MISSING prostitute Paula Clennell was publicly commended for coming to the aid of a pensioner who was injured in a fall eight years ago.The elderly woman had fallen in St Helen's Street, Ipswich, in 1998, and had badly bruised her chin and jaw.

By Danielle Nuttall

MISSING prostitute Paula Clennell was publicly commended for coming to the aid of a pensioner who was injured in a fall eight years ago.

The elderly woman had fallen in St Helen's Street, Ipswich, in 1998, and had badly bruised her chin and jaw.

Aged just 16 at the time, Miss Clennell had come to the rescue with another two women.

They contacted an ambulance and waited with the lady until paramedics arrived at the scene.

All three women appeared in a local newspaper after the pensioner appealed for help in finding her “mystery angels”.

Miss Clennell, now aged 24, lived in Nottidge Road, Ipswich at the time but has since stayed at a number of addresses in the town, including one in the red-light district.

And last night, a neighbour of Miss Clennell told how he would regularly see her going out to work as a prostitute, in Handford Road, close to her home.

The 40-year-old man said: “I saw her about two days ago as I was walking along the road and she asked me for a pound and a fag but I didn't have any change and I don't smoke. The police were in the area and I was worried they would think I was kerb crawling.

“You would regularly see her standing along Handford Road at night but you would try not to take too much notice of it. She would often get picked up by a taxi at 1am after she had finished working.”

A 27-year-old woman, who also lived near to the house, added: “There was a lot of coming and going from the house and the police had been round before.

”I know that a man had a relationship with a prostitute but I don't know who actually lived there. It's a rented house.”

It also emerged last night how Miss Clennell had fallen into a spiral of drug abuse because of a “disrupted childhood”.

The mother of three was jailed in April last year after admitting giving police a false name when they stopped her in London Road on July 24, 2004, and on August 25, 2004, in Wilberforce Street.

Officers stopped her for a third time on August 28, 2004, in Portman Road and took her in for questioning.

When they fingerprinted her they discovered her real name and she was charged with acts intended to pervert the course of justice.

Miss Clennell, who was living in London Road at the time, pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The court head how Miss Clennell had a disrupted childhood and had got herself into a spiral of drug abuse. It is not known whether she is still a drug user.

At the time of the offence, she failed to answer bail on other charges before South East Suffolk Magistrates Court in Ipswich.

Miss Clennell was said to be immediately remorseful and submissive about what had happened.