Wright told he will spend rest of his life in jail for murders
Steve Wright was told he would spend the rest of his life in jail yesterday by the judge sentencing him for the murders of five prostitutes in Suffolk.
The 49-year-old former forklift truck driver and QE2 steward showed no emotion as Mr Justice Gross told him that his premeditated crimes were of such an exceptionally high severity that he should never be released back into society.
Wright, the judge reminded a packed court room, had systematically picked off each one of the prostitutes in a six-and-half-week murderous campaign in 2006. After sex, he had squeezed the life from each one before stripping them and dumping their bodies in remote locations around Ipswich. His victims, the youngest just 19 and three of them mothers, were too high on drugs to fight.
Mr Justice Gross pointed out that Wright had deliberately preyed on these vulnerable sex workers. "These five women were addicted to drugs and that led them to prostitution in order to fund their addiction. The drugs and the prostitution exposed them to risk but neither the drugs nor the prostitution killed them. You did," said Mr Justice Gross.
Wright, who was known locally as an unremarkable, quiet middle-aged man with a passion for golf had only one previous conviction for minor theft. The DNA from that crime linked him to the bodies of three of the women. Fibres from his clothes, home and car were found on all five.
Wright had claimed he was simply the victim of a string of coincidences. He said he had picked up each of the women and slept with four of them. But the jury agreed with the prosecution that he was not singularly unfortunate but a random psychopath.
After a month-and-a-half-long trial at Ipswich Crown Court, the nine men and three women charged with deciding his fate took less than six hours to convict him of murdering Tania Nicol, 19, between 29 October and 9 December, Gemma Adams, 25, between 13 November and 3 December, Anneli Alderton, 24, between 2 and 11 December, Annette Nicholls, 29, between 7 and 13 December and Paula Clennell, 24, between 9 and 13 December.
While murder carries an automatic life sentence, it fell to the judge yesterday to decide whether that should be a whole life term or a lesser sentence.
For the defence, QC Timothy Langdale had argued that a lengthy jail term would suffice for a man who had gone through an extraordinary episode having never been convicted of any violent crime before. But Mr Justice Gross said he had come to the sombre conclusion that Wright should never be released.
Last night Wright was taken to Belmarsh Prison in south-east London where he was placed on suicide watch and underwent routine psychiatric assessments. He is likely to serve his sentence at a high-security prison, most probably Wakefield in West Yorkshire or Whitemoor, near March, Cambridgeshire.
His sentence is unlikely to satisfy several of the victims' families, who insist that only the death penalty is appropriate for the man who had snuffed out the lives of five young women.
Though no direct links have been established between Wright and other murders, detectives investigating unsolved cases across the county are looking into any possible connections.
Wright's defence team said they would consider whether there were grounds for an appeal.