Two vice girls who regularly work the dingy side streets of Thornton Road are all too aware of the dangers they face every night of their lives.

Every time they go out to ply their trade in Bradford's red light district they put their own lives on the line.

But they gamble with their lives because they can earn up to £150 on the streets in one night.

Jane, 24, said: "I'd seen Valentine a few times. He was a bit of a loner.

"His flat was a drugs den. Girls would take punters in and either sort him out or pay him £5.

"He was obsessed with Caroline, but she just wasn't interested. Caroline was a really nice lass. She was just a bit messed up on drugs."

Both girls were once hooked on heroin, but said they do not touch drugs now. And even though the area was devastated by the murder of Caroline, it will not stop them working.

Twenty-year-old Sarah said: "Why work all day in a shop for £150 a week when we can get that in one night?

"The other day I earned £100 in one hour. We earn so much we don't have to work every night."

Baby-faced Sarah charges punters between £30 and £40 for sex. While she is working, her daughter is being looked after by her mother.

"My mum knows I'm a prostitute," she said. "But it's easy money. The problem is some girls charge just £10 for sex, which spoils it for the rest of us, driving the price down.

"Some are even stupid and do it without a condom."

Since Caroline's death, many girls no longer work in the Soho Mills area and now pick up punters in the side streets off Thornton Road.

"No-one goes round Soho Mills anymore," said Jane. "A lot of people there are on probation, many of them drug users.

"A lot of working girls do have flats there, and use it as a base for having sex. But drugs are widespread. It is drugs that have control over many prostitutes today."

Valentine, 43, battered and strangled Caroline to her death in October 1996 after she spurned his sexual advances.

Her body - naked expect for a black miniskirt - was found in a storm drain close to his flat at Soho Mills, Thornton Road, Bradford.

On Thursday he was sentenced to life after a trial at Leeds Crown Court.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.