Professor David Wilson and guests try to get to the bottom of Scotland’s record number of unsolved murdered sex worker cases.

He travels to the epicentre of the once-booming red-light district of Leith, where he examines the catastrophic murder of mother-of-two Sheila Anderson. Sheila was a tragic example of the heroin epidemic of the 80s, and how many women turned to the streets to support their habit. And on a dark April night in 1983, a suspected client ran Sheila over with his car multiple times and left her for dead.

In the studio, David speaks with former deputy chief constable Tom Wood, who was the lead detective on Sheila’s case back in 1983. He speaks of the initial investigation and the ways in which he and his team tried to uncover Sheila’s killer, touching on the many roadblocks preventing them from getting answers, from the police themselves, to finding witnesses who would cooperate. He speaks about the culture at the time, how police were prepared to deal with the heroin epidemic, and how it changed the atmosphere on Edinburgh’s streets.

David is also joined in the studio by resident forensic scientist Helen Meadows. Helen dissects Sheila’s case and talks about the tragic murder of Tracey Wylde. Tracey was a sex worker from Glasgow, who, in 1997, was murdered in her flat. Tracey’s case, like many sex workers before her, went cold, but Helen looks at the crucial DNA evidence left behind that eventually led to her killer’s arrest over 20 years after her death.

David’s final guest is charity worker and activist Ruth Morgan Thomas. As a former sex worker, Ruth has expert knowledge on the situation many women face on the streets. She talks about the lack of action taken by politicians to bring in real change to the industry and also about the current legislation surrounding sex work, and whether it is actually protecting the women involved. Show less