THE brother of Anneli Alderton, one of the five women murdered by Steve Wright, will pay a moving tribute to his sister on national television this week.

Colin Adwent

THE brother of Anneli Alderton, one of the five women murdered by Steve Wright, will pay a moving tribute to his sister on national television this week.

Tom Alderton will appear in a documentary which looks at the impact and aftermath of the killing spree that brought Ipswich international notoriety.

Wright, of London Road, Ipswich, also took the lives Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 25, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29 between October and early December 2006.

Channel 4's award-winning documentary series Cutting Edge has now produced Killer in a Small Town which will be screened at 9pm on Thursday .

The programme features police, former Ipswich sex workers, the people who found Miss Clennell's and Miss Adams' bodies, and relatives from three of the women's families.

Mr Alderton talks about the pain of his sister's death. He says: “You just learn to cope. You come to terms with the fact your little sister's dead, then you have to come to terms that you little sister was murdered.”

The pair were brought up in Ipswich, before Miss Alderton moved away to Cyprus with her mother. Miss Alderton then returned to Ipswich in her teens.

Their father was diagnosed with cancer, which Mr Alderton said his sister found very hard to take.

“My sister thought she was returning to the Ipswich of her youth. I think she was taken by surprise a bit, by just how aggressive it had become. As my dad's death got closer and his health deteriorated she got more and more desperate. Then he died and she went off the rails completely.”

Mr Alderton believes his sister was not a prostitute in the true sense of the word, but used her body as a last resort when trying to get the money to buy drugs.

Three months before Miss Alderton's death she appeared to have turned her life around. She began going to college and had come off cocaine.

“It really was the start of a bright new future,” Mr Alderton says in the documentary.

However, when Miss Adams' body was found near Hintlesham, Miss Alderton took her death badly.

Mr Alderton last saw her on December 3, 2006, when she caught the train from north Essex to Ipswich before disappearing. CCTV stills of her on the train were issued as part of the police investigation.

Mr Alderton tell viewers: “She dyed her hair again and re-adopted her street persona. I had seen her four hours before those pictures were taken. I remember her smiley, dark-haired, doing well at college - normal Anni, who had arrived at my mum's house that day.

“She left on the train as someone we had not seen for ages. It's the way she will always be remembered in the public eye. There was just a small one-day relapse. She just put the mask on for one more day and it went wrong.”

Miss Alderton's body was found near Amberfield School in Nacton on December 10, 2006.

Steve Wright, 50, is currently serving life for the murder of all five women after being found guilty at his trial last year. His application for leave to appeal against conviction is due to be heard on February 24 at the Court of Appeal.