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From The Guardian
The Ipswich murders have raised disturbing parallels with the Yorkshire Ripper case, writes Julie Bindel
Wednesday December 13, 2006
The Guardian
The news barely registered at first - just a passing story in a local newspaper. The naked body of a woman had been found in a brook in Ipswich, Suffolk, on December 2. Her name was Gemma Adams. She was 25. She had been working as a street prostitute. Few seem to have been too worried by this story - apart from those who loved Adams, of course, and the other women left working on the cold Ipswich streets. Many people still wrongly believe, just as they did during the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe (the so-called Yorkshire Ripper) that men who harm and kill women in prostitution are no danger to "respectable women". The reasoning goes that these killers simply have a pathological hatred for prostitutes, despite the overwhelming evidence that they have a pathological hatred for women in general.
It wasn't until it emerged that a friend of Adams's was also missing then -and that she was a prostitute, working the same beat - that the case made the national press. The friend's name was Tania Nicol, and she was 19. Her body was discovered six days after Adams's, partially naked, in the same stretch of water. On Sunday, as journalists were piecing together the facts from police, and trying to ascertain whether reports of a possible serial killer were mere speculation, the body of a third woman, Anneli Alderton, 24, was discovered in the woods. Today, the post-mortem report concluded she had been strangled. On Monday, police expressed concern regarding two other missing women, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, also street workers. As this piece goes to press the bodies of two more women have been found, and are yet to be identified.
Prostitutes regularly turn up dead, and, when they do, they are lucky if their stories make the local papers. Murder is often regarded as an occupational hazard of street work. We barely notice if the murderer is caught, and few care that prostitute murders have the lowest clear-up rates of any type of homicide - it is estimated that 90 prostitutes have been murdered in the UK in the past 12 years, a figure that hardly dents the national consciousness.
Once it came to light that there was potentially a serial killer stalking the streets, though, the tabloid press started having a field day. Over the past few days front-page headlines have included "Ripper", and "Vice Girls Missing", accompanied by the usual photographs of women in mini-skirts peering into cars on deserted streets.
And when police gave a press conference after Alderton's body was discovered, advising women to "stay off the streets. If you are out alone at night, you are putting yourself in danger", we could have been right back in 1977, when police effectively put a curfew on women during Sutcliffe's killing spree. In issuing that curfew, women in West Yorkshire were made to feel responsible for preventing male violence, just as women in Ipswich are now. "It makes us feel as if we are to blame," one street prostitute in Ipswich noted on the news yesterday, "but it's him who is making the streets dangerous - not us."
During the 1970s and into 1980, Sutcliffe killed 13 women and left seven others for dead. The body of his first victim - 28-year-old Wilma McCann - was discovered in 1975, and, from the beginning, the West Yorkshire police were guilty of dragging their feet and bungling the investigation. Complacent police officers overlooked vital clues, and inadequate technology was used to collate the thousands of interviews and intelligence. Amidst all this, Sutcliffe just kept killing - with hammers, screwdrivers and knives - and police were no further forward by the time the body of his fifth victim, Jayne MacDonald, was discovered in June 1977.
MacDonald's murder was described by police and press as a "tragic mistake". The previous victims had all been prostitutes, and therefore, in the eyes of many, complicit in their own demise. MacDonald was 16 though, and described by police as "respectable and innocent". Victims were duly divided into deserving and not-so-deserving victims.
Five years after the Ripper's first murder, the only solution the police had come up with was to impose a curfew on women. We were urged to "stay indoors" and told, "Do not go out at night unless absolutely necessary, and only if accompanied by a man you know." (Sutcliffe himself gave the same advice to his sister.)
My women's group mocked up police notices and flyposted them all over the city. "Attention all men in West Yorkshire," the notice read, "there is a serial killer on the loose in the area. Out of consideration for the safety of women, please ensure you are indoors by 8pm each evening, so that women can go about their business without the fear you may provoke." For one night only (until the police discovered our scam and the posters were taken down) the Chapeltown area, where many street prostitutes worked, was free of foot punters.
Whether police have learned lessons from the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry remains to be seen. Certainly they seem to be taking each new development extremely seriously. However, some things - and not just the issuing of a curfew on women - remain the same. Police have not thought to advise men not to go out to buy sex in Ipswich, but they should have done, just as the police during the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry should have. Men need to be told that their presence can mask and protect men who go out in order to harm and kill.
Gemma Adams has been described in the press as a "loving daughter" from a good home. Her father says he had "no idea" she was involved in prostitution. And yet the image that will stick in our minds has been shaped by the photograph used in all the newspapers: her police mug shot. Staring blankly at the camera, she looks, in many ways, like a stereotype of a hard-faced prostitute. Recently, Wilma McCann's son Richard said that the photograph used of his mother made her look totally unlike the mother he knew. The photographs used of Sutcliffe's non-prostitute victims look like warm human beings, not stigmatised criminals.
Tania Nichol has also been stereotyped as a "tarty" dresser. The photograph of the same pink, sparkly shoes she was wearing the night she disappeared are the sort many would associate with women in prostitution. Was it necessary to show these? Surely, people are not remembered by passing members of the public by their shoes?
Some men found the Yorkshire Ripper amusing. Outside Leeds football stadium badges were sold with the slogan, "Leeds United - More feared than the Yorkshire Ripper." During one match, when police had hassled Leeds fans to stop taunting their opponents, loud chants of "Ripper 12, police nil" rose up from the crowd. During drinking sessions they would sing, "One Yorkshire Ripper, there's only one Yorkshire Ripper."
How much has changed? On my way to work this morning, two men were chatting at the bus stop, reading the coverage of the Ipswich case. "My sister lives in Ipswich," said one. "Yeah, but don't worry - he's only doing tarts," came the reply.
Just as in the days of the Yorkshire Ripper, there are suggestions that regulated brothels are the answer, so that women do not have to walk the streets. But there is more that could be done to prevent these women from being murdered, such as helping them exit prostitution, and vigorously pursuing men who are violent to street workers, before they kill someone.
Just after his conviction, when Sutcliffe was asked by his brother why he had committed the murders, he said, "I were just trying to clean up the streets, our kid." Whether police in Ipswich will choose to clean up the streets properly - by ridding them of violent men and potential punters - remains to be seen. The echo of the Yorkshire Ripper will continue to surface as long as women such as Adams, Nicol and Alderton are seen as easy prey by the men who want to kill a woman and choose - simply because it is easiest - to pick on a street prostitute.
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Murder Police Find Two More Dead - BBC
Two more bodies have been found by police investigating the murders of three prostitutes.
A woodland area around the village of Levington, near Ipswich, in Suffolk has been sealed off by officers.
Police said it is likely the two bodies are those of two missing women - Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls.
The area is close to where the body of Anneli Alderton was found on Sunday. The bodies of Gemma Adams, and Tania Nicol, were also found near Ipswich.
Suffolk police officers were called to Levington shortly after 1500 GMT on Tuesday.
Ms Clennell, 24, and 29-year-old Ms Nicholls, have not been heard from since Sunday.
Det Ch Supt Stewart Gull said: "We can only fear the worst.
"The natural assumption is that these are the two missing women."
The body of Anneli Alderton, 24, was found in woodland at Nacton on 10 December. She had been strangled.
Ms Adams' body was found on 2 December at Thorpes Hill, Hintlesham, near Ipswich.
Police divers recovered the body of Ms Nicol, 19, six days later from the same stretch of water at Copdock Mill.
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from the BBC.
Police have appealed to prostitutes to stay off the streets of Ipswich after three women were found dead and a fourth reported missing from the town.
The naked bodies of Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol and a third woman have been found near the town in the past eight days.
Suffolk Police said they were now looking for prostitute Paula Clennell, 24, last seen late on Saturday.
Assistant Chief Constable Jacqui Cheer urged women, particularly in the party season, not to go out at night alone.
'Come home together'
In a direct appeal to prostitutes, she said: "Please stay off the streets, if you are out alone at night you are putting yourself in danger.
"We are coming up to the party season and up to Christmas.
"There will be groups of women going out and I would say you have really got to look after each other, plan how you are going to get there and come home together.
"Whatever happens on your night out, do not leave your friends alone and make sure you get home safely."
Map: Where the bodies were found.
Ms Adams, 25, and Ms Nicol, 19, worked together and went missing from the red light area of Ipswich.
Ms Adams vanished on 15 November and her body was found in a stream at the village of Hintlesham, Suffolk, on 2 December.
Ms Nicol disappeared on 30 October and her body was discovered on Friday in the same stream at Copdock, near Ipswich.
Det Ch Supt Stewart Gull said: "While we can't formally link the discovery of the body at Nacton with the two murders, the facts speak for themselves.
"I do not know who we are looking for. He may be local, he may be from away. We could draw a number of conclusions as to where the bodies have been deposited and found. Anything is possible."
Det Ch Supt Gull said Ms Clennell was reported missing by a friend.
"We know that Ms Clennell uses a number of addresses in Ipswich and we are currently checking these to establish her whereabouts.
"We would urge Paula or anyone who knows of her whereabouts to call us immediately so that we can be reassured that she is safe and well."
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A Polish restaurant in Sheffield, meanwhile, has been basking in a
kind of fame it could never have expected. The Polonium restaurant
has been doing a roaring trade ever since it became apparent that
Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with Polonium 210. The Sheffield
Star reported the restaurant's fame in its diary column and has since
watched the story go round the world.
"Polish TV and newspapers want to fly me and my wife Jolanta out there
for interviews," the owner Boguslaw Sidorowicz told the Star. "The
story has really caught people's imagination. It's unfortunate
because someone has died, but the story has made it a very
interesting week for us.
"For years people have been asking me what the name means and I keep
explaining. Now I don't have to. I was surprised by the response at
first - with so many radio and television stations and newspapers
getting in touch. We'd only ever been known locally before.
"I did wonder, when the Polonium poisoning story came out, if the
restaurant would attract any more attention, but I never expected
anything like this! Trade at the restaurant has gone up by 50 per
cent, but we're not having to turn anyone away yet."
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Launch of: Misjudging rape
A Dossier of how adjudicators (now known as immigration judges)
flout international law and even their own guidelines when they consider the asylum claims of women and girls seeking safety and protection from rape.
Tuesday 5 Dec 2006 6.30pm
Hosted by Ian Macdonald QC
at Garden Court Chambers
57-60 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2 Nearest tube: Holborn
Speakers include:
Cristel Amiss, Black Women’s Rape Action Project
Sian Evans, Women Against Rape
Anver Jeevanjee, Member Asylum & Immigration Appeals Tribunal 1983-2004
Jovanka Savic, Sutovic Hartigan Solicitors
Louise Hooper, barrister, Garden Court Chambers
Sarah Kajumba, All African Women’s Group
In the UK, where at least 50% of women seeking asylum are victims of sexual violence[1], rape survivors face many obstacles in demonstrating how their claims for asylum relate to the Refugee Convention and why they should therefore be granted protection. The Asylum Gender Guidelines, published in 2000 by Immigration Appellate Authority (now the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal) are one of few official tools laying out how women’s claims should be treated at appeals. The Guidelines aim to: ”ensure that the procedures used do not prejudice women asylum seekers or make it more difficult for them to present their asylum claims.”
Yet when Black Women’s Rape Action Project (BWRAP) and Women Against Rape (WAR) analysed over 60 adjudicators’ rulings they found that:
· Few Adjudicators even referred to the Guidelines.
· Women raped by soldiers were told the rape they suffered was “simple dreadful lust” and therefore not persecution.
· Rape survivors told that it would be safe for them to return to their country of origin and live thousands of miles away from their homes.
· Women who did not report rape immediately accused of reporting in order to “enhance a fabricated asylum claim.”
· The testimony of “a pretty young woman” dismissed as not credible because she did not report rape in her country of origin.
· A woman detained under the fast track system told that three days was “ample time” to find a lawyer and her case dismissed because it was “riddled with discrepancies.”
· In identikit rulings, two women were told by the same judge: “Rape is a horrific crime which should not be utilised lightly merely to bolster an asylum claim.”
· Where the Guidelines were adherred to women reported feeling that they had a fairer hearing.
Background
Hundreds of women come to BWRAP and WAR having been turned down, not because they don’t have compelling evidence of rape and other torture but because hostility, discrimination, disbelief, bullying and indifference meant they never had the chance to speak about what they suffered OR because legal aid cuts mean they were left with poor (or even no) legal representation and no expert or corroborative evidence was gathered to support their claim. This is especially true for cases assessed under the fast-track.[2]
Ensuring justice for women at Tribunal hearings is essential because, as appeal rights have been eroded, it is usually the last chance for a woman to describe why she was forced to flee. If adjudicators get their decisions wrong, vulnerable and traumatised women, children and men are sent back to face further rape and even death. Demanding adherence to the Guidelines and legal accountability from adjudicators, who frequently make arbitrary and unjust decisions, is therefore crucial to rape survivors getting protection and justice.
At a time when research into gender and asylum is proliferating but practical help and assistance continues to be scarce, this Dossier breaks new ground. By publicizing the Guidelines and therefore what women should be entitled to, it helps inform women about their rights and what can be done when preparing an appeal.
Other publications include:
Asylum from Rape petition published by BWRAP Rights & Information Sheet for survivors of rape seeking asylum in the UK, WAR
For more information:
Black Women's Rape Action Project bwrap@dircon.co.uk
Women Against Rape war@womenagainstrape.net
Tel: 0207 482 2496 or 07958 152171; Fax: 0207 209 4751
womenagainstrape.net
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[1] Legal Action for Women (Dec 2005) found that 70% of women detained in Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre had been victims of rape or other sexual violence.
[2] Where those who claim asylum are detained from when they enter the UK on the basis that their case is “straightforward” and capable of being decided quickly.
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"I tend to think that if God wanted us to believe in him, he'd exist"
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