Suffolk Strangler Steve Wright smirks as he is told by judge he will die behind bars and is jailed for life for the murder of teenager Victoria Hall in 1999

Suffolk strangler Steve Wright has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 40 years for the murder of a 17-year-old girl more than 25 years ago.

The 67-year-old serial killer smirked in the dock as he was told he will die behind bars after he admitted the brutal killing of Victoria Hall on September 19, 1999. 

He snatched the A-level student off the street in Felixstowe as she walked home from a nightclub, before raping her and dumping her body in a ditch. 

Seven years later, Wright went on to murder five sex workers in Ipswich’s red-light district – with their bodies found over a 10-day period in December 2006.

He was already serving a whole-life order for these killings, having been caught when his DNA, on file from a previous theft conviction, was matched to samples taken from the victims.

Earlier this week, as his trial for Ms Hall’s murder was due to begin, Wright dramatically confessed, also pleading guilty to the attempted kidnap of Emily Doherty.

Mr Justice Joel Bennathan said he had no doubt Wright also intended to kill Ms Doherty, who he tried to abduct in similar circumstances the day before the attack on Ms Hall.  

The confession was the first time that Wright, who is one of Britain’s most notorious killers, has ever admitted responsibility for any of his crimes. 

Mr Justice Bennathan told Wright: ‘Victoria Hall was a typical, bright, lively teenager. For reasons only you know, and most people will never start to comprehend, you snatched Victoria away and you crushed her young life.’

No life sentence could ever make up for the ‘loss and grief’ suffered by Victoria’s family, the senior judge said.

However, the judge said it was ‘extraordinarily unlikely’ Wright would ever be released from prison.

He told Wright: ‘Given the sentence from your other dreadful crimes, it is almost certain you will die in prison.’

Wright appeared to give a slight shrug and smile as he was sent down from the dock.

Speaking outside the Old Bailey following Wright’s sentencing today, Ms Hall’s father, Graham Hall, said his family had been through ’26 years of hell which will continue from today onwards and forever’.

In a victim impact statement, read out in court by his son Steven, Mr Hall added: ‘In 1999 we were a normal family and then Steve Wright came along and took Victoria from us.

‘The pain of the week that followed will be with us forever.

‘Steve Wright robbed us of seeing Victoria grow into a woman, fulfil her dream of going to university, get married and have children, our grandchildren.

‘Unfortunately, Lorinda has not lived to see the conclusion of Steve Wright’s actions on that night. I miss Victoria every day and will do for the rest of my life.’

Ms Hall’s brother, Steven, fought back tears as he also delivered a moving victim impact statement at the Old Bailey. 

He told the court: ‘Our family was forced into an exclusive club that nobody wants to be part of due to the actions of a man for whatever selfish gain he was looking for.

‘Victoria was only 17 years old and with so much life left to live – university, a career, marriage, kids, none of which she ever got to live.

‘I have lost my sister and mum and dad lost their daughter who brought so much joy to us all with her dancing and just the lovely way she was.

‘Since I was age 15 I have had 26 years of not knowing what happened to my sister.

‘I have had a life sentence in itself. The conclusion of this does not bring closure, it only answers the question of who did it. It won’t change the unending hurt and suffering we have to go through.’

New CCTV released by the CPS today is believed to show Wright visiting a petrol station hours after he he kidnapped and murdered Ms Hall. 

The pictures were captured five miles away from where the teenager’s body was found in Creeting St Peter. 

Facial comparison experts said it was ‘more than probable’ the man in the CCTV was Wright.

Prior to his sentencing, the court was told that Wright went on the prowl and was like a predator ‘stalking for his prey’ on the night of Ms Hall’s murder.

Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward said: ‘On the weekend of 18 to 19 September 1999, the defendant, driving his burgundy Ford Granada Scorpio, was on the prowl in Felixstowe, a port town on the Suffolk coast. 

‘Almost undoubtedly sexually motivated, he was a predator stalking for his prey: looking for a young woman to kidnap.’

The Old Bailey heard he first struck on September 18, attempting to kidnap Emily Doherty as she walked home from a nightclub.

The 22-year-old had become separated from her friends as Wright cruised past in his car looking for a victim, laughing as he followed her.

Ms Doherty managed to run and hide, narrowly escaping with her life.

The prosecutor said: ‘Perhaps because he made the mistake of allowing her to see him whilst he was still several yards away from her, her instincts alerted her to the danger she was in, and despite being in a desperately vulnerable situation, she escaped, physically unharmed, having had just enough time to run, hide and seek help from a couple who, by great good fortune, answered their door to her frantic knocking and – with the benefit of hindsight – probably saved her life.

‘Undeterred, and apparently having learnt from his unsuccessful attempt to kidnap Emily Doherty, the defendant struck again the following night.

‘He did not allow Victoria Hall, aged 17, to escape his predatory clutches.’

Ms Hall was on her way home from the same nightclub the following evening when Wright pounced as Victoria was just 300 yards from her home.

The prosecutor told the court: ‘Having separated from her best friend Gemma Algar only 300 metres from her front door, she never made it home, and seemingly vanished, the only clue to what happened to her a scream in the night, on the small housing estate where she lived in the village of Trimley St Mary, not two miles from where the defendant has made his attempt on Emily Doherty.’  

Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward, KC, said Wright knew the area as he would often meet a sex worker there.

The Old Bailey heard that Wright ‘sexually violated’ Ms Hall after snatching her from the street, killing her ‘within a very short time’.

The prosecutor said: ‘The defendant abducted, and within a very short time, murdered her, as well as sexually violated her in some way.

‘In a further act of degradation towards this defenceless and innocent schoolgirl, who had her whole life ahead of her, an act which caused untold further distress to those who loved her, and which destroyed much of the evidence that might have allowed the police swiftly to identify him, he callously discarded her body, stripped naked of everything except her jewellery, in a farm ditch some 25 miles away, like she was no more important than a disposable commodity.’

The following day Wright returned to his work at the Felixstowe docks ‘as if nothing had happened.’

The judge interrupted the prosecutor today to ask whether there had been an inquiry into ‘what went wrong’ and why police did not detect Wright earlier, pointing out that Ms Doherty had given police a very ‘accurate’ description of Wright, his vehicle and part of the vehicle registration just minutes after surviving the attempted abduction.

In a highly unusual intervention in the middle of the opening of the prosecutor’s sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Joel Bennathan asked: ‘I simply ask has there been an inquiry by the police into what went wrong? It was 27 years ago.’

The Old Bailey was told that Ms Hall may have died within an hour of being abducted by the sexual predator.

Her mother knew something was ‘badly wrong’ after discovering her daughter was not at home at 8.20am that morning.

Ms Ledward said the family were caused ‘untold distress’, adding: ‘Mrs Hall knew that something had happened to her daughter. It took five agonising days for her worst fears to be confirmed.’

In the weeks after the murder, Wright sold his car and went off sick from work.

He took out a £5,000 loan and made preparations to leave the country, getting vaccinations and a visa so he could travel to Thailand in November 1999.

But he returned to the UK in January 2000 when police started investigating a local businessman.

Adrian Bradshaw, who happened to be in the same nightclub as Ms Hall, was wrongly prosecuted for her murder, but was acquitted in 2001.

The Old Bailey heard that police did not initially link the murder with the earlier abduction of Emily Doherty for weeks even though the surviving victim had provided significant details about Wright’s appearance, car and registration.

Officers later undertook research into possible vehicles that matched Ms Doherty’s description of Wright’s car, which included the colour and partial registration.

His car was one of 56 vehicles identified by police investigating the murder of Ms Hall in 1999, the court was told.

Wright’s surviving victim Ms Doherty also gave an impact statement in which she hit out at police, saying they made her feel like a ‘silly little girl’.

She recalled the moment Wright started following her to the court. She said: ‘I have never been so scared in my life.

‘When a couple finally let me into their house to call the police, I thought my heart was going to explode from my chest. I had never run so fast.’

Terrified, she knocked on the door of a home where she was hiding, begging for help.

But Ms Doherty said she felt embarrassed as the couple inside thought she was ‘playing a prank’ and police did not believe her.

‘I wanted to cry so much. I was so scared’, she recalled.

‘When the police arrived, when I told them what was happening their first question to me was: ‘How much have you had to drink tonight?’

‘They didn’t believe me. I had to persist that the danger that I felt had been real. I had to ask for a lift home.

‘To this day I am furious. I wasn’t taken seriously. I was made to feel like a silly little girl. They said, ‘I suppose you should tell us what happened’ as they drove me home.

‘I told them the car registration, but they made no note of anything I said. None of the details.

‘I offered to come in to the station the next morning to make a statement. ‘That won’t be necessary’. They told me to forget all about it.’

Ms Doherty added: ‘For 25 plus years, I have wondered, ‘What if?’

‘What if they had taken my statement? Could Vicky still be alive now? Or at the least, they could have found the murderer sooner. And then, if it was indeed Steve Wright, the London road murders wouldn’t have happened?

‘I have survivors’ guilt. I blame myself for not being more assertive and sure of myself.

‘For not going into the police station the following morning and forcing a statement on them.’

Wright, who is one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers, is already serving a whole life sentence at Long Lartin Prison in Worcestershire for five murders. 

In a six-week frenzy, the former QE2 steward murdered Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24 and Annette Nicholls, 29 before he was captured by police just before Christmas 2006.

Despite overwhelming forensic evidence linking him to the bodies of the sex workers found in near identical positions dumped in a stream and woodland, Wright denied any responsibility.

His shock admission that he killed Ms Hall on the first day of the trial on Monday is the first time that he has ever taken any responsibility for his crimes. 

But it has inevitably raised questions about how many more victims Wright claimed in the intervening years.

Ever since he was sentenced to a whole life tariff for the five murders in 2008, there have been questions about other unsolved murders, with Wright previously being linked to high-profile cases including the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh with whom he had previously worked on the QE2.

Wright was on a long list of potential suspects for Ms Hall’s murder after his car was found to be a partial number plate match with a vehicle used in the attempted abduction of Miss Doherty the day earlier.

But he was never arrested or interviewed because bungling officers spent £2million prosecuting the wrong man.

Local businessman Adrian Bradshaw was at the same nightclub as Victoria before she vanished on her way home in the early hours of September 19, 1999.

Her parents had expected her to take a taxi home, but she ran out of money.

Instead, Ms Hall and her best friend Gemma Algar stopped to buy chips before walking the two miles from Bandbox nightclub to their homes in Trimley St Mary.

The pair went their separate ways around 2.30am, just 300 yards from Victoria’s home.

As she walked away, Ms Algar heard a scream, but she thought someone was messing around.

Other residents also heard ‘horrifying screams’, the sound of a ‘throaty exhaust’ and a car screeching away.

At 8.20am, Ms Hall’s parents raised the alarm when they discovered she was not in her bedroom.

Five days later, her body was found by a dogwalker in a ditch 25 miles away in Creeting St Peter.

Like two of Wright’s later victims, the teenager was found naked in a stream.

In another similarity, a post-mortem examination revealed that she had been asphyxiated, but not sexually assaulted.

But detectives focused their inquiries on Mr Bradshaw after locals pointed out that his Porsche had a noisy exhaust.

The 27-year-old, who owned a local newspaper, had been at the same nightclub before taking a taxi home with friends, being dropped off at 2.30am near a roundabout where Victoria was last seen.

He was arrested in May 2000 and charged months later after forensic scientists found ten grains of mud on the accelerator pedal of his 1982 Porsche 944, which Britain’s top soil expert Professor Kenneth Pye claimed was of ‘remarkable’ similarity to the soil in the ditch.

But jurors took just 90 minutes to acquit him after a geologist revealed the sample could have come from anywhere in East Anglia.

In 2019 cold case officers took a fresh look at the investigation, releasing a CCTV clip of a man standing close to the spot where Victoria’s body was dumped.

Detectives had set up a secret camera at the scene hoping that the killer might return.

Grainy CCTV showed a man in a white van return to the scene three weeks after her death.

The unidentified figure got out of a van before walking around and driving off at 12.34pm on October 7, 1999.

At the time Suffolk Police was unable to identify the person, but following a Crimewatch appeal a member of the public came forward to report that Wright owned a similar vehicle and the man closely resembled his profile, age and height.

In July 2021 Wright was arrested in prison and interviewed by officers.

He was charged in 2024 after new forensic techniques revealed a link to the serial killer for the first time.

At the time of Ms’ Halls murder, Wright was not on the police database and his DNA was only added two years later when he was convicted of stealing from a bar.