I WRITE with reference to the article by Ben Dadswell regarding the Sex Workers Outreach Project giving advice to students at Sussex University.

In my days as a West Yorkshire Police Officer, I was regularly seconded to man the observation points in the Manningham area of Bradford in the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

This gave me the opportunity to talk to a considerable number of prostitutes.

Their reasons for becoming prostitutes were many and varied.

They are not all on the game to finance a drugs or alcohol dependency.

Until the Ripper investigations severely affected their income, most made more in a week that I earned in a month.

Their clients came from all walks of life including priests and senior police officers.

One elderly woman in her early sixties had a number of clients who just wanted somebody to talk to.

If my observations in Bradford were repeated in every large town in the country, then some three million males regularly use the services of prostitutes.

Two things I will state for fact based on my experience at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper investigations.

Firstly, if the Sex Workers Outreach Project had existed at the time, and if the massive CCTV camera network had been in place at the time, a number of women who were attached by Peter Sutcliffe would be alive today.   Secondly, instead of criticising the Sex Workers Outreach Projects they need to be encouraged and commended.

Many people complain that we are now in a big brother society.

But modern computer technology linked with CCTV cameras would have identified Peter Sutcliffe years before he was finally arrested.

Stuart Bower Hallyburton Road Hove