“In the end I persuaded him against coming over. Next I heard he’d been arrested. I’m horrified.”

Brunette Katie, interviewed by police yesterday, added: “The dead girls were my friends. We thought of Tom as quite a sad, lonely bloke.

“He used to say, ‘Girls don’t like me’ and ‘What would a girl like you want with me?’

“I think he liked working girls because he could get closer to them than other women.”

Katie said divorced Stephens, now a Tesco supermarket worker, acted as a “taxi driver” to girls in Ipswich’s red light area — ferrying them home at the end of the night.

She added: “In return he’d ask for sexual favours. He liked to be dominated by the girls.

“He used to say, ‘If you are ever in trouble, here’s my number please call.’ Tom was there for us on tap.”

Stephens — described by acquaintances as a “sexual oddball” who openly boasted about his liaisons with street girls — was arrested at 7.20am at his £98,000 semi in Trimley St Martin near Felixstowe.

It came a month after cops hunting missing hookers Tania Nicol and Gemma Adams searched his digs.

Just three days ago Stephens — whose five-year marriage broke up bitterly in 2003 — claimed he was bound to be a suspect in the killings as he knew all five victims.

One close pal described him as an eccentric character who liked to compile lists of his favourite things.

And it emerged that all five of the Strangler’s victims — Gemma, 25, Tania, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24 — were included in his pick of Top Ten local vice girls.

He grew up in the Norfolk city before moving to Ipswich in the late 1990s. He moved into his current property two months ago.

Yesterday it was revealed that officers pulled him over at the weekend after watching him pick up a girl in Ipswich town centre. His purple Renault Clio had also been captured on CCTV close to several of the grisly sites after the Strangler’s victims were found.

Last night senior police sources stressed his arrest was “of interest” — but no stronger than that.

One source said: “Investigations are continuing, looking at a number of other suspects.” Prior to his arrest, Stephens had been questioned three times — once when stopped in his car and twice at Ipswich police station.

Neighbour Lesley Barber, 52, told how Stephens added a garden shed days after moving in. She said: “Now he’s been arrested people are worried what might be in there.”

She added: “I don’t know him to speak to, but he walks around in tiny shorts in all temperatures and cycles round in what look like Speedos.” A close friend told how Stephens’ life fell apart when his marriage to wife Judith broke up — and how he sought comfort with prostitutes. The friend said: “He grew lonely and started visiting the red light district, not just for sex but because he wanted to feel needed.

“He’s an intelligent bloke. He loves literature, sports and 18th Century Suffolk history.”

Another source said: “Tom is always moaning about his ex-wife, saying what a cow she is and how she’s trying to take all his money. There was a rumour around at one stage that he had inherited £40,000.”

Stephens, a Tesco trolley attendant, kept a profile page on the website myspace.com. On it, he called himself The Bishop after a cartoon character and listed his interests as keep fit and 80s music. He said he was 5ft 11ins and athletic.

The page and his entry on Friends Reunited were last night deleted after hate messages poured in.

A former workmate at the store where he works in Martlesham said: “He was a weirdo. He’d sit and stare at his mobile phones and laugh out loud at text messages.”

In recent interviews Stephens said he was close to all the victims and had no firm alibis for the times of their murders.

He said: “I’m a friend of all the girls. I’d have complete opportunity, they’d have trusted me so much. From the police profiling it does look like me.”

But he added: “I know I am innocent and I am completely confident it won’t go as far as me being charged.”

Additional reporting: JULIE MOULT, TOM REILLY, ALEX PEAKE, TONY BONNICI, VIRGINIA WHEELER and GARY O’SHEA.

Also:

First suspect held — but hunt for killer goes on - Britain - Times Online

The Times

December 19, 2006

First suspect held — but hunt for killer goes on

Sean O'Neill, Michael Horsnell and Stewart Tendler

Special constable was questioned a month ago
Five other men under close investigation

Stephens: feared he was a suspect (MySpace)

Detectives interrogating a former special constable about the murders of five Ipswich prostitutes fear that the real killer may still be at large

Police close to the investigation told The Times that they were looking at five other suspects and that they were no more than 50 per cent sure they had their man.

Tom Stephens, 37, was arrested at 7.20am yesterday, the day after a lengthy interview with him appeared in a Sunday newspaper. “Stephens is probably no more than midway on a scale of ten — about four or five,” a senior detective said.

Yesterday it emerged that Mr Stephens was first interviewed by police after only one woman had disappeared. Police have spoken to him three times since and his home and car had been searched. But no charges were brought against Mr Stephens, who knew all the victims and used to drive them to meet their drug dealers.

Between November 15 and December 10 the killer struck on four more occasions, accelerating the pace of his attacks after the bodies of the first two women were discovered.

Last night Mr Stephens’s father Douglas said: “I have heard what is being said on the news and all I am prepared to say is that Tom Stephens is my son.”

Mr Stephens worked at a Tesco store at Martlesham Heath, beside Suffolk Constabulary headquarters, and was a part-time taxi driver. His car was taken away for examination and search teams spent the day removing materials from his semidetached home in the village of Trimley St Martin, near Felixstowe.

A further search was being conducted at the house of his mother, Ellen Kite, in the village of Eye. Detectives can hold him for questioning until Friday morning.

Mr Stephens was born in Ipswich but grew up in Norwich, where he was a special constable with the Norfolk force in 1992-97. He married in February 1998 and lived in Ipswich with his wife Judith, a nurse. They separated in 2003 and about 18 months ago Mr Stephens began to use the services of prostitutes in the Ipswich red-light area.

In weekend interviews Mr Stephens said he knew all the dead women, that they trusted him and sometimes spent the night at his house. He said he had no alibis for the times of their disappearances and expected to be arrested before being released without charge.

According to reports last night, all five of the murdered women attended a house-warming party at Mr Stephens’ home two months ago. Police are trying to trace other men who were also there.

Sidebar to the Sun article:

Link to '92 vice killing

HOOKER Natalie Pearman was found strangled in Norwich in 1992 — the year Stephens became a Special Constable there.

Natalie was just 16 when her body was found dumped at a beauty spot on the city outskirts.

Stephens stopped working with police in 1997, several years before two other girls — Kellie Pratt and Michelle Bettles — also vanished in Norwich.

Michelle’s body was found dumped in a wood. Kellie’s was never found.

They have not been linked to the five murders in Ipswich.

a hooker told last night how Stephens begged her for sex

A novel approach. Most men would have simply paid her.

LMAO!

I'm hoping that you mean to say something along the lines of "Most low-class, scummy men who enjoy the company of for-hire trashy women...."

Honorable, intelligent men (and there are an awful lot us) would never even consider going to a prostitute.

That point aside, this nutjob worked at Tesco , and I'm guessing that his pay was not in the six figures. An 'encounter' with a whore would likely take the better part of a week's wages for him. He probably had no options (in his mind, anyway) other than to 'beg for sex'

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Strangler suspect was a cop

First suspect held — but hunt for killer goes on