ONE of Britain's best known vice girls today told of her belief that she escaped the clutches of Ipswich serial killer Steve Wright when she worked close to the spot where Suzy Lamplugh was last seen.

ONE of Britain's best known vice girls today told of her belief that she escaped the clutches of Ipswich serial killer Steve Wright when she worked close to the spot where Suzy Lamplugh was last seen.

As evil Wright begins his life behind bars, The Evening Star can reveal police have been handed information about an attack on the infamous “Miss Whiplash” and told of her belief that she had a narrow escape from Wright when he was in his 20s.

Today it emerged:

the headline-hitting prostitute, who was once a household name, contacted police after she saw a picture of Wright as a QE2 crew member

she is convinced he visited her notorious Earls Court sex den in the mid-1980s at about the time Miss Lamplugh disappeared

the man lunged at her and made an attempt to grab her throat after she performed a sex act on him

The prostitute, who gained notoriety for her outrageous kinky antics with clients in her London pad - complete with rubber-clad rooms - in the 1980s but was too scared to have her full name printed in connection with Wright, said: "I'm positive it's him. When I saw his picture on the telly I thought 'that's that man'."

Miss Whiplash, now 55 and who still works as an escort part-time, spoke to an officer from West Mercia Constabulary yesterday and the information could now be passed to the Metropolitan Police team handling the Suzy Lamplugh case.

Officers from the Met have already asked Suffolk police for their file on Wright so that they can probe any links with the disappearance of the 25-year-old in July, 1986.

Today Miss Whiplash, who was in her mid-30s when she encountered the man she thinks was Wright, said: “I was sitting on the bed and the bed was next to the door. We were chatting away, I was giving him his service.

“Then he finished and he rose up and lunged at me to grab me around the throat. As he did that he said 'I know you, I know you'.

“My instant instinct was to get up and out the door. I jumped up and ran out into the street.”

She later wrote about the incident in her autobiography but had managed to put it to the back of her mind until she saw Wright's pictures after he was sentenced.

“I looked at the picture and went cold in my seat looking at it. When you've got someone in your face you don't forget it.

“Fulham is just down the road from my place in Eardley Crescent. It all just clicked into place.

“I thought 'that's got to be him, it's definitely him'.”

Miss Lamplugh, an estate agent, disappeared without trace after leaving her offices in Fulham, west London, to show a house to a man calling himself "Mr Kipper". Her body has never been found but she was officially declared dead in 1994.

Wright, now 49, was given a whole life term on Friday after he was found guilty at Ipswich Crown Court of the murders of sex workers Tania Nicol, 19; Gemma Adams, 25; Anneli Alderton, 24; Annette Nicholls, 29; and Paula Clennell, 24.

While Suffolk police say they have no evidence linking him to other murders, the information amassed on him is to be made available to forces throughout the UK.

Wright, who lived in London Road, Ipswich, worked with Lamplugh on the QE2 in the 1980s. He was a steward and she was a beautician.