A forklift-truck driver was being questioned by police last night over the murders of five prostitutes after he was arrested at his home before dawn yesterday.
Steve Wright, 48, still wearing his nightclothes, was driven away by detectives. His was the second arrest in 24 hours. A police source told The Times: “This is a significant arrest and the team is feeling quite buoyant.”
Officers who raided the address in London Road, Ipswich, on the edge of the red-light district, removed a blue Ford Mondeo that was parked on the road. Mr Wright has been a tenant in a flat in an Edwardian house at the end of a terrace since the end of September.
Police cordoned off a 400-yard stretch of the road as forensic scientists began a meticulous search of the two-bedroom property.
A white tent was erected outside the front door as the hunt continued for the killer of the five women — Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.
It is understood that police acted after closed-circuit television footage appeared to show Mr Wright with a prostitute. His arrest is understood to be unconnected to the arrest on Monday of Tom Stephens, 37.
The source added: “The arrest has not come from information obtained through Tom Stephens. We don’t think the two men knew each other. And this arrest has not come through a trawl of the women’s clients.”
Mr Stephens, a former special constable, remained under questioning at another police station as officers continued to search his semi-detached home in Trimley St Martin, near Felixstowe, and removed items for examination. Norfolk police refused to comment on reports that Mr Stephens had been forced to resign as a special constable in 1997 because of inappropriate involvement with prostitutes. Suffolk police were yesterday granted a further 36 hours to question him.
Exhaustive searches of the homes of both men include examination of mobile phone records and petrol receipts. Mr Wright is a former steward on the QE2 who has also worked as a warehouseman and forklift-truck driver at Felixstowe docks in Suffolk. He is divorced from his first wife, Angela, with whom he is believed to have had three children, all of them grown up. His second wife Diane, n ée Cassell, who married him in 1987, has since divorced and remarried.
The flat where Mr Wright lives is owned by Kenneth Bean, an elderly landlord who also owns several other properties. A source said: “Mr Bean is very upset and shocked by what’s happened. He takes great care of who he lets apartments to.”
At a press conference, Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, who is leading the inquiry involving more than 500 officers, said: “The 48-year-old man was arrested at his home address in Ipswich at about 5am today.
“He has been arrested on the suspicion of murdering all five women. The man is currently in custody at a police station in Suffolk. The 37-year-old man, who was arrested at his home in Trimley, remains in custody.”
Police, who are examining thousands of hours of closed-circuit television footage from the red-light district near Ipswich Town Football Club, said that, after the second arrest, they would not be issuing any further immediate appeals for information.
There were reports last night that police forensic science teams had recovered useful DNA samples from three of the murder scenes but Suffolk police could not comment.
As officers prevented any movement near Mr Wright’s house to prevent contamination of the area, neighbours described their shock at the raid.
Alfie Smith, 60, who lives opposite, said: “I saw lots of policemen. They just took this man out and away he went in a car. I didn’t see his face.
“The man was just in his nightclothes. I just saw all the police and didn’t really know what was going on. It was very frightening.”
Joe Franey, 50, said: “There was just a hammering and a banging on the door. We saw him being led out. He seemed quite composed, quite normal.”
Mr Franey said that the man had lived in the property with a partner and had not been there long. “They were very isolated, they kept themselves to themselves,” he added. “We see them around and say good morning and good evening. It is quite a close area, and they didn’t make any attempt to mix at all.”
Neighbours said that Mr Wright had acquired the Ford Mondeo in recent weeks.
On Sunday police had asked London Road residents to complete a questionnaire, and state where they were when the five women disappeared.
Another neighbour said that Mr Wright, could regularly be seen washing his car. Laura Fowkes, 23, lives with her partner, David Welton, 43, in a self-contained flat at the back of the house where Mr Wright was arrested.
Ms Fowkes said: “We saw two policemen cordon off the road. When we came out of the house at 8.10am, they took all our details and asked us to take a bill with us to prove our address, otherwise we could not get back to our house.”
She said that she had seen Mr Wright with a woman who had curly red hair and was aged in her forties, and had assumed that they were a couple.
Mr Welton, a builder, said that the previous occupants had left about three months ago. He said: “When the other couple were here, we never heard a peep out of them, but now there are always noises, thumping about, and we could hear running water from our bedroom.”
In quotes
‘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’
- Joe Franey, a neighbour of Mr Wright
‘Pam [Wright] is distraught, she doesn’t believe it and thinks it has all been concocted. She is shattered and she is tired, she is not allowed to go home and she is not allowed to speak to Steve’
- Sheila Davis, an Ipswich pub landlady who knows Stephen Wright and his girlfriend, Pamela
‘The arrest has not come from information obtained through Tom Stephens. We don’t think the two men knew each other. And this arrest has not come through a trawl of the women’s clients’
- A police source
