'Systematic' serial killer on suicide watch

Serial killer Steve Wright was placed on suicide watch today after being told he must spend the rest of his life in jail in England.

Onlookers shouted “scum” at the prison van that drove him away from Ipswich Crown Court to Belmarsh Prison in south-east London.

Judge Mr Justice Gross ruled Wright should never be eligible for parole after murdering five prostitutes in a “targeted campaign of murder”.

A jury took less than eight hours to find him guilty of killing Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.

Wright, 49, a former steward on the QE2 who lived in Ipswich, Suffolk, admitted picking up the women for sex on the nights they vanished but denied any involvement in their deaths.

Passing sentence, the judge told Wright he had targeted vulnerable women.

He said: “Drugs and prostitution meant they were at risk. But neither drugs nor prostitution killed them. You did.

“You are responsible for their deaths. You killed them, stripped them and left them... why you did it may never be known.”

The judge said the case met the legal requirements for a whole life sentence because the murders involved a “substantial degree of pre-meditation and planning”.

He also pointed to the “macabre” way in which Wright arranged two of the women’s bodies in a crucifix shape.

Wright displayed the same blank expression he has shown throughout the six-week trial during today’s short hearing.

He looked drained but emotionless as he avoided all eye contact with any other people inside Court Number One as he was led away.

The families of his five victims emerged from court showing a mixture of relief and grief.

Miss Nicol’s aunt, Finney Nicol, gave a thumbs-up as she left the building.

Asked what she felt about the sentence, she said: “Result – he should never come out.”

Miss Clennell’s sister, Alice Bradshaw, smiled as she came down the steps of the court building with her husband, Craig Bradshaw.

Wright’s brother, David, and his sister, Jeanette, left the court looking stony-faced and refused to answer the waiting reporters’ questions.

Sources said Wright would be placed on suicide watch at Belmarsh Prison.

There he will undergo routine psychiatric assessments before serving his sentence at a high-security prison – possibly Wakefield in West Yorkshire or Whitemoor, near March, Cambridgeshire.

The trial heard that the naked bodies of the women, who all worked as prostitutes in Ipswich, were found in isolated locations near the town between December 2 and December 12 2006.

Detectives launched an investigation after Miss Nicol vanished in late October 2006.

Prosecutors said Wright, who lived in the red light district, “systematically selected and murdered” women after stalking streets around his home.

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

Wright’s defence team said they would now consider whether there were grounds for an appeal.

His solicitor, Mark Haslam, said: “We will give full consideration to both the verdict and the evidence in due course before deciding on any appeal.”