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An investigation into the murder of a 17-year-old girl 20 years ago has been reopened.

Vicky Hall's body was found five days after she disappeared while walking home from a nightclub in Felixstowe, Suffolk.

The teenager had been strangled before her naked body was dumped in a ditch.

A businessman was cleared of the murder of the sixth former in November 2001 after a two week trial at Norwich Crown Court.

But the case has been reopened due to detectives receiving new "information from witnesses" which is described as "significant".

(Image: Press Association)

Norfolk and Suffolk police's joint Major Investigation Team has set up a "brand new team of officers and investigators" to analyse the new and existing evidence.

Vicky's parents Graham and Lorinda Hall have welcomed the development, and have new hope that her killer will finally be brought to justice.

Officers have also released extra details of previously undisclosed possessions that Vicky is believed to have been carrying when she disappeared, such as her purse, lipstick, a key fob and a hair grip.

Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Millar who is leading the new investigation, said it was "quite possible" that someone was protecting the killer, and appealed for them to come forward.

She confirmed that that there had been no arrests "at this time" as a result of the new information.

Asked about the nature of the information, Det Chief Insp Millar said: "I can say it is information from witnesses."

She added: "The information is now part of our main lines of inquiry which we are actively pursuing.

"We have never forgotten Victoria Hall and we will never forget Victoria Hall.

"The person who is responsible for her murder has had to live with their guilt for 20 years. This is the 20th anniversary of her abduction and murder, and this is a significant case that is now live.

"I would urge anyone who called in at the time in 1999 to think back, - is there anything more you can now tell us?

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"Relationships have changed, things have moved on. If you didn't phone in 1999 or come forward with information, please do so now. It is never too late.

"The new information and reopening the investigation has given renewed hope that 20 years on we will finally get justice for Victoria and her family.

"The commitment which was there in 1999 is still there. We haven't forgotten her and we are not going to. We are determined to see this through.

"We are focussed on it being a new investigation. While we are looking back at old information we are looking at new lines of inquiry."

Vicky left her home in Faulkeners Way in Trimley St Mary, at 9pm on September 18, 1999, to join friends at the Bandbox nightclub in Felixstowe.

She left the club with her best friend Gemma Algar, 17, at 1am the next morning, stopping to buy chips from the Bodrum takeaway.

(Image: Press Association)

The pair walked back along Trimley High Road towards their respective homes while eating chips and singing, before splitting up at the junction of Faulkeners Way at 2.20am.

A short time later Gemma heard screams, but assumed it was someone messing around.

Vicky's parents reported her missing in the morning and a huge hunt for her got underway before her naked body was found by a dog walker on September 24 in a water-filled ditch around 20 miles away in Creeting St Peter near Stowmarket, Suffolk.

Tests revealed that Vicky, who had just started her second year of studying A levels at Orwell High School, Felixstowe, had not been sexually assaulted.

Adrian Bradshaw, then aged 27, who owned the Felixstowe Flyer free newspaper was charged with murder after one of the biggest ever investigations to be undertaken by Suffolk Police.

He had spent part of the night at the same club as Vicky and was dropped off by a taxi a few hundred yards from where she disappeared.

(Image: PA)

Other witnesses also heard "horrifying" screams followed by the roar of a "throaty" car exhaust, which prosecutors claimed was from Bradshaw's Porsche 944.

The prosecution also alleged there was a near match between soil samples recovered from his car and the ditch where Vicky's body was found.

But the evidence was undermined when a geologist called by the defence said the sample could have come from elsewhere in East Anglia.

As a result jurors took less than 90 minutes to find Bradshaw not guilty.

Mr Hall, 65, who is a part time office administrator, said he and his wife were told six months ago about the new police leads.

He said: "It was a complete surprise. I am very confident that this new team will pursue it to the end. It has been very positive over the last few months.

"I am very hopeful that with this appeal, someone is going to think its time they should come forward and say this is what happened, this person was here and they weren't where they told the police they were at the time."

(Image: Press Association)

"All the time, we felt that something would happen and someone would come forward and say, 'I know something'. Hopefully this time, people will now feel it is time to say what they know."

Mr Hall said it was quite possible that witnesses may have given bogus information to the original murder inquiry due to "false loyalties".

He added: "Perhaps they did talk at the time about it and they knew then and kept it quiet, and thought it was the right thing to do.

"As the years go on, they may think it was not the right thing to have done and they should have told the truth.

"Perhaps relationships have changed in that time, and things are not so close, and people may now think it is the time to come forward, and to say that this happened on the night.

"Even the smallest thing can open up avenues of all sorts that the police can follow down and investigate so the truth can come out, and we can find out what happened."

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Speaking of the killer's possible motives, he said: "It does appear that perhaps it wasn't thought about before they did it, but it happened. Then again, they have gone to Creeting to dispose of the body.

"I can't imagine that anyone can't have nightmares about that journey, having driven 20 miles with a body in the car. It is not an everyday occurrence.

"It has got to hurt hasn't it? It's got to come back to them in their sleep."

Mr Hall said that the anniversary of his daughter's murder was "always painful", particularly as it happened just two weeks before her 18th birthday.

He said: "It's a tough time to go through. Other people's memories fade over time, but to us every day we think about Victoria.

"It doesn't seem like 20-years-ago. It seems like yesterday. It is a tough two weeks. It is not particularly easy."

Describing his daughter, he said: "She was a fun loving teenager who liked to go out in the evenings.

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"She was an intelligent girl who was working hard, hopefully to go to university. She was a normal 17-year-old girl.

"We obviously see her friends who were the same age and you do wonder what Victoria would be doing at this stage and what she would have achieved in the last 20 years, and what she would have done with her life.

"The person that evening took all of that way from all of us, but they will have to live with that. Hopefully, there will be pressure put on them again now.

"Hopefully they can't put up with it any longer because it will keep coming back to haunt them every year."

Mrs Hall, 63, made a direct appeal to witnesses, saying: "If they remember even the slightest thing, it could seem insignificant to them, but for the police it could be the biggest thing going, so just phone up and let them know."

Speaking of what her daughter should be doing now, she said: "I would like to have hopefully seen her married with children, but that has been taken away from us."

Mrs Hall conceded that the killer could still be living in the Felixstowe area.

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She said: "It's not so much that the person might still be round here. It's that this person has put us through this. You have got to live with that.

"You've destroyed, our lives, not only our daughter's, and every close family member and her friends. Being near or far, doesn't really come into it because the hurt and pain is there."

Police investigating Vicky's murder in 1999 revealed that she had been wearing a black dress with a frilly trim around the hem, a smart light brown jacket and black open-toed size five sandals.

But Det Chief Insp Millar said officers were now able to reveal that she was thought to have been carrying a black purse with a zipper, possibly made of nylon, a house key fob with Vicky on the top and Victoria written down the side, a Rimmel lipstick, and a wooden hair slide with a piece of wood going through it.

She also disclosed that the inner soles of her sandals might have been stuck on with sellotape.

She added: "We knew about these possessions before, but this information was not previously released. My hope today is that by providing this information, someone might just have seen something and come to us with information."