KEY POINTS:
The mother of one of the victims of the alleged serial killer Steve Wright told Ipswich Crown Court yesterday that she had "no idea" her daughter was working as a prostitute.
Kerry Nicol was giving evidence from behind a screen at the trial of the forklift truck driver accused of killing five prostitutes in Ipswich before dumping their naked bodies. All the women were discovered over a 10-day period in December 2006.
Nicol, a care home assistant said her daughter Tania, who was 19 when she died, had done well at school but began taking heroin after leaving to live in a hostel when she was 16.
In the weeks before Tania's disappearance, on October 30, 2006, Nicol said she discovered syringes in her daughter's bedroom, but her daughter insisted they belonged to a friend.
In 2004 her daughter moved to a flat in Ipswich. The mother also indicated that, after Tania returned to the family home in late December 2005, she had failed to pick up on clues that her daughter was working as a prostitute.
Nicol said: "She said she had a job and was managing all right."
But the court heard that on one occasion Nicol had answered a call from a massage parlour called Cleopatra's asking for "Chantelle" and that on two occasions men she did not know called at the house.
- INDEPENDENT
