Missing prostitute 'dreamed of travelling world as model'

Police are continuing to search for the body of prostitute Shelley Armitage, 31, who has been missing for a month.

Now her devastated lifelong friend Lynsey Barron, also 31, has revealed how her friend had ambitions of modelling and travelling the world.

The pair met when they were studying at St Joseph's College in Bradford in the mid 1990s not far from where Shelley would later work the streets.

They then found themselves seduced by drugs, but although Lynsey managed to turn herself around her friend's life began to spiral out of control and she became a sex worker to fund her addiction.

Lynsey said: "There was potential there and Shelley could have been a beautiful model. We would have sleepovers as teenagers, share our love of music and talk about modelling.

"We both started drugs but she never managed to get out of that spiral. I moved to Leeds to get away from it all because I thought it was time to sort my life out.

"We used to see each other now and again. I never imagined it to be like this. She is not that sort of girl and we had plans to travel. She didn't have a bad upbringing."

She said the moment she heard she was missing she feared the worst. "I had a gut feeling that something terrible had happened to her.

"All I keep thinking is what her last moments were like. I am just praying that she didn't go in a painful way, but now it has made me think the worst.

"I would like to send my condolences to her family. I just hope she is in peace now if she is not with us any more.

"She will always be in my thoughts each day."

"I would just like people to remember the good side of her. She was caring, friendly and compassionate."

She also called for more to be done to protect vulnerable sex workers in the red light district in the hope further tragedies could be prevented.

She said: "There is not enough help in Bradford. You need support for when you relapse but they need to do something to protect prostitutes.

"It is getting ridiculous because maybe they just need somewhere to go. Had the support been there then maybe things could have turned out different.

"They are a bit late for that now but it could help girls in the

future. Every other girl is someone else's family," she said.

Griffiths is charged with murdering Shelley, Suzanne Blamires, 36, and 43-year-old Susan Rushworth.