Steve Wright pleads not guilty to kidnap and murder

Steve Wright, shown in a court sketch from a previous hearing, will stand trial on 2 February 2026

Steve Wright has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and murdering a teenage girl in Suffolk more than 20 years ago.

The 66-year-old is charged with the kidnap and murder of Victoria Hall, 17, who disappeared while on her way home from a nightclub in Felixstowe in 1999.

Her body was found 25 miles (40km) away by a dog walker in a water-filled ditch in Creeting St Peter, near Stowmarket, five days later on 24 September.

Appearing via video link at Ipswich Crown Court, Wright, formerly of London Road, Ipswich, was told his trial would start on 2 February 2026 at the Old Bailey in London.

Victoria Hall was yards away from her house near Felixstowe when she was last seen in 1999

Victoria had been on a night out with a friend at the Bandbox nightclub on the evening of 18 September 1999 and left the venue at about 01:00 BST the next morning.

They parted ways at about 02:20 BST, which is the last time Victoria was seen alive, near her home in Trimley St Mary.

Police launched a missing persons investigation after Victoria’s parents, Lorinda and Graham Hall, awoke in the morning to discover their daughter had not returned home.

At Ipswich Crown Court, Wright pleaded not guilty to one count of unlawful kidnap by force or fraud and one count of murder.

Wright, 66, appeared at Ipswich Crown Court via video link

The defendant did not enter a plea for the charge of the attempted kidnap of a 22-year-old woman on 18 September 1999 because it is now “subject to dismissal”.

The trial of Wright, who will remain in custody until 7 March 2026, is expected to last four weeks, and a further case management hearing will be held on 2 December.

Judge Martyn Levett said: “[The trial date] may seem some distance away but it will require an extraordinary amount of work between now and then.”