Man in court on prostitute murder charges

A former public schoolboy will appear in court in Britain today charged with the murders of three prostitutes.

Stephen Griffiths, 40, is accused of killing Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage and Susan Rushworth, who all went missing in Bradford.

Yesterday’s announcement of the charges by the Crown Prosecution Service followed confirmation that body parts found in a river belonged to Ms Blamires.

West Yorkshire Police said the remains of Ms Blamires were found on Tuesday afternoon in water just a few yards from where the busy Otley Road crosses the River Aire in Shipley – about five miles from her home.

Ms Blamires was last seen on Friday, while Ms Armitage, 31, has been missing since Monday April 26, and Ms Rushworth, 43, disappeared on June 22 last year.

Griffiths, who is reported to be a psychology graduate undertaking postgraduate research in criminology at Bradford University, was arrested on Monday at his home on the edge of the city’s red-light district.

Last night, Mr Blamires mother, Nicky Blamires, 55, described her daughter as “bright and articulate”, who went to college and was training to be a nurse.

“Unfortunately my daughter went down the wrong path and she did not have the life she was meant to have.

“She was a much-loved daughter, sister and niece and what has happened to her will haunt me to the day I die,” she said.

Ms Blamires’ home in Barkston Walk, in the Allerton area of Bradford, is just a few streets from that of Ms Armitage, who was last seen on CCTV footage walking in Rebecca Street, in the red-light district.

People who knew Ms Armitage said yesterday that she was a “bubbly, lovely” girl.

The third woman, grandmother and mother-of-three Ms Rushworth, was last seen on June 22 last year, after getting off a single-decker bus near her flat at Oak Villas, in the Manningham area of Bradford.

Her daughter, Kirsty, told ITV News: “Even though she used to take drugs and stuff, my friends always used to have a laugh with her and she’d give her right arm to anybody.

“She wasn’t like all these other druggies. She was just completely different. She was like a sister more than a mum.”

Griffiths lived in a third-floor flat in Thornton Road, just a short distance from Bradford city centre.

Last night police were continuing to search the flats complex and an area around it was sealed off.

He had lived in the flats for about 13 years. He attended the private Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield in his teens.

Griffiths is due at Bradford Magistrates’ Court this morning and the city’s crown court later.