Great Britain: Jack the Stripper

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GREAT BRITAIN

In the sleazy lower reaches of Soho and Netting Hill, scores of rouged recruits have joined London's army of prostitutes. In hip-tight skirts and needle heels, the tyros wiggle from drinking club to strip joint brazenly soliciting customers. But whenever a man shows interest, the girls identify themselves as policewomen and, flashing photographs of a pinched-looking brunette, inquire with sudden crispness: "Have you seen this woman recently?"

The policewomen are members of a 140-strong task force of bobbies and detectives who are engaged in one of the biggest murder hunts in London's history. It started last week when the nude strangled body of brunette Helen Barthelemy, a stripper turned tart, was found in an alley close to the Thames at Brentford, miles from her Bayswater beat. She was the fourth prostitute to be killed since last November.

Although London's West End streets have been more or less cleared of prostitutes, they still solicit outdoors in many areas, and indoors practically anywhere. Many ply their trade in cars, thus do not remove their clothes. Scotland Yard's Commander George Hatherill appealed to the traditionally hostile demimonde, urged "any prostitute who has been made to strip and has been assaulted" to call Shepherds Bush police station (telephone number: SHE 1113), where, he promised, specially picked officers would arrange to meet any informant "when and where she wishes," without fear of arrest.

"The impact of the appeal has been staggering," said one top cop. "Women who would never have dreamed of talking to a policeman are coming all the time." In the first 24 hours alone, more than 120 whores had volunteered information about the murder victims or about male customers of their acquaintance who seemed, in Scotland Yard's words, "odd or eccentric in their association with prostitutes." Said Commander Hatherill: "What has astonished me is the number of women in this profession who have been picked up, stripped in a car, then knocked about—and made no complaint."

The investigation netted one suspect, a 54-year-old janitor who surrendered to police and was charged with killing another prostitute, red-haired Irene Lockwood, whose nude body was found in the Thames last month. The murder scare had another unexpected payoff for police. Fearful that a Jack the Stripper was still at large, whores stayed home by the thousands, cleaning London's sidewalks more effectively than all the vice squads in Britain.