Bradford detectives resolutely refused to dismiss Caroline Creevy's disappearance simply as a missing person.

The fact she was a prostitute never diminished their inquiry - they had an instinct she had been murdered from the start and would not stop their pursuit for her killer until he was caught.

Michelle Routledge, known on the streets as Blondie, first reported her friend's disappearance. She had heard Caroline scream "help me, help me" from Valentine's flat over the intercom system outside Soho Mills.

Blondie tried to find Caroline for the next two days. Eventually she turned to two vice squad officers she knew for help.

Chief Inspector Phil Sedgwick was the detective inspector in the inquiry in November 1996.

"Blondie said she hadn't seen Caroline for a while and there had been a bit of bother at the flat," said Chief Insp Sedgwick.

"Girls who live this life often go missing for some time. But something about this situation did not ring true."

It was a classic piece of police intuition. A missing person's inquiry was launched and a series of appeals run in the Telegraph & Argus.

But detectives knew the stark reality was they were probably dealing with a murder.

Officers started the painstaking task of sifting through endless hours of video footage from security cameras at Soho Mills. Two men were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping Caroline - they were the last people seen on camera with her - but were later released.

Eventually Valentine was spotted carrying Caroline's body in a rug down the stairs.

Chief Insp Sedgwick said: "We worked out the time between when Valentine left with the body and when he returned. We then drew a map and circled the area he could have gone to in that time scale.

"We knew we had a myriad of sewers to deal with. We had people on the surface covering all the buildings and got the underwater search unit for the sewers."

Caroline's body was found on wet Sunday afternoon in November. A police frogman found her wedged underneath some concrete, an area where Valentine thought she would never be found. Within hours he had been arrested.

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