Steve Wright: a passing nightmare?

The murders of five women in Ipswich in the last weeks of 2006 was the most extreme manifestation of violence against sex workers for 30 years, but the rapidity with which the case has vanished from public debate suggests that few want to discuss the difficult questions that remain, or to acknowledge the continuing shameful vulnerability of sex workers to extreme violence. ¹ Neither did the trial of Steve Wright acknowledge the vulnerabilities imposed on his victims by the criminalisation of street prostitution. ² Extensive information was aired about the victims: their backgrounds, drug problems, height and weight were deemed sufficiently relevant to their deaths to constitute legal evidence, but no attempt was made to explore other reasons for their vulnerability nor Wright's motivation. After Peter Sutcliffe's trial, feminists castigated the judicial process for its unrealistic separation of a ‘sexual’ motive from Sutcliffe's alleged ‘divine mission’, but at least Sutcliffe's motives were explored. Because his guilt was not in doubt, the whole trial was about the cause of his behaviour. At Wright's trial, all the evidence was about fibres, DNA traces, CCTV images and ANPR, ³ backed up with the times his partner was on night shifts. No motivation – beyond the need to murder as an aid to sexual stimulation – was suggested, and no experts were wheeled into court to explain how such an unusual sexual perversion might suddenly manifest itself in this unprecedented fashion.