Ten years after five Ipswich prostitutes were brutally murdered, the officers who cracked the case reveal the legacy left behind
- Steve Wright turned to killing when sex with prostitutes was no longer enough to satisfy his depraved fantasies
- He would drop off his then-girlfriend at work then cruise the streets, fuelling his obsession with sex workers
- One of his victims was pregnant when he murdered her
- He became one of Britain's most prolific serial killers, murdering five women in a matter of weeks
- He denied murder but was found guilty in court and sentenced to life in prison in 2008
TANIA Nicol left her family home in Ipswich on a cold October evening in 2006 and went to work.
However, the 19 year old wasn’t on her way to a shift at a local pub as her mum Kerry, now 56, believed.
She was actually going to the red light district, where she had been selling her body to strangers for many months to fund her heroin and cocaine addiction.
That night, Tania never returned home.
After getting into a dark-coloured car, she became the first victim of Steve Wright, one of Britain’s most prolific serial killers.
Over the next six weeks, his roll-call grew at a terrifying pace.
Four other female sex workers from the town – Gemma Adams, 25, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24 – were all picked up off the street and brutally murdered by Wright.
Their naked bodies were dumped in rural locations surrounding the picturesque Suffolk town.
The case started as a missing persons enquiry on November 1, 2006, when Tania was reported missing by Kerry.
But it soon became one of Britain’s biggest-ever manhunts as the women’s bodies were discovered one by one between December 2 and 9.
A huge police operation, codenamed Operation Sumac, swung into action to catch the predator – dubbed the modern-day Ripper – before he struck again.
Alan Caton was the Police District Commander for Ipswich at the time of the murders, and was responsible for co-ordinating the hunt to find the killer.
“When Tania then Gemma went missing, we were very concerned,” says Alan, who retired from the police in 2013 and is chairman of two Safeguarding Children boards.
“These were vulnerable women with chaotic lifestyles who had vanished. Something wasn’t right. Gemma’s body was discovered first. When a colleague informed me a second body – Tania – had been found, I realised that we were dealing with something unprecedented in my 30 years with the force.
“Within days, three more bodies had been discovered, the world’s media had descended on the town and I was responsible for making sure we had enough resources to deal with the investigation. It was a very intense and frenetic time. I’ll never forget it.”
The man responsible – Steve Gerald James Wright, now 58 – was a forklift truck driver with a chequered past.
Twice married with two children and a history of domestic violence, Wright had moved from job to job, including serving in the merchant navy and working as a steward on the QE2.
He had twice attempted suicide and had a long predilection for prostitutes that began in his naval days.
Over the years, Wright spent thousands of pounds satisfying his fetish for sex workers, unbeknown to his wives and girlfriends.
Long before the Ipswich murders, Wright was well-known to prostitutes in the neighbouring town of Norwich, where he had worked as a pub landlord.
“If you didn’t get in the car, he would get naked and just sit there with the headlights on. He freaked me out. The police knew about him,” remembered one sex worker.
In 2004, Wright and his then-girlfriend Pamela Wright, now 68, moved to Ipswich.
He got a job driving a forklift at the docks while she worked night shifts in a call centre – and his obsession with prostitutes continued.
Wright would drive Pamela to work then cruise the streets looking for women to pick up.
His killing spree began when sex was no longer enough to satisfy his depraved fantasies.
Gemma was found naked in a stream in the Hintelsham area on December 2, two and a half weeks after being reported missing by her boyfriend Jon Simpson, 35, who, like her, was a drug addict.
Tests showed she’d been strangled.
Over the next three days, Anneli and Annette went missing.
Tania’s body was found on December 8.
She, too, had been strangled and dumped in the same stream as Gemma.
Working with Alan Caton was Janet Humphrey, at the time a community police officer with Suffolk Constabulary.
She retired this June, but now works for the force in a civilian role.
Janet remembers the events of 2006 vividly.
“The red light district was part of my ‘patch’ and I regularly came into contact with its workers,” she explains.
“I became part of the murder enquiry team.
“The atmosphere at work and in the town was very tense. People were scared. We were all working around the clock to catch the killer before he struck again.”
Janet’s role was to interview sex workers from the town, searching for clues about potential suspects.
“Every day I went to the homes of women who we knew worked the streets, asking about aggressive clients and finding out as much as we could about the girls who’d been killed and had gone missing,” she says.
“I encouraged them to stay off the streets, but most had drug addictions and it wasn’t a choice for them. They knew it was dangerous but still went out.”
On December 10, the naked body of Anneli was found in woodland, south-east of Ipswich.
She’d been strangled, then posed in the shape of a crucifix with her arms outstretched.
At her autopsy, it was discovered Anneli had been three months pregnant when she was killed.
The next day, Paula went missing.
“Tragically Paula had been interviewed by the media just days before becoming a victim herself,” says Janet.
“She’d been on TV admitting she needed money too badly to stop working on the street.”
A day later, on December 12, the bodies of Paula and Annette were found just a few hundred yards apart, lying in a wooded area near a main road close to Levington, outside Ipswich.
Paula had been heavily drugged at the time of her death, while Annette had also been posed in a cross shape just like Anneli.
“I’d had contact with all the girls apart from Tania,” recalls Janet.
“I’d spoken with them, arrested some of them, dealt with the kerb crawlers using them. Remembering their faces, knowing these were all someone’s daughter, I was determined we would catch their killer.”
Within a week of the fourth and fifth bodies being found, forensic evidence linked Wright to the murders and police arrested and charged him.
His DNA had been on the national database after an earlier conviction for theft in 2003.
He admitted to having sex with four of the five women and picking up Tania in his car, which he claimed explained why his DNA was on three of the bodies and why Tania’s DNA was found in his car.
However, Wright denied murdering the women, and in January 2008 stood trial at Ipswich Crown Court.
Janet was the first witness called.
“I was there to paint a picture of life on the streets for these women, to make the jury understand that they weren’t ‘just prostitutes,’” she recalls.
“They were innocent people who’d made bad decisions, but they didn’t deserve to die.”
On February 21, 2008, Wright was found guilty of all five murders and later sentenced to life in prison.
Alan was in court for the verdict.
“I felt relieved and knew we had got justice for those five women and their families,” he says.
In an unexpected twist, 10 years on, the Ipswich murders have left a positive legacy.
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“In March 2007, the Make A Change team was launched,” says Alan.
“It was made up of multiple agencies, including the police, health services and rehab facilities. The aim was to ensure there were no more vulnerable women on the streets of Ipswich, so this sort of crime could never happen again.”
Janet was also part of the team.
“I’d go out with my colleague Gemma Fisher, bringing the women hot drinks and spending time talking with them and helping them find a way out of prostitution,” she says.
“We stopped arresting them, but took a zero-tolerance approach to kerb crawlers.
“By 2009, there was no street prostitution in Ipswich. We’d helped all the 30-plus women in some way and for many their lives have improved hugely. There is still off-street prostitution – women working in brothels and from home – but the force continues to try to help those women.
“I often think of Tania, Gemma, Paula, Anneli and Annette,” adds Janet.
“I hope their families know their deaths weren’t in vain. Because of what happened to these poor girls, many other lives have been saved.”
THE FIVE MURDER VICTIMS
Tania Nicol, 19
At school, Tania was a “happy, smiling girl” whose parents split up when she was a child.
She left home and began taking drugs at the age of 16.
Tania worked at a massage parlour with Gemma, but was fired because of her drug addiction.
She moved back home to live with her mother Kerry and brother Aaron, now 25, but hid the darker side of her life from them.
Gemma Adams, 25
A former Brownie who played the piano and loved horses, Gemma fell in with a bad crowd after finishing school and became hooked on heroin, despite attempts by her parents Gail and Brian to help her quit her habit.
After losing her job with an insurance company, she began working in massage parlours before taking to the streets.
Her family only found out Gemma was a prostitute when she went missing.
Anneli Alderton, 24
The mother-of-one had been a drug addict since her mid-teens.
Her son Freddy, now 16, lived with her mother Marie, whom Anneli had been in contact with just before her death.
When Anneli died, she was in a relationship with Sam Jefford, now 31, a former addict she met while in rehab who didn’t know she was a prostitute.
Annette Nicholls, 29
After an ex-boyfriend introduced her to heroin four years before her death, Annette’s happy life as a mum and beauty therapist unravelled. When her family found out she was a prostitute, Annette was “ashamed” but too hooked on drugs to stop.
She gave her son Farron, now 18, to her mum Rosemary to care for and was close friends with Paula.
Paula Clennell, 24
Paula’s three children were in care because of her drug addiction, which saw her spend up to £500 a day – from prostitution and shoplifting – on heroin.
Her mother Isabella said: “Heroin destroyed her life. I begged her to get help but she’d lost all hope. She was so desperate for heroin that she went on the streets.”