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LONDON - UK detectives have been given an extra 36 hours to interview Steve Wright, the second man arrested over the Ipswich serial killings, amid new claims about his links with the red light area in Norwich, where the murders of two other prostitutes and the disappearance of a third remain unsolved.
As inquests were opened into the deaths of four of the five murdered Ipswich prostitutes, it also became clear that police were examining possible links between Wright, 48, who lived on the edge of the Ipswich red light area and the first man arrested on Monday, Tom Stephens, 37, who claimed to have known all the murdered prostitutes.
However, Suffolk police have refused to comment on suggestions there is evidence of mobile phone contact between the two and since Mr Stephens sometimes acted as an 'unoffficial pimp' for the women, it might not be evidence of possible collusion.
Mr Stephens, a supermarket worker who was arrested at his home in the village of Trimley St Martin, near Felixstowe on Monday, was also still being questioned last night, although detectives have described the arrest of Mr Wright as "more significant".
It is believed that his arrest followed the examination of CCTV evidence - police have seized tapes from cameras all over the town - and from forensic examination of the bodies of the three prostitutes discovered in open country.
Both Suffolk and neighbouring Norfolk police stressed yesterday that there are not formally linking any of the other unsolved murders of prostitutes and young women in East Anglia with the Ipswich killings, although they are not ruling out a link.
However, police are now aware that in 1987 Mr Wright was briefly the landlord of the Ferry Boat Inn in the red light area of Norwich.
The pub was used by prostitutes Natalie Pearman, 16, and Michelle Bettles, 22, whose killings in 1996 and 2002 remain unsolved; both were strangled.
Another prostitute, Kellie Pratt, went missing in 2000 and her body has never been found.
One former prostitute claimed to local newspapers yesterday that Mr Wright was a cross-dresser and regularly wore high heels, a PVC skirt and wig when he went out looking for vice girls while he worked in Norwich.
Tina, 45, was reported as saying: "He was very strange and used to scare us. I didn't want to get in a car with him and would never have got in a car with him. Most of the girls never got in the car with him. I never did business with him, he just freaked me out so much. The police were aware of him because he sometimes scared the girls that much."
As a magistrate gave detectives a further 36 hours to question Mr Wright at an undisclosed police station, new details about his background emerged.
Born in Felixstowe - his father is a former docks policeman - he has been married twice.
His current partner, Pamela, a call centre worker, shares his second name, but they are not believed to be married.
Said to be "devastated", she was staying with friends in Ipswich and was the subject of a furious bidding war between some media organisations anxious for her story.
Other relatives and friends have expressed shock that the quietly-spoken golf-loving man could be suspected of the killings.
Mr Wright has three grown-up children from his first marriage.
His second wife, Diana Cole - who he met while working as a steward on the Queen Elizabeth 11 in the mid-1980s - married him in 1987 so that they could take over the Ferry Boat pub.
She has returned to her home town of Hartlepool and told her local newspaper yesterday that the marriage had been a "total disaster" and had only lasted a year.
At the opening in the inquests yesterday into the deaths of Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29 and Paula Clennell, 24, Det Supt Andy Henwood of Suffolk Police, said the murder of five women in such circumstances and in such a short time was "unique, not only in Suffolk, but the country as a whole".
After hearing the basic circumstances of the disappearances of the women and the subsequent discoveries of their bodies on the outskirts of Ipswich between December 2 and 12, Greater Suffolk Coroner Dr Peter Dean adjourned the hearing to a date to be fixed.
He appealed to anybody who had information about the murders to contact the police.
The inquest into the death of the first body to be discovered, Gemma Adams, 25, has already been opened and adjourned.
- INDEPENDENT
