The way they get money is usually just one more nasty and unpleasant detail in a nasty, unpleasant life

On average a prostitute is killed on the streets of Britain once every couple of months, and few people take much notice. Tania Nicol, Gemma Adams, Anneli Alderton, and two women still formally to be identified, have lost their lives over a much shorter time-span, in one small town in England, and in chillingly similar circumstances. Killing one woman who is selling sex, it appears, is merely regrettable. Any more, and all hell breaks loose.

Many of the reasons for this are pretty obvious. Popular culture has given full expression to human fear and revulsion of, and fascination with, the psychopathic multiple killer. But a large part of the reason why one prostitute's death is easily ignored, and a connected series of them reviled, is driven by punitive ideas about how much a prostitute should be expected to risk for her sins.