Vice girl: I've left streets

This time last year a Black Country woman was selling her body on the streets of Ipswich. She tells

why she's left behind life on the game.

"I'd rather die than go back out on the streets," Sam says without realising the irony of her comment in light of the prostitute murders in Ipswich.

Just this time last year she was working the very same streets as the five vice girls who were found dead in Suffolk.

The 26-year-old prostitute, who lives in Bilston, sold her body for cash on the streets of Wolverhampton's red light district for around four years, before moving to Ipswich to be near her then boyfriend.

She spent four months in the Suffolk town, working in a massage parlour and selling sexual favours on the street, before returning to the Black Country earlier this year.

It was around four years ago when Sam first became involved in the seedy world of desperate drug-addicted women who sell their bodies for cash - and ultimately for the next fix of heroin or crack cocaine.

Sam became involved in drugs through her then boyfriend and, by the age of 21, she was hooked on heroin, before turning to crack cocaine. And she turned to prostitution to feed her habit.

Sam sold sexual favours - "pretty much anything and anywhere" - and would make around £300 a day in Wolverhampton's red light district.

Since her family persuaded her to return home earlier this year she has decided to leave her seedy world behind.

Sam, who is expecting a baby next year, says she's been 'clean' of drugs since the start of October although admitted that she had to turn to prostitution a couple of times recently to buy Christmas presents.

She admits news of the murders in Ipswich was "scary" but says she never felt afraid while working the streets of Wolverhampton.

"Many of my customers were regulars and many of them businessmen," she said.

"I never felt afraid and never had any problems with the men but it's obviously scary to read about what's been going on Ipswich, especially as I was down there not so long ago," she added.

"It's awful what's been happening there.

"I recognised one of the girls who was murdered from seeing her when I was on the streets down there."

But she added: "I really don't want to go back to being a prostitute. My parents are disgusted by what I've been doing, but they have also been very supportive and helped me try to get back on track.

"I need to do it for me, my family and my baby.

"I don't want to lose my family. They are helping me financially and have helped me get the support I need to give up the drugs."

The killings in Ipswich have shone a dismal light on the extent of prostitution in Britain today.

The figures are shocking with more than 100,000 girls working in brothels, massage parlours and on the streets, while the number of men using their services, particularly in younger age groups, has doubled.

"Where there are hard drugs, there are pimps and street prostitutes, and there are hard drugs all over the country," says a senior Scotland Yard officer.

Ninety-five per cent of street girls are addicted to drugs or alcohol or both, according to the Home Office.

And in Wolverhampton, the Express & Star recently revealed that kerb crawlers had returned to the city's red light district, despite a high profile police campaign.

Police and residents have seen an increase in numbers of men in All Saints and surrounding areas looking for sex.

A major Express & Star campaign to name and shame kerb crawlers was said to have helped deter men from coming to the area in recent months.

But, as we reported in September, there were fears that the campaign had been a victim of its own success.

Earlier this year, a poster warning kerb crawlers they risk destroying their families was launched across the city.

Billboards showing a torn family photograph in the gutter were unveiled at five sites across the city in September.

The billboards - in Cable Street, Bilston Road, Dudley Road, Birmingham New Road and Lower Horseley Fields - follow on from posters showing a kerb crawler behind bars which were displayed earlier this year.

Campaigners fear kerb crawlers wrongly believe the focus has shifted away from tackling the city's sex trade.

But the Express & Star is continuing to name and shame the men who blight the lives of residents.

Meanwhile, 26-year-old Sam is hoping to get her life back on track.

"I don't want to go back on the streets, I'd rather die than do that," she said.