transactions to be decriminalised within "managed zones" where they can be protected by the presence of CCTV cameras, regular police patrols and organised recourse to multi-disciplinary support, including strong "exit" support for the many women who would leave the business if they could see a way to do so. This possibility was mooted in the Government's 2004 public consultation document, Paying The Price, but was later rejected as "unworkable". Rosie Campbell, chairman of the UK Network of Sex Work Projects, says that research from countries where such zones had been created, such as Cologne in Germany, showed that they could be effective. "In Cologne, there has not been a single murder in one of the managed areas and a study has shown that there was a massive reduction in attacks ... Of course you cannot say that something like the Ipswich murders would never have happened if there had been managed areas, but they certainly seem to reduce the likelihood of women being murdered."

Even among sex workers, the idea is controversial, because it is so crude. Many articulate women want nothing less than full legitimacy for their trade, and say they are happy to be sex workers. Such voices are only rarely drawn from the ranks of the street workers, although their cause was strengthened by a report earlier this year from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which suggested that even in red-light districts "the scope for improving relations between residents and street sex workers was considerable, particularly through mediation and awareness-raising".

For street workers, the way they get money is usually just one more nasty and unpleasant detail in a nasty, unpleasant life. Public revulsion for street girls is reflected in law and government policy. Amid the horror in Ipswich there is a chance to see the extent to which these add further degradation to lives already subsumed by it.

    Deborah Orr: Why these women are paying the price of a zero tolerance approach to street prostitution, I, 13.12.2006, http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/deborah_orr/article2070151.ece

Victim 5: Annette Nicholls:

'Overnight, she got into heroin

and it changed her'

Published: 13 December 2006
The Independent
By Ian Herbert

Four years ago, Annette Nicholls seemed to be heading for a career of which she could feel justifiably proud.

She had completed a four-year beautician's course at Suffolk College in Ipswich and, as her many friends in the town attested yesterday, was set on a path towards her own business.

Annette was often to be found in her friends' homes, helping with make-up, offering advice and providing treatments to women who wanted a complexion and long brown hair like hers. It was some achievement for a young woman, then 25, who was bringing up a young son, Farron, single-handedly.

Then, virtually overnight, heroin had her in its grip. No one is quite sure how it started - some say that boyfriends were an influence - but her habit left her in dire need of money to maintain her supply. Within a few months she was plying her trade in Ipswich's red-light district.

Last night, it seemed that Annette had paid for this decision with her life, when police officers found two bodies in the Levington district in Ipswich.

If, as seems likely, she was attacked by the town's serial killer, she is unlikely to have stood a chance: the slight 29-year-old was just 5ft 3in. Though the body has not been formally identified detectives say they "fear the worst" for Annette.

Her cousin Tanya Nicholls, 37, is haunted by the thought that she did not do more to make Netty, as Annette was known, give up her risky work.

"She used to be such an absolutely outstanding person with the most lovely personality," Tanya said yesterday. "She was stunningly beautiful inside and out. I was so proud of her when she passed her course.

"But then almost overnight she got into heroin and it changed her. It was a bit like flicking a light switch."

Many friends say that it was not in Annette's character to take risks with her personal safety. She was regarded as someone who was extremely organised. Her house was immaculate, and her car was always taxed and insured.

Some chart her life's descent into chaos from the day after she left her small, semi-detached council house on Ipswich's Greenwich estate, where she raised Farron - who is now eight - during his pre-school years.

Annette had evidently been encouraged by the council to move into a bigger, housing association home on the smart new Ravenwood estate nearby. The move coincided with Annette asking her mother, Rosemary (who is known locally as Kim), to play a more substantial role in caring for Farron. Her mother, with whom friends say Annette was once extremely close, readily agreed.

Her cousin saw her about three weeks ago, touting for business for kerb-crawlers in West End Road on the edge of the red-light area - yards from the place where one murder victim, Gemma Adams, was last seen alive on 15 November.

"She saw me riding past on a bike at around midnight and called me over to say, 'Hello'," Tanya said. "I was really worried for her because it was after the two other girls, Gemma and Tania, had been reported missing.

"But she didn't want to stop working. She just told me she was OK. The only other thing she said was, 'Don't tell anyone that you saw me here'. Now I just wish that I had picked her up and dragged her home."

Annette was understood to have been staying with a man in Ipswich when she failed to return to his house after going out to sell sex. Detectives say she was last seen at 9.50pm on Tuesday last week in Norwich Road, Ipswich, near the town's red-light area. She was reported missing by her family on Monday after they became worried about the murders.

After last night's discovery, Annette's mother was being comforted at her home in Ipswich and was too upset to comment.

Tanya said: "I don't know if she knew about Annette's prostitution. The pair of them used to be ever so close before she went off the rails, but she would never have approved of her being a prostitute."

    Victim 5: Annette Nicholls: 'Overnight, she got into heroin and it changed her', I, 13.12.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2070218.ece

Victim 4: Paula Clennell:

'It was the only way

to fund her addiction'

Published: 13 December 2006
The Independent
By Maxine Frith,
Social Affairs Correspondent

With chilling premonition, Paula Clennell told the television interviewer that she had become a "bit wary about getting into cars".

The 24-year-old, who is now believed to be one of the latest victims of the killing spree in Ipswich which has claimed at least five lives, had been interviewed by the media after the discovery of the body of Gemma Adams on 2 December.

Ms Adams' s body was the first of the sex workers to be discovered and the two women were apparently acquaintances.

Then, shortly after speaking to ITV News last week, the prostitute ­ and mother of three ­ went missing.

Yesterday, just hours before two more bodies were found, Ms Clennell's father, Brian, appealed to his daughter to get in touch.

Mr Clennell, who lives in Berwick, said he had not spoken to her for several years since he divorced her mother and had no idea that she was working in prostitution until she was reported missing.

Describing her as a "kind-hearted and loving soul", he said: " I was shocked when I found out. I can only think she has got in with the wrong crowd."

He added: "You do not have anything to worry about. You have a good mother and a loving sister and they just want you back. I'm hoping for the best, that she is with friends. I'm just hoping for the best."

But that hope appeared to fade yesterday afternoon.

Despite acknowledging in the interview before she went missing the danger that she faced, Ms Clennell said she would have to continue with street sex work in Ipswich because she "needed the money".

Ms Clennell said the police presence had led to a reduction in clients. She said she felt "sick" after hearing about the murder of Ms Adams. " It would be safer to get a flat and work from there, but it's getting a flat that's the problem."

Despite being beaten up on one occasion and having a couple of "nasty experiences", Ms Clennell said she had carried on working.

And after the interview, she walked back towards the red light district.

She has not been seen since the early hours of Sunday when she left a house in Ipswich on a bicycle. Later that day she phoned a friend saying she was looking for somewhere to stay.

The body of Anneli Alderton was found on the same day and, on Monday, Ms Clennell's family reported her missing following publicity about the murders.

Ms Clennell moved to East Anglia a decade ago following the separation of her parents, Brian and Isabella. At 16, she was publicly commended for helping a pensioner who fell and hurt herself, and her picture appeared in the local paper.

But within a year, her mother said, she had started using heroin. Within a few years she was addicted and working in prostitution to feed her habit.

Her father said she remained in touch with her sister, Alice, who has children of her own. She told her mother just months ago that she was terrified of being on the streets but wanted money to buy a house and fight for the return of her three daughters, who had been taken into care and adopted when social workers found she was addicted to heroin. Police said Ms Clennell appeared to have no permanent home and used several addresses.

Elton Norris, the father of Ms Clennell's three children, said: "I've always hated what she does for a living but it was the only way she could fund her addiction. Some weeks she would blow thousands of pounds on drugs."

Mr Clennell appealed to sex workers to help arrest the killer. He said yesterday: "This girl was given drugs, given them freely to get them hooked on drugs, which I believe is the truth and it is sad that they got on drugs and all I can appeal for is that anyone, any lady of the night ­ that's what I call them ­ come forward and please help arrest this sicko pervert."

He said he would search the streets of Ipswich for the killer who "may see [prostitutes] as evil because of what they do, but he is the evil one. My Paula is not evil. She is a sweet girl and she would not stand a chance against this brute."

    Victim 4: Paula Clennell: 'It was the only way to fund her addiction', I, 13.12.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2070217.ece

The News of the World today put up a record reward of £250,000 for information leading to the capture and conviction of the Suffolk strangler.

The reward is for information directly resulting in the arrest and conviction of the person, or persons, responsible for the murders of the Ipswich prostitutes.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, who is heading the investigation, said today: "This extra help could make a crucial difference."

A News of the World spokeswoman said: "We hope this historic reward will help in solving the series of brutal murders which has shocked the nation.

"If you have any information about these crimes, we urge you to contact the authorities, or the News of the World if you prefer."

More than 2,000 people have so far contacted the police incident room offering information to help catch the killer.

Chief Supt Gull added: "We are getting good support from the public, media and colleagues in other forces.

"An example of this is a £250,000 reward, apparently the largest ever, which has been put up by the News of the World."

He added: "It is vitally important that people continue to ring in if they have information."

The serial killer's horrific tally rose by two yesterday when naked bodies believed to be missing hookers Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24, were found yards from a main road through the village of Levington, a few miles from Ipswich.

In a chilling twist, Paula gave a television interview last week in which she admitted she was scared of going back out on the streets but “needed the money”. The two women were due to be formally identified later today.

Their discovery came 48 hours after Anneli Alderton, 24, was found strangled in woods at Nacton, less than a mile away.

The killer's first two victims - Tania Nicol, 19, and Gemma Adams, 25 - were both dumped in a brook in Hintlesham, just west of Ipswich, last week. Gemma's body was found at the farmland spot on December 2. Tania's body was discovered two miles downstream six days later.

All five were prostitutes and heroin addicts. Three were mothers.

Suffolk Police have warned that the murderer may be playing a macabre game of cat and mouse with cops. His two most recent victims were snatched and murdered as hundreds of officers mounting the county's biggest ever murder hunt.

You can download a copy of our reward poster to print out and put up in your area by clicking one of the links below: (...)

The discovery of the two bodies yesterday came after a man walking on Old Felixstowe Road called police to say he had seen a naked woman’s body close to the main road.

A police helicopter flew to the scene and 40 minutes later a member of the helicopter crew by chance spotted the second body a few hundred yards away.

It was reported today that the killer - whose tally is already equal to that of the original Jack the Ripper who struck five times in East London in 1888 - may pick up the vice girls two-at-a-time at the kerbside, drive them away to murder them before storing their bodies and dumping them late at night.

The News of the World put up its £250,000 reward as hundreds of police continued to comb Ipswich's red-light district and the sites where the bodies were found for DNA and forensic evidence.

There are fears that with the town's streets swamped with police, the killer may look further afield for victims.

Det Supt Gull said today: "In each of the three murder inquiries we have a significant gap between when the women were last seen and the discovery of their bodies.

"We need to find out where these women were between these times."

The reward is subject to standard News of the World conditions. Payment will be made at the discretion of the Editor, following consultation with the Chief Constable of Suffolk Police.

The Editor’s decision is final. In the event of more than one person qualifying, the reward may be split.

    The News of the World today put up a record reward of £250,000 for information leading to the capture and conviction of the Suffolk strangler., S, 13.12.2006, http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/murderreward.shtml



 

The News of the World today put up a record reward of £250,000

for information leading to the capture and conviction of the Suffolk strangler.

S        13.12.2006        http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/murderreward.shtml
 

£250,000 reward offered

in hunt for Ipswich killer

Published: 13 December 2006
The Independent
By Tim Moynihan, PA

The News of the World today offered a reward of £250,000 to catch the killer of the Ipswich prostitutes.

It is for information directly resulting in the arrest and conviction of the person, or persons, responsible for the murders.

The reward is thought to be the largest ever offered and a spokeswoman for the newspaper said: "We hope this historic reward will help in solving the series of brutal murders which has shocked the nation.

"If you have any information about these crimes, we urge you to contact the authorities, or the News of the World if you prefer."

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, leading the inquiry, said: "I am grateful for the support from the News of the World. Clearly any offer that leads to the identification of whoever is responsible for these crimes is welcome."

The offer is subject to standard News of the World reward offer conditions. Payment will be made at the discretion of the editor, following consultation with the Chief Constable of Suffolk Police. The editor's decision is final.

In the event of more than one person qualifying, the reward may be split.

Anyone with information should contact: Police hotline 0800 096 1011, or the News of the World - newsdesk 0845 35 63300, text 63300 - or Crimestoppers 0800 555 111.

The News of the World today offered a reward of £250,000 to catch the killer of the Ipswich prostitutes.

It is for information directly resulting in the arrest and conviction of the person, or persons, responsible for the murders.

The reward is thought to be the largest ever offered and a spokeswoman for the newspaper said: "We hope this historic reward will help in solving the series of brutal murders which has shocked the nation.

"If you have any information about these crimes, we urge you to contact the authorities, or the News of the World if you prefer."

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, leading the inquiry, said: "I am grateful for the support from the News of the World. Clearly any offer that leads to the identification of whoever is responsible for these crimes is welcome."
The offer is subject to standard News of the World reward offer conditions. Payment will be made at the discretion of the editor, following consultation with the Chief Constable of Suffolk Police. The editor's decision is final.

In the event of more than one person qualifying, the reward may be split.

Anyone with information should contact: Police hotline 0800 096 1011, or the News of the World - newsdesk 0845 35 63300, text 63300 - or Crimestoppers 0800 555 111.

    £250,000 reward offered in hunt for Ipswich killer, I, 13.12.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2070787.ece

Snatched, killed and discarded

Police describe the five Ipswich murders
as an unprecedented crime unfolding in real time

Wednesday December 13, 2006
Guardian
Sandra Laville


The man walking along Old Felixstowe Road, near the village of Levington, could not be sure at first. In the failing light he stepped off the road and approached the darkened form. Only then was he sure. She was naked, lying in the wet scrubland where she had been dumped. It was 3.05pm.

Forty minutes later a police helicopter hovered over the open ground south of Ipswich as detectives sealed off the area and covered the body with tarpaulin.

The glare of the helicopter's searchlight lit up the wasteland below and there, 100 metres away from the bustle of police activity, the pilot saw the second body. Like her friend, she had been tossed in the grass and stripped of her clothes.

Within a few minutes the worst suspicions of police officers in Suffolk were confirmed. Any lingering hope that this was not a serial killer disappeared in the late afternoon with the discovery of the suspected fourth and fifth victims of a predator on an apparent mission to murder young women who work in the red light area of the East Anglian city.

What they were witnessing, Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull said, was what he called a "crime in action".

Perhaps spurred by the publicity, the murderer was on a frantic killing spree. Where at first he had carefully hidden the bodies in a brook, he was now snatching women off the street within days of each other, killing them, dumping their bodies and moving on to his next victim.

Half an hour after the bodies were found, Det Chief Supt Gull appeared before the media. With shaking hands, he asked for water as he spoke of the latest horrific discovery in a county where until now crime has been comparatively low. He could not say whether the young women were the two that the police had been searching for since their relatives reported them missing a few days ago. But the families of Paula Clennell, 24 and Annette Nicholls, 29, were being told of the discovery of the bodies as he spoke.

"I can't be sure. It is an assumption at this stage. But it is a natural assumption that these are the bodies of the two missing women," he said.

Like Gemma Adams, 25, who was the first woman to be found on December 2, her good friend Tania Nicol, 19, whose body was discovered six days later in the same stretch of Belstead brook, west of Ipswich, and Anneli Alderton, 24, found in the village of Nacton on Sunday, these girls were prostitutes.

Pock-marked and painfully thin, they all bore the obvious signs of heroin and crack addiction and were locked in a vicious cycle of selling their bodies to feed their crippling habit.

"This is an unprecedented inquiry," said the chief constable of Suffolk police, Alistair McWhirter. "When you look back to the Yorkshire Ripper, you are talking about murders carried out over months and years."

Last night Suffolk police were faced with the task of investigating five murders. Already overstretched, the small force called in a senior Metropolitan police commander, Dave Johnston, an experienced homicide detective.

Other officers were drafted in from Essex and Norfolk, and Suffolk asked the Association of Police Officers to activate their national intelligence centre, which holds details of all known sex offenders. So far little is known about the killer. A postmortem examination on Ms Alderton, who was found on Sunday night close to the latest two victims, revealed yesterday that she had been strangled before being dumped in woods near the A14.

Earlier postmortem examinations on Ms Adams and Ms Nicol did not reveal any evidence of strangulation. Further toxicology tests are being carried out but police are being hampered because the bodies were dumped in water.

As detectives worked through the night, they could not disguise their shock at the sudden increase in the speed of the killings, fearing that as they spoke another woman could be attacked.

The few young women who might have considered taking to London Road, the red light area, last night were warned again to stay indoors. "We are gravely concerned for their safety," said one officer.

The families of Ms Clennell and Ms Nicholls, who had scoured the streets of Ipswich over the past two days looking for the women, were left to digest the news they had dreaded.

For the Clennells there was one visible memory of Paula, a mother-of-three who had not been seen since 1am on Sunday. It came in a television interview she gave a few days ago.

Asked about the killing of Ms Adams and Ms Nicol, she said she and her friends were "wary about coming out now". But for herself, she was prepared to take the risk, because she needed the money. Less than 48 hours later, she too was dead.

    Snatched, killed and discarded, G, 13.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/suffolkmurders/story/0,,1970896,00.html

Tuesday, December 12th, 2006

5.45pm update

Suffolk police find two more bodies

Tuesday December 12, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

Police investigating the murders of three prostitutes in Ipswich said this afternoon that they had found the bodies of two more women.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull said the "natural assumption" was that the bodies were those of missing prostitutes Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.

However, Mr Gull stressed that the identity of the fourth and fifth bodies to be found near Ipswich in the last 10 days had yet to be confirmed.

They were found after a member of the public alerted Suffolk police at 3.05pm.

Mr Gull said a man had seen one of the naked bodies while walking on the Old Felixstowe Road close to the turn-off for Levington, which is around five miles south of Ipswich. The body was only around 20 feet from the road.

A cordon was established and a crew member who was in a police helicopter, which was filming the scene from above, spotted a second body a few hundred yards from the first at 3.48pm, Mr Gull said.

The area is close to Nacton, where the third dead woman, Anneli Alderton, was found in woodland on Sunday after a passing motorist saw a naked body.

Earlier today, Mr Gull said Ms Alderton, 24, of Colchester, Essex, was murdered by asphyxiation and "probably strangled".

Suffolk police is a relatively small force and questions have been asked about whether it is able to cope with an inquiry of this scale. Mr Gull said more than 100 staff were working on the murders, with extra officers being drafted in from Essex today.

This morning, Mr Gull spoke of having "grave concerns" for Ms Clennell and Ms Nicholls.

Ms Clennell, a mother of three, has not been seen since 10.40pm on Saturday. She was reported missing late on Sunday. She is a sex worker and a known drug user, who had been using drug services in the town, a source confirmed to the Guardian yesterday.

Neighbours at an address in London Road, Ipswich, said Ms Clennell had lived there until about two years ago, in a property they believed to be a brothel, but she had moved on to an unknown address.

Following widespread publicity about the other murders and disappearances, Ms Nicholls' family grew concerned and reported to police that she had not been heard of since December 3 or 4.

The cause of Ms Alderton's death was revealed after the completion of a postmortem examination by a Home Office pathologist last night.

Postmortems examinations on Tania Nicol, 19, and 25-year-old Gemma Adams, whose bodies were the first two to be found, were inconclusive. Further tests were being carried out.

Mr Gull told a news conference this morning that there were no signs that either of the first two dead women had died of asphyxiation, saying there appeared "to be different causes of death".

He said officers were investigating the possibility that the three women had been poisoned, and forensic scientists were doing toxicology tests.

Mr Gull said the women could have been killed by the same person, but stressed he was not using the phrase "serial killer".

In a direct appeal to the killer or killers, he said: "Make contact with Suffolk police. Clearly you have a significant problem. Give me a call and we can deal with this. My appeal is simple - give yourself up."

The first two murders have been officially linked but the killing of Ms Alderton has yet to be formally linked to them; an official murder inquiry into her death was launched today.

Mr Gull said it was not known if Ms Alderton had been sexually assaulted. He reiterated that there were no signs of significant trauma to the bodies of either Ms Nicol or Ms Adams, and said neither appeared to have been subjected to a serious sexual assault.

Suffolk police has received more than 450 calls from the public about the deaths, with around 25 being made on a dedicated line set up for prostitutes working in the county.

Mr Gull said police were looking at "a number of interesting individuals", and that officers were carrying out searches in different parts of Suffolk. However, he stressed the killer or killers could be from outside the county.

Mr Gull appealed to men who had recently been clients of the women to get in touch with officers, and also appealed to prostitutes to contact police. "The perpetrator may be a client, he may be a kerb crawler," he said.

Police have warned all women to stay away from the red light area of Ipswich, and Mr Gull urged women in the town and its surrounding areas to be vigilant.

"Do not go out alone, go out in company - make sure you know where you are going and, if possible, give someone a contact number," he said. "Any single woman could potentially be in danger."

    Suffolk police find two more bodies, G, 12.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1970365,00.html

Two more women found dead near Ipswich

December 12, 2006
Times Online 
Philippe Naughton and Jenny Percival

Five women are now believed to have been killed by Britain's worst serial killer of prostitutes since the Yorkshire Ripper after the discovery of two further bodies.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, leading the investigation, said tonight that the bodies of two women were found this afternoon in woodland near Ipswich after a tip-off from a passer-by.

"The natural assumption is that these are the two missing women," he said, referring to Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls, two prostitutes who had been reported missing.

Just days ago Ms Clennell, knowing that a serial killer was on the loose, said in a television interview that she intended to go back on the streets because she needed the money.

She has not been seen since Saturday night.

Speaking at a news conference at Suffolk Police headquarters, Mr Gull said that at 3:05pm the police received a tip-off from a member of the public. Officers found the body of a woman 20 feet away from the Old Felixstowe Road near the village of Levington, five miles from Ispwich.

The road was cordoned off and a police helicopter was sent up to film the scene. At 3:48pm, a member of the helicopter crew spotted what appeared to be the body of another woman a few hundred yards away from the first.

Mr Gull said: "Because of the discovery of two further bodies close to where the body of Anneli Alderton was found, we can only fear the worst. The natural assumption is that these are the two missing women, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24. That's an assumption that's yet to be confirmed."

Detectives were unable to confirm whether the two latest bodies were naked, like the three others.

Mr Gull said earlier that a third woman found dead in woods near Ipswich on Sunday, Anneli Alderton, 24, had been strangled.

The other two victims were Gemma Adams, 25, who was found murdered in a stream at Hintlesham on Saturday December 2, and Tania Nicol, 19, who was found dead in a pond at Copdock, Suffolk, the following Friday, December 8.

Police are not yet sure how Ms Adams and Ms Nicol died but Mr Gull confirmed that neither women had been strangled.

Mr Gull appealed to the killer to contact police and also warned all local women to exercise special care and not to go out alone.

"It is important that we try to piece together Anneli’s final movements," said Mr Gull. "We know that, like Gemma and Tania, she did work as a prostitute in Ipswich. However, unlike them, she had not been reported missing."

He added: "I would ask people, particularly clients, to look at Anneli’s photograph and, if you saw her recently, please give us a call."

He also warned women living in and around Ipswich to follow the usual "simple precautions" when going out in the run-up to Christmas - not to go out alone, to carry a mobile phone and to make sure that friends knew where they were going.

Alastair McWhirter, the Chief Constable of Suffolk Police, later added that it was still not known for certain if there was one or more than one killer on the loose.

Mr Gull said that the police inquiries revealed that Miss Alderton caught the 5.53pm train from Harwich to Colchester on December 3, after which there were no known sightings of her.

A passing motorist might have caught sight of her body in woodland at Nacton at 10.30am on December 7 but thought the figure was an abandoned mannequin. Miss Alderton’s body was seen by a motorist at around 3.30pm on Sunday December 10.

Detectives investigating the murders have received 450 calls from members of the public. Mr Gull said that around 25 calls had been made to a dedicated line set up for prostitutes working in Suffolk who might have vital information.

Mr Gull said the information received was being analysed. He added: "I have been very pleased with the response to our appeal so far. I would ask anyone with information to come forward as a matter of urgency."

In an interview with ITV News, Miss Clennell said the killings had made her "a bit wary about getting into cars" but she would probably still do it anyway.

She had spotted there were fewer men and less girls around, probably because of the police presence.

"The girls are probably wary about coming out now," she said. Miss Clennell admitted that she had "a couple of nasty experiences" including being beaten up once.

Earlier Miss Clennell's father Brian, who did not know she was a prostitute, appealed for clients to come forward to help police find the killer.

"And in this moment in time I must send my heart out to the families of those that’s been identified in this horrific, perverted, psycho, sicko campaign.

"This man needs to be caught and I think the truth lies with the punters.

"The fat, smelly perverts. They should come forward and stop this murder that’s going on."

Mr Clennell urged his daughter to get in touch.

He said: "We all love you, there’s nothing to hide, everyone loves you. Please make a call to me, or your niece and your nephews and just say that you’re alive.

"Paula sort of went her own way, but Alice (her sister) was always in contact with her, and her mother I think, but Paula used to sort of live her own life with friends and boyfriends."

    Two more women found dead near Ipswich, Ts, 12.12.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2500571,00.html

Voices from the sex trade:

'I have no choice.

I need the cash.

But I am scared'

Published: 12 December 2006
The Independent
By Terri Judd

The prostitutes who shiver on street corners next to Ipswich Town Football Club are a small band who know each other well.

Their faces are also familiar to the local residents, who they often greet on their way to work, or the drivers at the bus depot, who offer them tea on cold nights.

While Suffolk Police estimate that up to 40 women work in the town's sex trade, local people could not remember seeing more than a handful. The close-knit nature of the group has heightened the horror provoked by the killings. "They are just friendly, pleasant girls doing their job, a strange job but a job nevertheless," one bus driver said last night. "They have to catch him,"

Yet despite the fact that three of their number were now dead, some of the women were still working. Desperation and drug addiction forces them to take the risk.

Lou, 28, a drug addict with three children, said: "I have no choice because I need the cash. If I wasn't working here I would be shoplifting, then I would land up in prison. Of course, I am scared. It is a difficult situation."

Assistant Chief Constable Jacqui Cheer has offered the women an amnesty and pleaded with them to stay off the street. But Katie, 23, said only a couple of nights earlier she had refused the police's offer of a lift home. "Of course, it has made me worried, but I have got a heroin habit and I need the money to pay my rent," she said. "You just have to do your best to look after yourself. I have been attacked and was raped about 18 months ago. It is just the risks you take."

The discovery of a third body and the news yesterday that the police feared for the safety of at least one, if not two, other women has stunned the people of Ipswich and the surrounding villages.

The fear has united people living not just miles apart but in different worlds - from the impoverished inhabitants of the small redbrick terraces in Ipswich's red light district to the affluent homeowners in the village of Nacton who woke up on Sunday to find police had cordoned off local woodland after a third body was found.

"All the locals consider Nacton to be a quiet rural village. This is a sad way to put it on the map," the parish council chairman, Richard Peel, said.

Villagers knew the nearby town's sex trade had reached their neighbourhood but believed it was "discreet". While prostitutes visited the area at night, by day the woods surrounding an independent girl's school where the body was discovered was simply a pleasant spot for dog walkers.

Tabitha Creasy, 29, was out walking yesterday with her 10-week-old son, Liam. She said: "I am shocked. I walk past the school almost every day. It is very scary. We moved in two months ago as we loved it here. It is a normal friendly village. Until they catch whoever it is I don't think anybody will be completely at ease walking around here."

For those living close to the spot where Gemma Adams, 25, and Tania Nicol, 19, worked, the fear was even more acute. Many were worried that the killer or killers were local. "It is a bit scary. I won't go out at night," Sophie Magor, 24, said.

A neighbour said: "You daren't go out. They want to catch this lunatic and string him up."

Residents have complained about the condoms and syringes left behind by the trade to the local council. But yesterday all had nothing but sympathy for the women working on the street.

In the words of one grandmother: "I don't agree with the drugs and prostitution but this is tragic. They are somebody's child and they are so young."

    Voices from the sex trade: 'I have no choice. I need the cash. But I am scared', I, 12.12.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2067569.ece

Suffolk murders

Don't go out alone, women told

Tuesday December 12, 2006
Guardian
Paul Lewis

Police investigating the murders by a suspected serial killer of three prostitutes in Ipswich, Suffolk, last night revealed that they were concerned for the safety of two other women.

Annette Nicholls, 29, also a prostitute in the town, has not been seen for more than week. She was reported missing by her family yesterday afternoon.

There was also confusion yesterday over the whereabouts of Paula Clennell, 24, another prostitute, who was last seen in the town's red light district on Saturday night. Police said last night that a friend had reported that Ms Clennell had been in contact late on Sunday, but officers said they were still concerned for her welfare and were urgently trying to locate her.

Details of the missing women emerged as senior officers warned all women in the town not to go out at night alone. "We are coming up to the party season and up to Christmas," said assistant chief constable Jacqui Cheer. "There will be groups of women going out and I would say you have really got to look after each other, plan how you are going to get there and please, please come home together. Whatever happens on your night out, make sure you do not leave your friends alone."

Detectives also urged women working as prostitutes not to tout for business while the killer is at large. One theory is that the killer picked up his victims while they solicited for business in the industrial streets scattered around the Portman Road football ground.

A senior officer involved in the investigation said police are concerned the suspected serial killer could strike again soon. More than 100 officers were involved in the multiple murder inquiries last night, with dozens of officers on the streets searching for the two missing women.

The naked bodies of three women have been found around the outskirts of the city. Gemma Adams, 25, and Tania Nicol, 19, were found dead in the same stream in the space of six days. The third body, of an unidentified woman believed to 24 years old, was found in a wooded area on Sunday by a passing motorist. It is believed she may have been dumped there within the previous 48 hours.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull said that, although it is not yet possible to formally link all three murders, "the facts speak for themselves".

"All these women were prostitutes working in the same area. They were all found dead, naked."

Asked if the women could have fallen victim to a serial killer, he replied: "Yes, that is a possibility. We are keeping an open mind. There may be one perpetrator, there may be more."

Detectives are consulting psychologist profilers in an attempt to build a picture of a possible serial killer who does not appear to have had a sexual motive. Police believe he may have removed the women's clothes because he is "forensically aware" and does not want to risk leaving fibres from his own clothing, or hairs which could identify him.

    Don't go out alone, women told, G, 12.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1970115,00.html

Serial killer hunted

after second woman found dead

Parents of murdered prostitutes speak of their shock,
while police issue warning to red-light workers

Sunday December 10, 2006
The Observer
by Mark Townsend and Denis Campbell

A serial killer is being hunted by police after the discovery of a woman's body in a brook downstream from where another young woman was found a week ago. Both were prostitutes.

Police divers found the naked body of 19-year-old Tania Nicol, who disappeared more than a month ago from the red-light district of Ipswich, at Copdock Mill, close to the East Anglian town.

The body of Gemma Adams, 25, had been found face down and unclothed in the same stream about a mile away, near Hintlesham. She also vanished from Ipswich's red-light area.

Officers reiterated warnings to prostitutes working in the town last night to 'look after each other' as the manhunt for a suspected serial killer was stepped up. 'If women are going out to work as a prostitute, we would urge them to tell someone where they are going, who they are going with and perhaps even take a car registration number,' said Detective Superintendent Andy Henwood, who is leading the inquiry into both murders.

Yesterday's confirmation of the identity of the second body fed speculation that the two women may have been killed by the same man, and Henwood confirmed that police had launched a 'linked murder investigation'. He appealed for clients of the two murdered women to contact police with information that might help in the investigation.

Initial police profiles suggested the killer harboured a vendetta against prostitutes and could be a local man with a knowledge of Ipswich and the surrounding countryside. Suffolk Constabulary officers were checking their database for similar cases to try to help establish whether the murderer has struck more than twice.

The parents of Gemma yesterday spoke out for the first time since the discovery of their daughter's murder, describing how she had turned from a piano-playing schoolgirl into a drug addict. They said they had no idea she had been working as a prostitute.

'We are going through hell trying to come to terms with it. It has been shock after shock,' said her father, a businessman, speaking on condition that their first names were not used. He described how he and his wife had tried without success to get their daughter off drugs. 'One of her teachers described her as an "ordinary, intelligent girl from a nice family" and that's exactly what she was,' he added.

He said that she had got in with the 'wrong crowd' after leaving Kesgrave High School near Ipswich, and had soon become addicted to heroin and crack cocaine.

Gemma was last seen alive at around 1.15am on 15 November in the red-light area around Ipswich Town's Portman Road ground. Her boyfriend Jon Simpson, her partner of 10 years and a fellow addict, reported her missing when she failed to respond to two text messages. Her body was found last weekend.

Tania Nicol disappeared from the same area on 30 October. She was reported missing by her mother, Kerry. She, too, had not known that her daughter was working as a prostitute until the police told her.

Officers said it was plausible that the bodies of the two women could have been dumped together, but that Tania's body might have been washed downstream by recent flood water. Another possibility being investigated is that her body might have been dumped in the water from a bridge on the A1071 road and then washed downstream.

    Serial killer hunted after second woman found dead, O, 10.12.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1968785,00.html

Special report: Antisocial behaviour

Britain's official 'yob capital'

turns its back on Asbos

A report this week revealed that half of people in Corby fear anti-social behaviour. What has gone wrong in the former steel town?

Saturday December 9, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Barkham

With a metallic tinkle, a discarded can of Irn Bru is rolled by the wind along the pockmarked road outside the Arran community centre. Sheet metal is stapled over the windows of derelict flats nearby.

Corby in Northamptonshire has been branded the yob capital of an increasingly yobbish country. Nearly 49% of those living in the former steel town say antisocial behaviour is a big or fairly big problem, according to figures released by the National Audit Office this week.

Until this spring, the community centre hosted a youth club, offering snooker, art classes and counselling for teenagers. Then the county council cut its funding and the club closed.

"We used to have 40 people in here every Tuesday and Wednesday," says Dez Algacs, the chairman, cleaner and caretaker of the centre. "Now they hang around the shops."

The previous night, a gang of kids - the same ones who used to come to the club - were kicking gas repair barriers all over the street. Too afraid to challenge them, Mr Algacs called a special hotline for the local community police officer. The officer wasn't on duty so no one came to stop them.

It is eight years since the government's introduction of antisocial behaviour orders. But ordinary towns appear to be living ever more uneasily with youths they fear are flouting Asbos and terrorising neighbourhoods. The National Audit Office this week found more than 55% of those given an Asbo breached its conditions.

Statistics

An aspiring film-maker has uploaded an amateur documentary onto YouTube called Corby: Welcome to Hell. It is five minutes of relentless shots of upturned shopping trolleys and boarded up shops. Since its new town sheen faded and the loss of steelworks jobs brought an unemployment rate of over 30% in the 80s, Corby's 54,000 residents, many of Scottish descent, have laboured under equally unfavourable impressions and statistics. One of the "most malformed places in Britain", according to Country Life editor-at-large Clive Aslet, Corby is also one of the largest towns in Europe without a railway station. Astonishingly, it has no cinema. And no bowling alley. It has the lowest proportion (8.5%) of working-age population with a degree-level qualification of any area in England and Wales. Inside the police station is a cabinet offering for sale wide-angled door viewers (£3.50) and shed alarms (£10). The cabinet is locked.

"It's Corby isn't it? There's nothing to do," says Jordan Middleton, 17, hunkered inside his hoodie, wheeling his baby sister through "the Arran". He reckons he has "calmed down quite a bit". He used to be in court pretty much every week for fighting: "I was on the verge of getting an Asbo."

Like other teenagers hanging outside Pytchley Court shops, he believes antisocial behaviour - and perceptions of it - come from two things: a lack of anything to do, and adult prejudice against the young.

"They've closed all the youth clubs because there's no money," he says. "Because people our age hang about in gangs you get discriminated against. They try to say it's us that are loud and when they are coming out of the pub they'll sing songs, and that's the old ones." Year 11 pupils outside the shops say adults exaggerate yobbery. When they go out on the town, they are frightened of being stereotyped, not falling victim to crime. "There is a problem but everyone gets labelled," says Conner O'Connor, 16. "You can't go out into the streets at night without being accused of things."

But some residents see petty vandalism spiralling into social breakdown. The solution, says Alun Evans, who lives near Arran community centre, is not more youth clubs.

Despite an Alsatian and two signs - "beware of the dog" and "sod the dog, beware of the kids" - Mr Evans had his car windows smashed twice this year, his garden furniture and kids' bikes stolen and his wing mirrors twisted off too many times to mention. Youths routinely jump around on car bonnets or hurl abuse.

"It has got worse," he says. "You go to the shops and there's dozens of kids around at 9.30pm. I've got a 13-year-old and I don't let her out so late."

He has stopped shouting at them "because they just gob off even more" and "it just brings trouble on the house". A lad he remonstrated with recently threatened to bite off his nose.

If anywhere needed a good dose of Asbos, it would seem to be Corby. But this town, long regarded as a bellweather constituency that has always returned an MP of the government of the day since its creation in 1979, has rejected the cornerstone of Labour's respect agenda - and it might just be working.

Those leading Corby's much-vaunted regeneration - "remodelling" disastrous 70s estates with their vandal-friendly walkways, and promising tantalising new facilities such as an Olympic-standard swimming pool - naturally want to talk up the town. It is telling, however, that even those traditionally inclined to bemoan Britain's descent into yob rule, such as taxi drivers, admit that Corby has improved its record in tackling antisocial behaviour.

Vandalised

One driver moving to Spain because he is so fed up of things "going down the chute" also admits that a few years ago he used to see three or four cars burned out on Saturday nights. Now there are none. On one street he once counted 13 vandalised vehicles. "You don't see so much of that these days," he says.

Simon Blatchly started out as a constable in the town 17 years ago and returned this spring as a superintendent. "My perception is that antisocial behaviour has reduced. There is not the same level of violence as there used to be," he says. Real crime is down in Corby this year. In the six months to November, compared with the same period last year, robberies fell by 42%, house burglaries dropped 25%, vehicle theft was down 10% and criminal damage - perhaps the best indicator of antisocial behaviour - down 12%. Only thefts from cars rose, up 25%.

There are plenty of people who testify to Corby's community spirit but, from hoodies to local councillors, no one has a good word to say about Asbos. The council and police seem to tacitly agree that interventions through Asbos have failed to curb yobbish behaviour. "The best results we've had are not necessarily through your Asbos, it's through 'acceptable behaviour orders'," says council leader Pat Fawcett.

These are less stigmatising contracts, agreed between offenders, parents, the council and the police, without going to court. "That has proved more successful because you're catching it when it's more low-key than waiting until it's a mega-issue." In the last 18 months, 38 such orders have been issued. Only two recipients have gone on to incur full Asbos. There are currently just 16 Corby residents with Asbos, alongside one dispersal order to stop youths gathering on a problem estate. As well as acceptable behaviour orders, Supt Blatchly and the council emphasise the role of new "safer community teams", which provide each estate with designated constables, police community support officers and special constables, who undertake training with neighbourhood watch wardens to tackle antisocial behaviour.

Corby's strong voluntary sector has also stepped in. While county council budget cuts have closed more than just the youth club at Arran, some youth activities have increased. Adrenalin Alley, an indoor skate and bike park, has recently opened and Corby recently hosted "pimp my town", an arts event for young people.

"The town has taken a battering but we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel," says Mags Maguire, manager of Corby voluntary and community services. Many ordinary townsfolk believe Corby is beginning to beat the yobs. But they feel powerless against broader, nationwide trends towards antisocial behaviour. Several point out the role the media play in awakening exaggerated fears of being knifed or mugged.

Misunderstanding

A gulf of misunderstanding and distrust appears to have opened up between adults and teenagers. "Everybody forgets that young people are part of the community," says May Barclay, who has helped youth projects for 20 years. "People forget to involve young people in decision-making and make them feel part of the future."

Back at the Arran community centre, Mr Algacs, who brought up five children in the town, is not the first person in Corby to point the finger at parenting. "It's through the parents that these behaviours are created. You can't blame the schools. I don't think Corby is any different from any other town. It's not just Corby. It's everywhere."

    Britain's official 'yob capital' turns its back on Asbos, G, 9.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1968195,00.html

2pm

Murderered lawyer's fiancée

tells of indescribable pain

Tuesday November 28, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

Tom ap Rhys Pryce's fiancée, Adele Eastman, today revealed the "indescribable" pain and horror she has suffered since his murder, for which two teenagers have been sentenced to life at the Old Bailey.

Ms Eastman, who had been due to marry Mr ap Rhys Pryce in September, told how she felt the killers had "ripped out my heart with their bare hands and torn it very slowly into pieces".

Donnel Carty, 19, and Delano Brown, 18, were convicted yesterday of murdering the 31-year-old City lawyer as he walked home from Kensal Green tube station, north-west London, in January this year. Carty, of Kensal Green, was sentenced by Mr Justice Aikens to serve a minimum of 21 years in prison. Brown, of Sudbury Hill, north-west London, will serve at least 17 years.

They also attacked and robbed another man at the same station less than 20 minutes earlier, and used both victims' mobile phones later that night, the court heard during the trial.

The killers sat impassively in the dock today as Ms Eastman's impact statement was read by prosecuting counsel Richard Horwell QC in a packed but silent courtroom.

"I must start by saying that my sense of pain and horror at losing Tom and in such a brutal way is literally indescribable," the statement read. "I have found it almost impossible to even try to put it into words but hope that I manage to convey it at least to some extent through my statement.

"Tom was determined from an early age to reach his full potential in life. He worked incredibly hard and made the most of every opportunity available to him. He gave his best in everything he did and he succeeded. Yet despite his many achievements, he was the most humble person I have ever known."

Ms Eastman, 32, sat at the back of the court with Mr ap Rhys Pryce's parents, Estella and John, as her statement was read out, occasionally wiping away tears.

"In a matter of seconds wedding plans and a future together had changed to funeral plans and a lifetime apart. The pain is unlike anything I have ever experienced and unlike anything I could have ever imagined.

"I feel as though Carty and Brown have ripped out my heart with their bare hands and torn it very slowly into pieces. Witnessing the pain that our families and friends are also suffering only adds to my own.

"The waves of devastation caused by Carty and Brown's greed and bravado roll on and on. The attack which they carried out on Tom was barbaric, they showed him no mercy and have shown absolutely no remorse since."

The judge told Carty and Brown that he could not determine who wielded the knife but he considered both to be equally guilty.

"Mr ap Rhys Pryce had the grave misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said. "He was true to his nature. He was not going to let two youths rob him in the street where he lived. He was stabbed with a knife.

"That caused immense suffering. You have shown no remorse as yet. I can only hope that in the future you will have some glimpse of how dreadful your crime was and the suffering you have caused."

Outside the court after the sentencing, John ap Rhys Pryce said the "callous and senseless" murder had devastated the lives of his family and friends.

"We hope that the sentence will send out a message to other youths who habitually carry knives. As Rio Ferdinand said yesterday, knives are not cool and we must get this message across. It is imperative we stamp out the knife culture in our cities," he said.

Relieved of £20, a mobile phone and an Oyster travelcard for use on the underground, Mr ap Rhys Pryce's last words were: "That is everything, you have got everything."

Carty and Brown led a gang called the "KG tribe", referring to the Kensal Green area. They had previously committed a series of robberies that followed a sadistic pattern, the court was told.

Each victim was intimidated with knives and would be stabbed in the leg or "juked" if they dared to resist. The pair would then call girlfriends on the phones they had stolen. Carty used Mr ap Rhys Price's phone to call a girlfriend after the robbery. Detectives located him by tracing the caller. He also used the victim's Oyster travelcard on public transport.

Police believe they were responsible for as many as 90 attacks over a two-month period. Carty, who liked to be called Armani, was arrested for a mugging a month before the killing. He was dressed in the same outfit, including a white woolly hat he wore on the night of the murder. He could not be charged because the victim could not identify him.

The court heard that Mr ap Rhys Price was an esteemed lawyer at the City firm Linklaters, a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, who had studied at Marlborough College. His parents, from Weybridge, Surrey, were overjoyed when he agreed to marry Ms Eastman, who worked for the solicitors Farrer and Co.

    Murderered lawyer's fiancée tells of indescribable pain, G, 28.11.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1959098,00.html

10.15am

'Supernannies'

to tackle antisocial children

Tuesday November 21, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matt Weaver

A team of "supernannies" is to be sent to some of Britain's most deprived areas to help parents control antisocial children, Tony Blair revealed today.

The parenting experts will be sent to 77 areas with high levels of unruly behaviour, teenage pregnancies and truancy from school.

The £4m scheme will also force the parents of disruptive children to attend parenting courses.

Writing in the Sun newspaper, the prime minister claimed the initiative would tackle the root causes of crime and disorder.

He said the experts would "be able to step in - either through one-to-one support or in group sessions - to offer a helping hand to parents who are beginning to struggle with their children before the problems get out of hand".

Mr Blair denied the scheme would involve "interfering with normal family life", adding: "Life isn't normal if you've got 12-year-olds out every night, drinking and creating nuisance on the street with their parents not knowing or even caring."

The plans coincide with a government-commissioned Mori poll revealing that 85% of people think bad parenting is responsible for bad behaviour.

Commenting on the findings, the prime minister said: "This should be no surprise given the huge popularity of television programmes in which experts help parents with their problem kids."

More details of the "supernanny" scheme will be revealed by the home secretary, John Reid, later today.

However, Paul Cavadino, the chief executive of the crime reduction charity Nacro, said blaming parents was "unproductive".

"Many parents are at their wits' end to know how to control their children's behaviour," he said. "They need support rather than a punitive approach."

Mr Cavadino said parents should not be forced to attend courses, adding: "Parenting courses have a proven track record in helping parents to exercise more effective control over their children's behaviour.

"However, a voluntary approach is usually more likely to engage parents than compulsion, which can run the risk of breeding resentment."

He pointed out that youth courts were already able to order parents to attend parenting courses when their children were convicted of criminal offences.

"We should be cautious about extending compulsory powers to other types of antisocial behaviour without the procedural safeguards of a youth court hearing," he said.

The government's respect coordinator, Louise Casey, insisted evidence showed compulsory courses were "equally effective as voluntary".

"Almost nine times out of 10, those parents do not have to be forced to do it - they are actually taking help when they get the right wake-up call," she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"I am very comfortable - as is every member of the public, the Mori poll shows - that if you need to force people on to parenting courses to get help, then you should."

    'Supernannies' to tackle antisocial children, G, 22.11.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1953354,00.html

Two friends, one knife,

two lives ruined:

just one more fatal stabbing

Published: 11 November 2006
The Independent
By Jason Bennetto,
Crime Correspondent

It was a love of football that first drew together Tyrell Anderson and Tommy Winston as 10-year-olds.

When not playing for the same school or Sunday league team in north London, the two friends would often be seen kicking a ball around a park, seeking to emulate their heroes at Arsenal FC.

As their teenage years came to end, they appeared to share a bond that would continue into their adult lives. But that close friendship was ripped apart earlier this year over the seemingly trivial matter of a £20 debt.

The fallout from the dispute ended one boy's life, wrecked the other and provided another graphic example of the increasingly prevalent knife culture among young people in Britain.

In a fit of rage Anderson, now aged 19, attacked and stabbed his friend three times in the back, leaving him to die on a pavement outside a hairdressers in Kentish Town, north London.

The combination of the close bond that had existed between the killer and victim, the trivial nature of the boys' dispute and a haunting letter from Anderson to his former pal has left the teenagers' friends and families struggling to find answers.

A week after the killing, as police searched for Mr Winston's killer, Anderson penned a poignant note on the back of a concert flyer and left it amid the cards and flowers laid in tribute at the spot where he had killed his friend.

He wrote: "I'm so sorry to end ur life Tom you was one of my best pals. I didn't mean to please believe me only god know's why this happened."

After leaving the note, the teenager handed himself in to police.

Last Tuesday Anderson had his plea of manslaughter - he claimed he did not intend to cause serious injury - rejected by a jury at the Old Bailey and he was found guilty of murder. He will serve a minimum of 13 years before being considered for parole.

Both boys' families have struggled to reconcile the brutality of the killing with their happy memories of the teenagers' close friendship.

Mr Winston's mother, Dee Roberts, recalls regularly taking her son and his friend - known by everyone as Ty - to play football.

The boys also started going to the same secondary school, Acland Burghley in Camden, which at the time was one of the leading comprehensives in the capital.

Ms Roberts said: "They spent a lot of time together. They played football at mid week and in the Sunday league. I used to pick up Ty - I knew his dad since I was a little girl - we grew up in the same area.

"As the boys got older they used to hang about together on the street, like kids do. There was never any competition between them, they were just such good mates."

Throughout their school days the two friends appeared to share similar experiences and were part of the same group of friendsBut as they got older their ambitions and social circles seem to have shifted.

Mr Winston lived in Kentish Town with his mother, a support worker for special needs children, his father, a roofer, and his 15 year-old sister, Charley. His mother and father split up about three years ago but they all remained on good terms. Anderson lived near by in Camden Road with his father, who was involved in youth work, and his mother.

Both boys used to hang out with their mates, riding mopeds on the Peckwater estate in Kentish Town, one of London's poorest wards.

Mr Winston had jettisoned dreams of becoming a professional footballer after a disappointing trial with Tottenham Hotspur at age 12. After he left school he worked as a telephone engineer. He also had a girlfriend.

Anderson, however, left school seemingly without any plans or a job. He was smoking marijuana and getting into trouble with police. He picked up convictions for cannabis possession and two offences of robbery and attempted robbery on schoolboys aged 13 and 16.

Relations between the friends started to turn sour after Anderson bought a phone for £40 from Mr Winston but paid him with a forged £20 note.

The two argued about it on Christmas Eve last year and Mr Winston decided to retaliate by removing parts of Anderson's scooter and hiding them.

The row came to a head on 3 January when a group of their friends gathered at the Unicorn Pub in Brecknock Road, Camden, to watch Arsenal play on a giant television screen.

During the second half of the game at just after 9pm Anderson ran up to the victim's Ford Fiesta and smashed the front window screen with a hammer.

A fight broke out between the pair and Mr Winston was knocked to the floor.

As a friend helped him up and walked him to his car, Anderson took a kitchen knife out of his pocket and stabbed him in the back three times.

After the murder Anderson went into hiding for a week before he returned to place the written tribute and message of remorse on the pavement. He then gave himself up to the police. He would tell an Old Bailey jury later: "I had been up a couple of nights drinking and smoking cannabis. I had smoked quite a lot. I didn't know how it affected me.

"Perhaps the cannabis I smoked made me paranoid, over paranoid."

The dead teenager's mother said: "No one was more shocked than me when I discovered it was Ty who had stabbed Tommy.

"Our whole family is devastated at losing Tommy. He was a good person who had a lovely girlfriend who I'm sure he would have married and lived happily ever after with. I adored him, I still do."

Back on the Peckwater Estate, where the two youths spent much of the free time, Alan Walter, a resident who knew Mr Winston, and who has campaigned for funding for a youth club, said the death was "a warning to the community" that it could not allow "another generation to grow up hanging out in the streets".

The killer's letter to his dead friend

TO TOMMY

I'm so sorry to end ur life Tom you was one of my best pals. I didnt meen to please believe me only god know's why this happened.

Im in a knightmare & I can't wake from it, I don't know the difference between my dreams and real life anymore Tom. For days now I've been wishing this was all a dream, only until I've jus walked to where it happened and seen all the flowers & pictures that I know it must be real. It must be about 04 OOam knowone is on the road accept for me. Everyone finks Im scum And I am but I know you no I never meant it and thats all that matters in my life now Tom.

Remember all the times we played football together (so many) you was always the best at freekicks you tought me how to take them Beckham style. You would always pick me out from corners and freekicks. Me you & Tanny yous'ed to be the best in the whole borough we all should of made it together.

Tom I can't believe I did it. I thought of 101 different ways to end my life & be with you Tom to tell U face to face how sorry I am but I wasn't man enough to do any of them.

So I'm writing this before I give myself in for good To tell your Family, Phil, D, Whinnie & all the rest that Im sorry to put you through so much pain, I know what its like to loose someone but not in that way you lost Tommy you dont deserve to be goin through this.

Words cannot explain how sorry I am. I no you Hate me & wan't me dead but please believe I never meant to do this, I'm not a murderer even though you think I am & everyone else does I'm not. Everyone who knows me, knows I'm not that kind of person. Tom we were friends for at least seven years Tom. We were exactly like each other at 1 stage in our lives, we liked all the same things two of them was football & the same girls. I love you Tom, I know l'll be joining you soon Tom. To every one who knew & loved Tommy I'm so sorry to end his life I didn't mean to put you through this type of pain. Tommy was one of my BEST pals.

    Two friends, one knife, two lives ruined: just one more fatal stabbing, I, 11.11.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article1963233.ece

Spy planes,

clothes scanners and secret cameras:

Britain's surveillance future

· Privacy watchdog foresees climate of suspicion
· Move to kickstart debate over level of monitoring

Thursday November 2, 2006
Guardian
Rob Evans and Alexi Mostrous

It sounds like a scene from the Tom Cruise futuristic thriller Minority Report. A teenager enters a record shop and a scanner hidden in the doorway instantly reads data secreted in electronic tags embedded in his clothes. The scanner clocks the brand of clothing and where it was purchased, flashing to a database which analyses what type of person would have bought that line of clothing and predicts what other products that person would like to buy. In an instant, adverts for those products are beamed to eye-level billboards for the teenager to see.

But while Minority Report portrayed the world as sci-fi visionary Philip K Dick imagined it in 2054, a new report predicts that such scenes will be commonplace in Britain in just 10 years' time. Today, Richard Thomas, the watchdog entrusted by the government to protect people's privacy, sounds a strong warning that Britain is "waking up to a surveillance society that is all around us".

The information commissioner warns that technology is already being extensively and routinely used to track and record the everyday activities and movements of Britons, whether they are working, resting or playing. He is also warning that such "pervasive" surveillance is likely to spread in the coming years.

The first scenario of personally targeted advertising - already familiar to online shoppers on Amazon or iTunes - reveals how surveillance technology is a boon for commerce. But the potential for more sinister intrusion is also outlined in the 135-page report.

In another scenario, a man drives out of his gated community and a machine records his exact departure time and the number and identity of his passengers. Under pay-as-you-drive regulations brought in to ease congestion, the man's bank account is charged automatically for every mile he travels in his car. Thousands of discreetly placed CCTV cameras, controlled by private companies and the government, monitor his journey. Remote-control spy planes fly overhead relaying images from the streets back to police.

Mr Thomas is worried that many people do not realise that they are being watched, since the surveillance is often invisible or discreet. He has commissioned a report from experts to predict how technologies are likely to be used to keep tabs on people in 2016. The information commissioner wants to kickstart a debate on whether people are prepared to accept this level of surveillance.

He will tell a conference in London: "Two years ago I warned that we were in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Today I fear that we are in fact waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us.

"Surveillance activities can be well-intentioned and bring benefits. They may be necessary or desirable - for example, to fight terrorism and serious crime, to improve entitlement and access to public and private services, and to improve healthcare. But unseen, uncontrolled or excessive surveillance can foster a climate of suspicion and undermine trust."

The report by the Surveillance Studies Network group of academics spells out some "fairly conservative" scenarios which would become reality in 2016.

They predict that employees will be subjected to a barrage of biometric and psychological tests to determine how fit they are. Those who refuse to undergo the tests or are seen as being unhealthy will not be given the job.

The experts believe that schools will also install a cashless card system to allow parents to pay for dinners. Initially, local councils will use this information to check that children are eating healthy food. But over time, the card will be used for other purposes, such as holding data on each child's exam results, after-school achievements, drug tests and internet use.

They also predict that older people will feel increasingly isolated as relatives use cameras and sensors to check up on them without paying them a visit. Electronic chips will be implanted in some of the elderly, letting carers and family members locate them more easily.

Dr David Murakami Wood, who headed the study, said: "Surveillance is not a malign plot hatched by evil powers to control the population. But the surveillance society has come about almost without us realising."

Although he emphasised its benefits, Dr Wood warned: "It can create real problems for individuals - social exclusion, discrimination and a negative impact on their life chances. Unfortunately the dominant modes of surveillance expansion in the 21st century are producing situations where distinctions of class, race, gender, geography and citizenship are currently being exacerbated and institutionalised."

    Spy planes, clothes scanners and secret cameras: Britain's surveillance future, G, 2.11.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,1937192,00.html

Big Brother Britain 2006:

'We are waking up

to a surveillance society

all around us'

Published: 02 November 2006
The Independent
By Jason Bennetto,
Crime Correspondent

Britain has sleepwalked into becoming a surveillance society that increasingly intrudes into our private lives and impacts on everyday activities, the head of the information watchdog warns.

New technology and "invisible" techniques are being used to gather a growing amount of information about UK citizens. The level of surveillance will grow even further in the next 10 years, which could result in a growing number of people being discriminated against and excluded from society, says a report by the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas.

Future developments could include microchip implants to identify and track individuals; facial recognition cameras fitted into lampposts; and unmanned surveillance aircraft, predict the report's authors.

Mr Thomas,who heads an independent body that promotes public access to official information, calls for a debate on what level of surveillance is acceptable.

He said: "Two years ago I warned that we were in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Today I fear that we are in fact waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us.

"As ever more information is collected, shared and used, it intrudes into our private space and leads to decisions which directly influence people's lives.

"Mistakes can also easily be made with serious consequences - false matches and other cases of mistaken identity, inaccurate facts or inferences, suspicions taken as reality, and breaches of security.

"I am keen to start a debate about where the lines should be drawn. What is acceptable and what is not?"

He was speaking at the launch of a report funded by the Information Commissioner's Office, which analyses current and future levels of surveillance. The study - "A Surveillance Society"- concludes that routine monitoring is increasing in most areas of life.

This includes the systematic tracking and recording of travel and use of public services; automated use of CCTV; analysis of buying habits and financial transactions; and the monitoring of telephone calls, e-mail and internet use in the workplace.

The major surveillance techniques include:

* Video cameras monitoring buildings, shopping streets and residential areas. Automatic systems can now recognise vehicle number plates and faces.

* Software that analyses spending habits and the data sold to businesses. When we call service centres or apply for loans, insurance or mortgages, how quickly we are served and what we are offered can depend on what we spend, where we live and who we are.

* Electronic tags to monitor offenders on probation.

* DNA taken from those arrested by the police and placed on a database.

* Information stored about foreign travel.

* Smart cards in schools to determine where children are, what they eat or the books they borrow.

* Taps on telephones, e-mails and internet use that can screened for key words and phrases by British and US intelligence services.

The Government also still plans to introduce a new system of biometric ID cards, including "biometrics" - fingerprints and iris scans - linked to a database of personal information.

The group of academics who compiled the report have also predicted future trends in surveillance in the next decade. The include:

* Shoppers being scanned as they enter stores. This will be matched with loyalty card data to affect how they are handled, with big spenders given preferential treatment over others.

* Cars linked to global satellite navigation systems which will provide the quickest route to avoid congestion and allow police to monitor speed and to track selected cars.

* Employees subjected to biometric and psychometric tests plus lifestyle profiles with diagnostic health tests common place. Jobs are refused to those who are seen as a health risk.

* Schools using card systems to allow parents to monitor what their children eat, their attendance, academic and drug test results

* Facial recognition systems to monitor our movements using tiny cameras in lampposts and walls, and unmanned aircraft above.

David Murakami Wood, a co-author of the report carried out by the Surveillance Studies Network said: "The level of surveillance in this country should shock people - it is infiltrating everything we do. The question is whether we want that or not. Most people do not understand how the information is used - for example details obtained from supermarket loyalty cards and credit cards are bought and sold to other companies to provide complex profiles of individual customers.

"It is difficult to challenge these organisations, find out what data they have on you, or to change inaccurate information."

Keeping up with the Joneses ­ day in the life of one family

It is London in 2006. The Jones family are returning from their holiday in Florida.

In the US they were photographed and fingerprinted on arrival. At Gatwick they have their hand luggage X-rayed and hand-searched, and they are all questioned. Passports ­ one member of the family has dual nationality with Pakistan ­ are checked. Details of the flight and all other travel information is recorded.

The family are seen by airport security cameras and on the courtesy bus, which drops them at the car park, which is also covered by CCTV.

As the family drives out of the airport, they switch on a sat-nav system, which guides them home, but also alerts them to speed and traffic-light cameras on the way ­ which record their progress. The son uses his mobile to call a friend ­ this is logged by the telephone company and could be used by police to locate where the phone was at the time.

On the way back they stop at an out-of-town mall. CCTV records them in the car park and entering the supermarket. All details of their shopping is recorded when they pay using a loyalty card. This will be used to build up a customer "profile" and can be sold on to others.

The money they spend on credit cards is also monitored to check for any unusual spending patterns, which could indicate the card has been stolen. The amounts spent and whether the family keep within agreed credit levels is also monitored and will be used by the bank or building society.

Later they go through the congestion charging zone ­ which they pay for via the mobile ­ and all details, including photographs of them entering central London, are recorded.

At home in central London they unload under the watch of a neighbour's private CCTV system. Waiting at home is a pile of junk mail. The names and addresses of the family have been obtained from a variety of databanks.

The son goes to his room to read a letter telling him his criminal records check is clear and that he has a place on a voluntary scheme.

He orders a takeaway ­ his address, card details and previous orders are already held by the pizza chain.

Britain under surveillance

* The national DNA database holds profiles on about 3.5 million people.

* There are an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain: one for every 14 people.

* More than half of the UK population posseses a loyalty card issued by the firm that operates the Nectar scheme.

* Since 2002 there have been more than 8 million criminal records checks for jobs, of which around 400,000 contained convictions or police intelligence information.

* There are plans to expand capacity to read vehicle number plates from 35 million reads per day to 50 million by 2008.

* Some 216 catalogue companies in the UK are signed up to the Abacus data-sharing consortium, with information on 26 million individuals.

* The database of fingerprints contains nearly 6 million sets of prints.

* An individual can be captured on more than 300 cameras each day.

* By the end of 2002 law enforcement bodies had made more than 400,000 requests for data from mobile network operators.

* The number of motorists caught by speed cameras rose from 300,000 in 1996 to over 2 million in 2004.

* In the year to April 2005 some 631 adults and 5,751 juveniles were electronically tagged.

    Big Brother Britain 2006: 'We are waking up to a surveillance society all around us', I, 2.11.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article1948209.ece

Increase in number

of monitored sex offenders

Monday October 23, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Jackie Dent and agencies

The number of violent and sexual offenders under monitoring in England and Wales has risen by almost 13% to just over 14,300 in the past year, Home Office statistics revealed today.

The annual report on multi-agency public protection arrangements (Mappa), showed that the number of registered sex offenders had increased by more than 3% to just under 30,000. Mappa involves staff from the police, probation and prison services, plus other government agencies, monitoring offenders when they are released from prison.

While the total number of offenders under Mappa rose by 7% to just under 48,000 over the past year, the Home Office said the majority of those offenders did "not pose a significant risk of serious harm to the public".

Of the 48,000, 12,505 were classified as posing a high or very high risk, an increase of almost 11%.

There was a 30% rise in the number of people charged or cautioned for committing new crimes - up to nearly 1,300 from 990 last year - but the Home Office said the jump was related to a crackdown on register requirements.

The Home Office minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, said crimes committed by offenders covered by Mappa created "intense suffering for victims and great concern for us all".

"Whilst we can never eliminate risk entirely, we are all entitled to expect that everything that can be done is being done to prevent these offenders from reoffending," he said.

In the past, Mappa has faced criticism for failing to effectively monitor violent offenders, some of whom ended up committing crimes including murder.

Last April, Naomi Bryant was strangled and stabbed at her home in Winchester by 48-year-old Anthony Rice, who had been released from prison despite a history of attacking women.

In May this year, Andrew Bridges, the chief inspector of probation, found that "substantial mistakes and misjudgements" had been made by the probation, parole and prison services in Rice's supervision after his release, and said he should never have been released in the first place.

In February, Mr Bridges also said there had been a "collective failure" in the handling of the cases of Damien Hanson and Elliott White, who were convicted of the murder of John Monckton and the attempted murder of his wife, Homeyra, during an attempted robbery at their Chelsea home in 2004.

He found that Hanson - who was assessed as being a high risk of serious harm - should have been referred to Mappa.

The annual report included a breakdown of 42 areas responsible for Mappa in England and Wales. The different areas have provided numerous case studies of successful liaison between government departments in managing some dangerous offenders.

The London area - in which the borough of Lambeth has the highest number of registered sex offenders, 184 - cited the example of Tom, a convicted paedophile who was released from jail with a number of prevention orders, including not being allowed to talk to children.

He was assessed as being at "very high" risk of re-offending, and Mappa agencies undertook the decision to place him under surveillance. Over a four-day period, he did not commit any offences but broke a prevention order and was sent back to prison.

    Increase in number of monitored sex offenders, G, 23.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1929559,00.html

2.30pm

Police hunt train defecator

Monday October 23, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Liane Katz

Transport police are hunting for an "exceptionally antisocial" man who has been defecating on trains across the country, causing tens of thousands of pounds-worth of damage.

The vandal, who strikes by smearing excrement inside the carriages, appears to wait until he is alone before committing the offence but investigators can discern no other pattern to his behaviour. Police say the man has soiled at least 30 trains since August, mainly in the south-east.

His foul play has caused a total of £60,000 worth of damage and cleaning bills, while some affected carriages have had to be withdrawn from service.

British Transport Police today warned that the man's unpleasant and costly habit also posed a risk to public health, and released CCTV images of a man officers want to speak to in connection with the investigation.

Detective Constable Donna Fox said: "The man has struck at least 30 trains since August, causing approximately £60,000 in damage and cleaning costs and resulting in many carriages been taken out of service, causing disruption and cancellations to the train services and serious inconvenience to the travelling public.

"This is obviously a serious public health issue as well as being exceptionally anti-social. We need to locate this man as soon as possible."

She added: "There is no particular pattern as to when he appears. He travels to various areas and at different times of the day and different days of the week and basically waits to be in part of a carriage by himself before he commits these offences.

"We have been trawling through CCTV images to try and track the man and remain hopeful that members of the public may know this man and more importantly know where he lives.

"On at least one occasion CCTV footage shows the man being disturbed by a passenger walking through a train. We are appealing for this man or anyone else who may have witnessed this man committing offences to contact us.

"If anyone sees this man travelling on the railway network, they should not approach him, but call the police or alert train staff immediately."

· Anyone with information should call the British Transport Police witness appeal line on 020 7391 5275

    Police hunt train defecator, G, 23.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1929486,00.html

Home Office admits tagged offenders

guilty of 1,000 serious crimes

· Killings and assaults by criminals freed early
· Public being put at risk, say Tories and Lib Dems

Thursday October 12, 2006
Guardian
David Hencke, Westminster correspondent

More than 1,000 serious crimes have been committed by offenders released early from jail on electronic tags monitored by private companies, the Home Office reveals today.

There has been one murder, four manslaughters, 56 woundings and more than 700 assaults over the past six years since home detention curfew was introduced in 1999. There were also 100 cases of possessing an offensive weapon, one incident of causing death by reckless driving, 100 of obstructing a police officer and 16 other violent attacks. Details were released as part of an investigation by the Commons public accounts committee.

The review is the first proper audit of the tagging system as a way of monitoring the behaviour of offenders no longer deemed a danger to the public. Tagging was also a cost-cutting move that helped free prison places. Among other findings, the review found 60% of prisons do not have direct access to the police national computer to check an inmate's previous convictions. Governors receive no feedback from the Home Office on whether early release or tagging has worked.

The details were released to Richard Bacon, Conservative MP for Norfolk South and Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland. Mr Bacon said: "The first duty of a prison governor is to safeguard the public but over 1,000 offenders have committed violent crimes whilst on home detention curfew ... if governors are to protect the public properly the Home Office cannot leave them in the dark. As a matter of routine the Home Office must tell governors whether their decisions to release offenders under home detention curfew have worked."

Conservative and Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesmen said the public were being put at risk. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "This report raises serious issues about the way tagging is being used. With so many serious offences being committed it is clear the government is showing a shocking disregard for public safety.

"It is disgraceful that this government is happy to put people who are clearly unsuitable for tagging right at the heart of our communities resulting in over 1,000 violent offences, including five deaths.

"While tagging may have a useful role to play, it is vitally dependent on careful selection of the people who are tagged. If it is merely used as a means for the government to combat their prison overcrowding crisis no one wins: the victim gets no justice, the public get no protection, the offender gets no rehabilitation and the whole scheme is undermined."

Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "Once again, flaws in the system can be laid squarely at the government's feet for failing to implement the system competently in practice."

The report also revealed that two people wrongly suspected of removing their tags received £8,100 compensation from the Home Office for being sent back to jail.

Private companies running the tagging service said that the financial savings to taxpayers - £70 a day - made it good value for money despite the risk of re-offending. Tom Riall, chief executive of Serco Home Affairs, said: "I am delighted the PAC has recognised the value of electronic monitoring. The latest contracts with the Home Office delivered a 40% cost saving to the taxpayer through new technology and better service design."

The Home Office is evaluating pilot schemes using satellite monitoring to track tagged convicts, including sex offenders, so they can be re-arrested if they are found near exclusion zones set up to protect children.

Home Office minister Gerry Sutcliffe said: "Of the 130,000 low-risk offenders who have been released on home detention curfew since its inception in January 1999 less than 4% have re-offended. This compares with a figure of 67.4% re-offending rate for all prisoners released from prison within two years. We are not complacent however, and any offence committed is one too many."

Home Office admits tagged offenders guilty of 1,000 serious crimes,
G, 12.10.2006,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1920155,00.html