I think it’s called “unregulated free market capitalism taken to its logical extreme.”
or Care in the Community.
The NewsoftheWorld have offered a 1/4 million pound reward, it seems.
for reading the paper through to the end without spewing up once?
Further to what I was saying upthread about support services: The problem is getting people to access these services when they have (Lex-baiting stereotype approaching) pimps/boyfriends (often the same person) wanting more and more money off them to feed their drug habit too. Getting prostitutes off the streets is a long and complicated process, but things are being done to address it. But it can’t happen, forcibly, overnight, and some people will always be willing to take the risk to carry on. Grimmest T/S ever—possible run in with murderer vs kicking at hands of smack-addicted pimp when you fail to come home with enough money for his drugs, let alone your own, the Beeb are on it. There *is* support available in Ipswich, so these girls are choosing to still work.
There *is* work available, if only they’d get on their bike and look for it.
Is this what they meant by the eighties revival?
ailsa how do extra opening hours for a drug treatment center obviate the need for cash? wtf are you talking about, “choosing” to work??? these women who do continue to work clearly consider the likelihood of a grisly death PREFERABLE to not working—so in what universe could this be considered a “choice”?
reading that heffer piece, you could draw the conclusion that drugs and prostiution should be decriminalized
which might be a step in the right direction towards civilization
After the London Bombings, people were described as Heroic for continuing to work during such threatening times.
I know it’s not quite the same.
It is a bit the same though.
xpost to Tracer
Choosing to still work as prostitutes as opposed to trying to free themselves of the things (drugs, pimps, etc) that keep them there when they could have treatment to help with drug use, support in refuges, etc. These things are there to get people off drugs, off the streets, back into “society”. But not everyone accesses them. No-one wants to be a prostitute when they grow up. Not everyone has to stay a prostitute for life. No-one HAS to be working the streets in Ipswich tonight, they could have a wake-up call and get the fuck out of their lifestyle. But they aren’t all doing so.
There are programmes and support available to provide long terms routes out of prostitution. Anyone can access them IF THEY CHOOSE TO. Yes, there’s a lot more to be done to make it not even a viable lifestyle choice.
We’ve been over this before. It was school-age mums the last time we had this argument and you refused to believe that there were a stack of girls who would willing choose to be knocked up at 15 rather than have a real life with a job and stuff.
Plenty of people ‘choose’ to stay with abusive partners (who aren’t their pimp). If somebody’s threatening you with violence it ain’t easy. See also people ‘choosing’ not to get help for addictions to all kinds of things. It’s not as simple as that.
Some women take decades before getting help from Women’s Aid or Victim Support or Alcoholics Anonymous or wherever. It’s not like they can’t be bothered to make a decision.
I didn’t say it was fucking simple, jeez, people, stop putting words in my mouth. I was just saying apropos of “help these people get off the streets!” comments upthread that measures have been in place long before the advent of scary serial killers to get girls off the streets, and they aren’t doing it. I’ve also pointed out about pimps, violence, addictions, and that it’s difficult and won’t happen overnight and it can’t be forced so I’m hardly peddling some “aw fuck ’em if they can’t be arsed to take help” line here.
By saying “they have a choice” it made it seem like you were saying “they can either do this or they can do that”, even if it wasn’t your intention to put that across.
I find it less odd that prostitutes in Ipswich continue to work the streets than that there is work available to them: I would have thought that most punters, as awful as they obviously are, would still see several reasons to give it a miss tonight.
Plenty of people ‘choose’ to stay with abusive partners (who aren’t their pimp).
I was about to say the same thing.
They do have a choice, but that doesn’t mean they realize this.
Well, if you want to put it in black and white, they can be prostitutes or they can not be prostitutes, same as anyone else. But I took great care to point out it was a long, slow, voluntary process to move away from a very caging lifestyle. And that some people, for whatever reason, fear of the unknown, fear of violence, whatever, are choosing not to take the help that is there. I’m not judging anyone.
I’m kind of wary of using choice/choose in this context, because there are other influencing factors and it does sound too “you can either do this or you can’t” and like it’s cut and dried which is the obvious way to go and going the other way is WRONG OH NOES! But I thought the qualifications I’d put on my arguments were enough to show that I recognised this. Apparently not.
I was just going to make the point that Eyeball Kicks made—WTF is up with the men still visiting prostitutes in Ipswich? I mean, not only are you implicitly condoning them being on ths streets and putting their lives in danger, but they are also going to be utterly terrified of you in case you’re a serial killer.
Short term solution = prostitute commuter belt between Ipswich and Norwich, clearly.
(Not to mention the fact that they’re going to be closely monitored by police).
I was just going to make the point that Eyeball Kicks made—WTF is up with the men still visiting prostitutes in Ipswich? I mean, not only are you implicitly condoning them being on ths streets and putting their lives in danger, but they are also going to be utterly terrified of you in case you’re a serial killer.
surely if you’re not a serial killer, you’re only protecting the prostitutes by hiring them... it’s like adopting african babies
men still have needs
I was just going to make the point that Eyeball Kicks made—WTF is up with the men still visiting prostitutes in Ipswich?
Huh? Are they killing the punters? No. So why should they stop visiting the prostitutes? Also, I don’t understand why it’s so bad to visit prostitutes? They crave sex, so visit someone who charges money for it. I’m being a bit simplistic here but, really, I don’t see anything that wrong with it...
Short term solution = prostitute commuter belt between Ipswich and Norwich, clearly.
— Matt DC (runmd...), December 13th, 2006 2:23 PM. (later)
I’d say “set up a Park and Ride system” but perhaps now is not the time.
nice
Huh? Are they killing the punters? No. So why should they stop visiting the prostitutes? Also, I don’t understand why it’s so bad to visit prostitutes? They crave sex, so visit someone who charges money for it. I’m being a bit simplistic here but, really, I don’t see anything that wrong with it...
Umm, possibly the fact that they are directly contributing to the already considerably levels of fear and misery that these women must be going through? Am I being Victorian by stating this?
Also, why would you willing place yourself in the middle of a massive police investigation just to get a quick shag off what are presumably going to be only the most drug-addled prostitutes left working in Ipswich?
to get a quick shag?
well, you either don’t visit a prostitute (not contributing to this fear and misery) or you do (contribute). whether you do it when there’s a murderer around has really nothing to do with it?
xxpost
Obviously. Drive to Norwich, or have a wank, at least until the fuss dies down.
xpost
(not you, Gerry. Or Ken. I mean the hypothetical desperate bloke in Ipswich)
I’d rather have a wank than drive to Norwich.
Isn’t that the city motto?
meanwhile the ipswich prostitutes are even more likely to meet the killer because all their normal punters are at home wanking and the only jobs they’ll get is from mr ripper.
we should really just set up a fund to pay for all the ladies of the night in ipswich (they’ll have to clean up the street or teach children football, or soemthing, for their usual prostitution rates) until we catch the killer.
Getting them to clean up the street isn’t exactly getting them off the street though, is it?
Or alternatively launch I’m a Celebrity Prozzie...Get Me Out of Here to raise funds.
Cops say there were 40 prostitutes working that area before he started. Round number, that.
The public could phone in to choose which prostitute should be killed next.
I am now imagining some awkward small-talk between current Ipswich punters and prostitutes. “So, business still holding up?” “Don’t worry love—I’m not the serial killer!” It’s too weird to think about.
35 now
“business still holding up”
“things have gone a bit slack”
i mean ailsa, I agree—if you’d ever had doubts about your line of work (check) and looked for an excuse to take a break and reassess, this would, uh, kind of have to be it. the fact that it isn’t, for at least a few women, shows the depth of the problems here. it’s great that the community centre’s going to be open longer hours but it’s hard to think THAT’s what’s going to tip the scales for many or any of these hardest-luck cases.
news24 is now all suffolk, all prostitutes, all the time.
No, but it’s a start, giving them somewhere to go, and the fact that there are teams of people available to chat and advise means that at least there’s awareness raising of other routes that people can take.
I am aware that there’s a massive problem, not just in Ipswich—as pointed out upthread, there’s been a spate of murders/attacks in Glasgow over the last ten years or so—but all across the country. This is just highlighting on a great big scale the desperate lengths that these people are going to to earn money to stay on drugs, and I hope that more is done to try and help, support and educate people as to their options so that they can make an informed decision to change their lives and get help to do so.
Umm, possibly the fact that they are directly contributing to the already considerably levels of fear and misery that these women must be going through? Am I being Victorian by stating this?
maybe. it’s not necessarily the punters (how awful a name) but the general SKEWED view of the public and how they are treated by the public at large? (ok, blame my migraine for building such a crap sentence. can’t think straight but still want to post away. heh)
reading about this + pending trial of serial murderer in b.c. on the drive back to london sunday = queasiness. bad stuff.
Yeah, a friend of mine from Canada was telling me about him when I mentioned the Ipswich stuff.
that story was breaking when i went to whistler in 2002. seriously gruesome.
You’re not kidding. And my mate says he only told me a part of it.
on bbc news 24 yesterday, there was a social worker type woman (i think—wasn’t looking at screen) who said that prostitutes who went out should do so in pairs
please note; this costs extra.
There was a line on the PA last night to the effect that “a US expert has linked the methods of the Suffolk killer to a similar man in the US who killed 48 prostitutes.”
on bbc news 24 yesterday, there was a social worker type woman (i think—wasn’t looking at screen) who said that prostitutes who went out should do so in pairs
omg that answers mattdc and eyeballkicks’ question i think. double ho’ heaven.
“I think that once she got to Ipswich she fell in with the wrong crowd, that must be it”
A tremendously drunk Oliver Stone just said something about “I see Jack the Ripper is back,” at the Comedy Awards to appalled groans. “That was my one line...”
“botched joke”
ailsa OTM in this thread. It’s not judgemental to point out that sex trade workers have choices, even if these choices are pretty bleak, unless, well, you’re judging them. Considering most will have been on the streets since early or mid adolescence, this is an ingrained lifestyle and generally a fatal one (average lifespan of a low track street sex trade worker is 7 years, and the average age of entry is 14) even without some scary serial boogeyman. This incidentally answers the question posed upthread about the harm the johns are causing: absolutely they are, since the chances are that the girl is underage, or if they’re not, they have been abused many, many times along the way; therefore you are contributing to a spiralling and despairing descent into further misery, addiction, physical assault (by bad tricks and pimps/boyfriends, not to mention other sex trade workers), overdose, disease and death.
Damn, I just registered here (at the sandbox, not ilx in general) only to sound like some rabid family-values type with my first post, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth!
Above should also include emotional assault and coercion, since many pimps are highly skilled at not leaving physical marks on their meal tickets.
FIND THE FAT MAN IN A BMW screams today’s Sun
narrowing it down nicely...
Yeah, that’s what I thought when I saw the headline this morning.
The comment from Paula Clennell’s friend on telly last night that “she never expected she’d live long, considering the sort of life she led—she always said she’d be dead by the time she was 25” made me sad.
So is it this dude?
Police arrested a 37-year-old man on Monday on suspicion of murdering five prostitutes in Suffolk.
(...)
Police declined to name the man but said he had been arrested at around 7:20 a.m. and was in custody at a local police station, where he was to be questioned later on Monday.
Supermarket worker Tom Stephens, 37, told the Sunday Mirror he had been questioned four times by police and feared he could be arrested as he had known all the women and had no alibis. But he strenuously denied any involvement in the deaths.
Hadn’t thought of looking there—thanks.
Mmmm. Who in his right mind would say of that to a newspaper except someone who wants people to think he’s innocent?
(would say all of that)
someone who wants to be in the papers.
or someone who, if he hadn’t spoken, would have been called creepy by the papers.
does he have a BMW though?
i think the interviewer missed that very important question.
ok. he’s still creepy though. (xxpost)
i bet he gets into cars with the prozzies and say “this is a bit weird”.
this has probably been covered but it’s appalling that newscasts say “five murdered prostitutes”, like you become your job.
if i get dead, “slacker admin clerk murdered” will not be the scroller.
xpost
haha!
A murderer living in a place called Trimley St Martin sounds like it’s right out of a Miss Marple episode.
well ipswich/suffolk is a bit like that!
NRQ if five admin clerks had been killed in the space of several weeks they probably would be saying that!
what a long rambling interview complete with a few dodgy questions “you look respectable, why hang out with these girls???”
“long rambling interview”
Yes, and that’s despite them cutting two hours of it from the transcript!
that is one (1x) hell of an exclusive for the mirror.
Police have now confirmed that it’s this guy that’s being held.
The village of Trimley St Martin was last in the national news when 17-year-old Vicky Hall vanished on her way home from a nightclub in Felixstowe in 1999 and was found dead in a water-filled ditch at Creeting St Peter—25 miles from Felixstowe.
It was believed she had been asphyxiated but a post-mortem examination proved inconclusive.
Police have not linked this case with the deaths of the five prostitutes.
On Monday they were unable to confirm Mr Stephens would be questioned about Miss Hall’s murder.
surely it’s madness to print it? would it not prejudice the trial if he were found innocent? the mirror has got in this kind of shit before, with that footballer thing.
uh if he were charged, not if he were found innocent, i mean.
= “let’s just throw in an extra unsolved murder for the hell of it”
xpost to myself
I guess they are in the clear as he had not been arrested/charged at the point of publication.
xpost to everybuddy
Creeting St Peter
*shivers*
Anyway—would it still matter if they had really good proof he did it? (I hope they’re not just holding him because they wouldn’t want the paper-reading public to think they were forgetting about him or something)
in this one episode of the ‘the shield’ that’s exactly what happened.
and here’s his voice:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/6189409.stm
(why, though? “decide for yourself if he has a strangler’s voice”?)
It’s just a fascination with who the murderer might be, I suppose. Like he’s just the bloke next door.
If you take the initial letters of the five murdered girls—Gemma Adams, Paula Clennell, Anneli Alderton, Tania Nicol and Annette Nicholls—and rearrange them, they spell out AN ACT PAGAN.
(I really, really, need to go and do some proper work now)
oh, jonathan creek over here.
He better be guilty, everyone knows his name, has seen his picture, practically knows his address, has read his interview, heard his voice.
this has probably been covered but it’s appalling that newscasts say “five murdered prostitutes”, like you become your job.
fair point but in this case at least it seems these women are being murdered because of their job or that is what is connecting the murders, so you can excuse it that way (if you want to).
Yeah its not like the fact that they’re prostitutes is an irrelevant detail here!
ha i don’t mean as in ‘excuse the murders’ btw, before i’m harangued. (xpost)
From the information released so far, it’s very easy to get his full address and telephone number from the online phone directory sites. They must be 100% certain they’ve got the right man—they took some items away from his house on 23rd November, so I guess they’ve had the DNA results back now.
i know it’s relevant to the case, but it’s like they never describe them any other way and the coverage is so much about ipswich’s seedy underbelly already, rather than (for obvious procedural reasons!) the actual murder case...
if they say ‘five murdered women’ it may instil wider concern or paranoia. you wouldn’t use any other description other than job or gender anyway i suppose.
I don’t think they’re doing it to make it seem derogatory at all. If five women from any other professional group were murdered, they’d be referring to them as the five dentists or five bus drivers or whatever.
You wait ages for one bus driver to get murdered then...