Prostitutes murder suspect in court

Intense media coverage

 

Police have expressed concern that intense media coverage would jeopardise the case, and Lord Peter Goldsmith, Britain‘s attorney-general, warned journalists to report the case responsibly.

 

The suspect was taken to and from the court under tight security in a police van escorted by the police.

 

Michael Crimp, one of the case prosecutors, said that there was “sufficient evidence” to charge Wright with the murders of Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls.

 

He said: “As the case has developed, we have been carefully examining and assessing the evidence in order to come to a charging decision at the earliest possible opportunity.”

 

The arrest

 

Police arrested Wright at 5am on Tuesday at his home near where several of the women were last seen.

 

The case has gripped the UK

A 37-year-old man, identified as Tom Stephens, had been initially arrested in the case on Monday, but was released on bail without charge pending further inquiries.

 

Police said Alderton, 24, was strangled, and a senior pathologist determined that Clennell, 24, died of “compression” to her neck.

 

Post-mortem examinations of the bodies of Nicol, 19, Nicholls, 29, and Adams, 25, reached no conclusion on the cause of death.

 

Panic

 

As the women’s bodies were found, fears grew for the safety of all women in the area.

 

Town authorities organised shuttle services to get women home from the local council offices and two of the town’s largest employers equipped their female employees with panic alarms.

 

Police have said Wright may be questioned over the murders of other prostitutes in the area, going back 14 years.