SUFFOLK'S chief of police, Alastair McWhirter today said that the murder investigation into the deaths of five prostitutes was likely to be hard slog.He re-iterated the words of Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull earlier in the day that the investigation was not a TV drama and would take time to solve.

SUFFOLK'S chief of police, Alastair McWhirter today said that the murder investigation into the deaths of five prostitutes was likely to be hard slog.

He re-iterated the words of Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull earlier in the day that the investigation was not a TV drama and would take time to solve.

Mr McWhirter said: “Police dramas manage to solve the case within an hour and it is not like that at all.

“It is going to be a hard slog whatever happens. We are dealing with five separate inquiries.”

He also pointed out that the force was also dealing with another murder inquiry following the shooting of a man at Zest nightclub last Saturday.

The chief constable also made clear that they were not offering an amnesty to drug dealers in a bid to get more information about the girls' movements.

He said: “We are not giving drug pushers an amnesty. We will arrest people if they start pushing drugs.

“We are only interested in past events. We are not interested if someone supplied drugs to someone. We are interested in the information they may have that could lead us to the killer of these young women.”

Mr McWhirter also denied that the investigation had stalled following a lack of information being released in the last couple of days.

He said: “We are making significant and steady progress.

“We are not rushing into things and not building people's hopes up.”

He added they were working quickly but thoroughly and were going into all the detail they would on any case, but also had the shadow hanging over them that they did not want anyone else to lose their life in the meantime.