The man accused of murdering five Ipswich women in six weeks regularly cleaned his car at odd times of the day – even in the dark, a court was told yesterday.

A neighbour spoke of having often heard the washing machine at Steve Wright’s flat running in the early hours of the morning. The prosecution at the trial of Mr Wright, 49, a forklift truck driver, says that he was trying to destroy evidence of his link to the victims and that his actions were part of a compelling picture of his guilt.

Mr Wright was said to have refused to answer key questions after police arrested him at his home on the edge of the town’s red-light district. Crucially, Ipswich Crown Court was told, he declined to explain why his DNA was found on the bodies of three of the murdered women. No one else’s DNA was present.

Peter Wright, QC, for the prosecution, said: “As to what drives a man to embark upon a campaign such as this we may never know. But we submit that one thing you can be certain of, from the evidence in this case, is that in late October 2006 something caused Steve Gerald James Wright to engage in such a campaign, and that he is guilty of the murder of each of these women.”

The defendant denies murdering Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 25, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24, between October and December 2006.

All the murdered women worked as street prostitutes to finance their addictions to heroin and cocaine. The person killing them was labelled the Suffolk Strangler and the court has been told that he may have been acting with at least one accomplice.

The Crown argues that each of the women was either strangled or smothered after taking large doses of heroin that rendered them incapable of fighting off their attacker. Their bodies were found over ten days in streams and woodland on the outskirts of Ipswich. The remains of two women had been posed in the form of a crucifix.

The prosecutor said there was a mass of scientific and circumstantial

“ evidence that indicated Mr Wright’s guilt. DNA material, bloodstains and fibres that variously linked the defendant to all of the women close to the time of their deaths had been recovered, despite his attempts to wipe away traces of his connection with them. A neighbour often heard the washing machine running at Mr Wright’s flat in London Road, Ipswich, in the night, the jury was told.

Mr Wright was said to have cruised the red-light area in his Ford Mondeo, sometimes at night.

The prosecutor said: “The defendant regularly cleaned his car, sometimes at odd hours and even on one occasion in the dark. A man fitting his description was seen outside 79 London Road around October or November, paying particular attention to the wheel arches and their cleanliness.”

Fibres recovered from the Mondeo and the victims’ bodies linked four of the women to the car. The QC said: “He may have been careful but he was not careful enough.”

There were also fibres on the naked bodies of the victims that connected them to the defendant’s clothing and the sofa in his flat. The prosecution argues that these fibres “arose by virtue of contact with the defendant and his clothing at the time of their murder, their transportation to the scene and the depositing of their bodies”.

Bloodstains and other bodily fluids that had been matched to Ms Clennell and Ms Nicholls were found on the left shoulder and right sleeve of a yellow reflective jacket regularly worn by the accused. DNA material from the two women was also on a pair of gardening gloves in the jacket pocket.

The prosecutor told the jurors that detailed evidence would convince them of Mr Wright’s guilt. Indicating the defendant, sitting in the dock flanked by prison guards, he said: “Each of these women was indeed murdered and the common denominator in each of their deaths and the disposal of their bodies was that man.”

The trial continues.

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