London Road

by Alecky Blythe

  SEB. / Still running.

  SEB. I don’t know.

  Beat.

  SIMON NEWTON. Okay.

  SEB. Right it’s running up. Okay.

  SIMON NEWTON (to camera). Using his hands to demonstrate Peter Wright explained how forensic scientists had extracted Steve Wright’s DNA from other cellular material inside the thumbs of both gloves. Doctor Hau said that within that he’d f – within that cellular material.

  Beat.

  SEB. It’s runnin’ up.

  SIMON NEWTON. Shall we just say sperm? (Beat.) Sorry.

  *

  HELEN. I think he probably did do it.

  GORDON. He must have done it really.

  JUNE. I think he did. Definitely did.

  DODGE. I think he’ll be found guilty.

  RON. I think he did but he’s gonna get away with it.

  ROSEMARY. It’s only circumstantial evidence.

  TIM. I couldn’t sit there an’ say ‘Yes he dunnit’.

  JAN. Really?

  JULIE. He’s gonna get away with it.

  DODGE. I think – I think he’ll be found guilty but like the thing that for me erm is circumstantial. But I mean it was te blood on ’is jacket – two spots of blood. If he’s found not guilty I mean all – all that’s been done is that it hasn’t proved is all isn’t it? He isn’t (Beat.) not guilty if you know what I mean? Call me kangeroo jur – the kangaroo-court advocate but I mean to me. It’s jus’ too much – it’s too much evidence. An’ if he’s like ya know, seems to believe that was all a coincidence – a hell of a coincidence. Two would be a coincidence. Three is a – four – five – is jus’ pushing the realms of coincidences isn’t it, I think?

  ALL. Two would be a coincidence. Three is a – four – five – is jus’ pushing the realms of coincidences isn’t it, I think?

  Bailey the dog barks.

  JULIE. Isn’t anyone there. It’s probably the film crew. Bailey get down.

  ANGLIA NEWSREADER (on TV). Steve Wright denies killing five women who worked as prostitutes in Ipswich in late 2006. With the latest from the days proceedings here’s Simon Newton.

  SIMON NEWTON (on TV). For a second day DNA expert doctor Peter Hau from the forensic science service arrived at Ipswich Crown Court in a van. Today the jury heard more about this pair of gardening gloves. They were found inside a high-vis jacket recovered from Steve Wright’s house at 79 London Road.

  JUNE. Ooh the house. (Beat.) It’s here. (Pointing up the road.)

  SIMON NEWTON. Using his hands to demonstrate Peter Wright explained how forensic scientists had extracted Steve Wright’s DNA from other cellular material inside the thumbs of both gloves. Doctor Hau said that within that cellular material he’d found the incomplete profile matching the fifth victim. The chance of it not being hers ‘one in a billion’he said.

  ALL. Using his hands to demonstrate Peter Wright explained how forensic scientists had extracted Steve Wright’s DNA from other cellular material inside the thumbs of both gloves. Doctor Hau said that within that cellular material he’d found the incomplete profile matching the fifth victim. The chance of it not being hers ‘one in a billion’ he said.

  ANGLIA NEWSREADER (on TV). Simon thank you.

  JULIE. Shoosh. That’s gotta be him then.

  SEB. That’s the one.

  SIMON NEWTON. Seriously?

  SEB. That’s fine that made sense. That make sense to you? Yeah. (Beat.) Yeah. That’s alright. That all works. We got it.

  London Road sitting rooms.

  RON. We don’t see the prostitutes any more.

  ROSEMARY. No. They’ve cleaned up the area.

  RON. The police have assured us (Beat.) that uhm (Beat.) they’re gonna keep this up – I think that’s –

  ROSEMARY. Cos that-cos that’s the main idea. They’re tryin’ to get them off the drugs. Cos that’s the problem.

  RON. They’re tryin’ to do that but our main job at the moment is to keep (Pause.) ah – ah k – we kee – w – w – keep ’em keep ah our priorities / (Beat.) straight.

  ROSEMARY. / Yeah. Yeah.

  RON. The people oo live ere just becau – just as entitled – to (Beat.) all the good things in life as the prostitutes are – / they do all sorts of things for these girls, s – s – they all – even offer ’em free dentistry now (Beat.) yet the ordinary (Beat.) run-of-the- / (Beat.) mill people – person ’as –

  ROSEMARY. / Mm.

  ROSEMARY. / Mm.

  RON. – job findin’ a dentist.

  ROSEMARY. Yeah.

  Beat.

  RON. Before (Beat.) these murders (Beat.) the police didn’t do anything (Beat.) / round ’ere.

  ROSEMARY. / It was a tolerance zone really.

  RON. Yeah. / Yeah.

  ROSEMARY. / Yeah.

  HELEN. – D’ya see the police (Beat.) have (Beat.) ignored the problem (Pause.) / really (Beat.) –

  GORDON. / Mm – they have.

  HELEN. – I mean – the they –

  GORDON. They would deny it, but –

  HELEN. They will deny it but they have ignored they – ignored the problem of the prostitutes.

  GORDON. Mm.

  JAN. It was sort of six years ago when Portman Road started expanding their football team an’ a new ss – err a new stadium went up that (Beat.) the prostitutes seemed to come up this way. We had reported prostitutes – I confronted one. I said ‘Get out of my road. I’ll call the police!’ She said ‘Call the police!’ and I did. / Ha ha ha. Ha ha. They’re so so sort of hard – hardnosed aren’t they?

  TIM. / Well, I, I informed – once they’d all been found an’ they – they… they…

  DODGE. We’d a girl at the bottom of me drive, she was actually leaningin the car, I said – ja-says ‘D’ye mind, sortof moving off’ I said, ‘jus’ ’ – I swore at her (Beat, laughs.) I I admit (Beat.) anyway, she sayin’ like, ‘If you keep on at me, I’m gonna – g – I’ll sort of get my people ta come an’ burn your house down.’ (Beat.) I ’mediately reported ’at ta the p’lice but never got anythin’ – they never came – an’ interviewed me (Beat.) –

  JULIE. I don’t want girls (Beat.) erm doin’ what they did on the streets and they weren’t jus’ (Beat.) getting in people’s cars they were (Beat.) doin’ it down the alleyways an’ everything else. I don’t want my children to see that. Ya know the worse thing is it brings (Beat.) it brings the guys that want the girls. Ya know an’ that’s the – that’s the danger of it. I I was makin’ phone call after phone call each night at one stage. (Beat.) There was just no getting rid of them an’ the only time that we got rid of them is (Pause.) becos they’re not ’ere any more.

  RON. Yeah an’ the police – really did get a s – a smacked wrist. It’s taken five murders to (Beat.) make ’em pull their finger out.

  ROSEMARY. Concentrate their minds.

  JUNE. We saw the odd one or two.

  TERRY. I-I got approached a couple of times an’ said ‘Ohh, are you ya know looking for business?’ an’ ‘No thank you darling’ ya know an’ ‘Goodnight’ –

  JUNE. I did say one night to you didn’t I ‘She might not ever come back.’

  Pause.

  TERRY. No it was a big shock to the – to the neighborhood an –

  JUNE. I don’t think anybody really thought that they were bad girls. Ya know, I mean they were in a way but (Beat.) they weren’t hurtin’ anybody else were they? That was only theirselves that they were d – hurting weren’t it?

  TERRY. But it’s like-like the other girl what we use to see up the caff isn’t-it?

  JUNE. Yeah. What’s happened to her?

  TERRY. Well we don’t know what’s happened to her. Very er very err petite / girl.

  JUNE. / Lovely-lookin’ girl – / a which-which a lot of them are int they?

  TERRY. / Lovely –

  Iceni Project Rehab Centre, Ipswich.

  REBECCA. Yeah. No really the old bill didn’t really bovver us an’ that’s the truth. / It was no
big, no big deal at all really. Now an’ again they’d stop us and I that that was just because their bosses had told them that they / oughta do something about it.

  NICOLA. / No.

  SARAH. / That they had to.

  REBECCA. Cos I mean there was a lot of us out at one time.

  SARAH. Yeah there was. At one point –

  REBECCA. There must ha’ bin thirty gels out there.

  SARAH. Yeah. Not just sort of like – between –

  REBECCA. These are not from just Ipswich – Colchester, Chelmsford.

  NICOLA. All over the place.

  Very long pause.

  Song – ‘We’ve All Stopped’

  REBECCA. We’ve all / stopped.

  SARAH. / We’ve all stopped / workin’ now.

  NICOLA. / We’ve all stopped now. An’ it – an’ it has been because of the murders that we’ve all stopped.

  SARAH. An’ it / has yeah. That’s why like we all stopped. I stopped like a month before the murders.

  SARAH. / I’ve got well. Sayin’ that – I got regulars / that phone and we see, ya know. We won’t work the street but got a few regulars that keep us goin’.

  REBECCA. / We got regulars yeah.

  SARAH. Even since the murders took place like there’s no point goin’ down there for one becos / all the cars get stopped and you just get arrested all the time.

  NICOLA. / Just getting arrested all the time. Gettin’ stopped. They weren’t like nickin’ us they were like nickin’ the men.

  SARAH. They jus’ stopping all of the men.

  NICOLA. I wanna get myself clean if I can do anything ya know like I get myself clean for them almost / do ya know what I mean? Yeah cos it’s like. Ya know’s there’s – cos the help – there’s –

  SARAH. / That what – that’s what I’ve done. That’s what I’ve done. Got like – getting myself clean out of – since the murders.

  NICOLA. There’s been help given us yeah. There’s girls that ent took it / an’ the girls – the girls that have took it –

  SARAH. / An’ we’ve took it.

  NICOLA. – an’ the girls that have took it a lot of them are doin’ really well / an’ ya know it’s been a year later now –

  SARAH. / I come ’ere four times a week.

  NICOLA. – an’ yeah, I come ’ere about three (Beat.) times and – with other organisations an’ stuff. Ya know there has been the help there ya know.

  SARAH. An’ jus’ do like instead of hundreds pounds’ worth of drugs a day now all I do is like fifteen pounds’ worth of drugs a day now if that / but if I get the money…

  NICOLA. / I don’t use every day any more. Maybe occasionally now I still use. I’m still tryin’ to get over that hurdle but from where / from where I am now to what I was a year ago like there is such a change. I never thought I’d get back to where I am now I really didn’t.

  SARAH. / It’s jus’ that last little bit gotta get off. Yeah. I didn’t think I’d ever get down to what I have. Like I’ve never been this big either I was like a size fucking six –

  NICOLA. I know put on weight.

  REBECCA. We’ve all put on weight! Yeah. It took all that for anyone to start helpin’ us.

  SARAH. Yeah that’s what upsettin’. It took those – it took five girls. That’s what make me feel I wanna get clean for ’em because it’s took their lives for them to think about and go ‘Come on. Let’s get these girls off the street.’

  SARAH. It took their lives for them to help us.

  Section Three

  London Road sitting rooms.

  ANGLIA NEWSREADER (on TV). Anglia Tonight’s Simon Newton has been following events in Court today. Simon –

  SIMON NEWTON (on TV). Well we expect the Judge to conclude his summing up tomorrow lunchtime and we expect the jury to retire to consider its verdict some time tomorrow afternoon.

  JUNE. Ohh. Well – tomorrow afternoon. You better be here tomorrow afternoon.

  Courthouse Café.

  KELLY MCCORMACK. Now it’s the waiting game. You – we’re all waiting together.

  A tannoy sounds.

  SIMON NEWTON. They’re doing this now just to tease us all –

  TANNOY. All parties – in the case of Ronnie Tretton Court Four…

  SIMON NEWTON. It’s the phoney war – sort of stage – everyone’s just s – sitting around waiting for it to um – happen. Everyone’s li – gasping over their – gazing over their laptops at each other, to check whether anyone else has got something you haven’t – and (Beat.) then it’s all gonna go ballistic (Beat.) at some point…

  TANNOY. All parties – in the case of David Hughes –

  KELLY MCCORMACK. Er… (Beat.) But it – there’s that momentary pause every time that goes off – it’s awful. We’re all (Beat.) very family-oriented now, and everyone’s looking after each other and buying each other coffee – as soon as that verdict’s in it’s gonna be an absolute – mmmayhem… It’s dog-eat-dog as soon as that verdict comes out – guaranteed. I can promise you that.

  Everyone quickly starts leaving the café.

  KELLY MCCORMACK. What’s happening?

  SIMON NEWTON. Dunno. Okay. See ya later. It’s one of those ju –

  KELLY MCCORMACK. Is it a jury question?

  SIMON NEWTON. I don’t know. Peter Wright’s just walked down and gone (Beat.) like that to them. So everyone’s going.

  KELLY MCCORMACK (excitement). Oh!

  SIMON NEWTON. Because that’s what we do.

  The sound of laptops being packed away, chairs being moved as the media pack leaves the room in a frenzy.

  Outside the Courthouse.

  PRODUCER 2. Hi. This could be the verdict. Could be the verdict. (Pause.) Could be the verdict.

  MALE REPORTER 2 (on his mobile). Hallo Victoria.

  Pause.

  They think it might be a verdict (Beat.) and the digilink’s gone down – I told the desk. (Pause.)

  Okay – good luck – bye… Broke!

  PRODUCER 2. Can you do the levels again please Cole? Can you do the level please.

  FEMALE REPORTER. Yeah well the jury of nine men and three women started – deliberating –

  PRODUCER 2. You – excuse me. Can you not… Can you just not. Keep away. Sorry.

  CAMERAMAN. We’re not on the satellite.

  MALE REPORTER 2. Hey?

  CAMERAMAN. We’re not on the satellite!

  MALE REPORTER 2. What day is it, Thursday? (Beat.) They went out Tuesday – didn’t they?

  Song – ‘The Verdict’

  MALE REPORTER 2 (to camera). It was – it stretched out over that – uh – remarkable six-and-a-half weeks back in 2006 – and over ten days. Now, it see – it – he did say that he had sex with four – of those women… Now we hear it’s guilty on count one – that’s Tania Nicol. He has been found guilty – of killing – Tania Nicol, Tania was the – first to go missing, that was October the thirtieth – or maybe even the early hours of the thirty-first – he was caught on a – an automatic number-plate-recognition camera, he’s also guilty – of killing Gemma Adams, so that’s two guilty verdicts so far. There are five counts, of course, so at the moment we know that he’s – guilty of the murder of Tania Nicol – he’s – guilty on count three, as well – that’s guilty of killing Anneli Alderton. So that’s three guilty – verdicts, so far. Tania Nicol, Gemma Adams, and Anneli Alderton there are two more counts to go – those of, ah – Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell. Those two particular women – four guilty I’m told now that ah – Annette Nicholls is also been – uh – he’s also guilty of killing Annette Nicholls, we only have to hear the fifth count now – and that’s of, uh – Paula – Clennell. (Beat.) She was found very very close – to Annette Nicholls, in the same area perhaps only a – a hundred or so yards apart –now he’s been found guilty on all – all charges. He’s been found guilty – of killing Tania Nicol, guilty of killing Gemma Adams,

  FEMALE REPORTER (off-camera to the studio). Can you come
to me? Can you come?

  (To camera.) Yes, we are getting the verdict through now – uh – Steve Wright has been found guilty of the murders of Tania – Nicol – and Gemma Adams – that’s the second count of murder. He is of course accused of five – counts – of murder the jury are nine men and three women. Again, he’s been found guilty of the murder of Anneli Alderton. The nine men and three women for – six-and-a-half hours – deliberating this verdict. They went out – just after midday yesterday – ah – to consider their verdict – the Judge wants that they should all agree on a verdict if possible –

  He’s been found guilty of ma – of murder of ah – Annette Nicholls – as well – and there’s one more verdict to come out now. Members of the jury will be telling the Court. Guilty – Steve Wright – has been found guilty on all five counts of – of murder. Guilty on five counts of murder. Steve Wright, a man – a very unremarkable man – on the surface of things – a man who – has – been responsible now – we know – for one of the most disgusting serial killings – in British history.

  guilty of killing Anneli Alderton – guilty of killing – Annette Nicholls – and guilty – of killing – Paula Clennell. And now we know that he – has been found guilty on all – five – charges.

  KELLY MCCORMACK. We are still awaiting news – on Steve Wright’s sentencing – it’s thought Mr Justice Gross will pass that – first thing – tomorrow morning. This is Kelly MacCormack, outside Ipswich Crown Court, for Classic FM.

  Pause.

  (On phone.) Okaaay (Pause.) Okay? (Beat.) Okay, bye! (Beat.) I’m staying connected I’ll keep my headphones on too.

  Pause.

  Um (Beat.) it was quick, wasn’t it? And the adrenaline. At the moment, I’m shaking. It’s a bit (Pants, makes a two-note, deflating cry.) ahuhahuhah. That’s the only thing I can say. (Laughs, makes the cry again.) Hahuhahuh.

  London Road sitting rooms.

  JUNE. Guil’y or not guil’y?

  The TV plays opening music for Five News.

  TERRY. ’Ere y’are.

  FIVE NEWSREADER (on TV). …on Five News, reminder of our top story now – forty-nine-year-old Steve Wright / has been found guilty of –

  JUNE. / Ooh.