The mother of Tania Nicol, the first and youngest of five women to be murdered around Ipswich, told a court on Tuesday she did not know her daughter was working as a prostitute.
Nicol (19) disappeared on October 30 2006, and her body was finally found in a stream on December 8.
Forklift truck driver Steve Wright (49) is accused of killing Nicol, Gemma Adams, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls. Their naked bodies were found around the town in the space of just 10 days.
Giving evidence from behind a screen at Ipswich Crown Court, Kerry Nicol said she had last seen her daughter at home until about 10.45pm on the day the vanished when she went to catch a bus to meet some friends.
Nicol told the court she spoke to her again at 10.57pm to check she had got the bus. She never heard from her again and did not realise her daughter was missing until the following evening.
”I presumed she was staying at a friend’s and had not got round to telling me,” she said.
Nicol said she knew her daughter had made some phone calls on the home telephone before she left. The court heard that the numbers were for an unnamed man and for another called Tom Stephens.
Nicol also said she was unaware that Tania was working as a prostitute as she had told her she had a job and was doing ”alright”.
However she said on one occasion someone had phoned the house from a massage parlour asking for ”Chantelle”. She also found a letter in her daughter’s bedroom addressed to a Chantelle.
Earlier, she told the court her daughter had been brought up in Ipswich but had left home to move into a hostel at the age of 16 when she began using heroin.
She had asked for help in getting off drugs and had moved into a flat in the town in 2004 before returning to live at home the following year.
Although her mother noticed she had lost weight, had ”bad skin” and had found syringes in her bedroom, she denied using drugs, saying they had belonged to a friend.
The first witness to give evidence to the court was police Constable Janet Humphrey. She said she had worked in Ipswich’s red light district for 22 years and that prostitutes would take clients out of the area for ”services”.
One area was near the brook where the bodies of Nicol and Adams were found. Sex workers would also use a layby off the Old Felixstowe Road, close to the junction with Levington where the bodies of Nicholls and Clennell were found.
Nacton — where the body of Alderton was recovered — was a popular spot for ”dogging” or outdoor sex but not a place commonly used by prostitutes, Humphrey said.
The officer said sex workers would charge between £20 and £30 for oral sex, and between £30 and £50 for full sex.
The court has already heard that Wright had admitted having sex with four of the five women, which explained why DNA and other scientific evidence linked him to the case. However, he denies having anything to do with their deaths.
The trial continues. – Reuters