Letter from Wright to father | How police caught Wright

Steve Wright became one of the select few prisoners to be told that they will never be released when he was sentenced yesterday for murdering five women.

The killer whose reign of fear lasted six weeks in the winter of 2006 was taken under high security to Belmarsh prison, in South London, where he was placed on suicide watch.

Mr Justice Gross told Wright at Ipswich Crown Court that the campaign of murder had led to his “sombre conclusion” that Wright should die in jail. Only 35 other people in the British penal system, including Rose West and Ian Brady, have been told that their life sentences should mean life.

Wright, 49, a former publican, killed, stripped and disposed of the women, all of whom worked as prostitutes and were addicted to hard drugs. The families of some of his victims called for him to face the death penalty after a jury found him guilty on Thursday of murdering Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 25, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24.

Wright’s brother, David, and sister, Jeanette, sat behind the families of some of the victims in the courtroom at Ipswich Crown Court, and sobbed as the judge handed down the sentences.

The serial killer sat impassively in the dock and stared straight ahead as his sentence was handed down, occasionally taking a sip of water.

The judge said that he had reached his “sombre conclusion” after considering the facts and arguments put forward by prosecution and defence lawyers. “I must pass a sentence which meets the justice of the case,” he said. “In my judgment upon reflection it must be a whole-life term. It is right you should spend your whole life in prison. This was a targeted campaign of murder.”

Mr Justice Gross said Wright had targeted vulnerable women. “Drugs and prostitution meant they were at risk. But neither drugs nor prostitution killed them. You did.

“You killed them, stripped them and left them. Why you did it may never be known.”

The judge said that the case met the legal requirements for a whole-life sentence because the murders involved a “substantial degree of premeditation and planning”. He also pointed to the “macabre” way in which Wright arranged two of the bodies in a crucifix shape.

Wright, a former steward on the QE2, lived in the red-light area in Ipswich, Suffolk. He denied any involvement in the women’s deaths, telling the court that all the evidence linking him to the victims was “a coincidence”.

Jurors were told that the naked bodies of the women were found in isolated locations near the town between December 2 and December 12, 2006.

The massive investigation started after Ms Nicol vanished in late October 2006. Prosecutors said that Wright “systematically selected and murdered” the women after stalking the streets around his home.

A pathologist said that evidence showed that all the women had been choked or strangled.

Five of the jurors who convicted Wright of his crimes turned up at court to see the sentence handed down. Wright’s defence team said that they would be considering whether there were grounds for an appeal, but emphasised that this was routine in all criminal cases.

The families of the five women emerged from court showing a mixture of relief and grief.

Wright’s solicitor, Mark Haslam, said: “We will give full consideration to both the verdict and the evidence in due course before deciding on any appeal.” Wright was visited by his lawyers in a court holding cell, immediately after the verdict, before being driven to prison.

Jacqui Cheer, Suffolk’s Deputy Chief Constable, said after the hearing that although it was human nature to try to understand why Wright had killed the women, but only the killer knew the real reason.

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