In a victim impact statement read to the court, Doherty said: “I have never been so scared in my life. I thought my heart was going to explode in my chest.
“I had never ran so fast or jumped over walls like that.”
She said police made no notes of what she said, did not believe her and questioned how much she had drunk.
“To this day, I am furious,” she added.
“I wasn’t taken serious. I was made to feel like a silly little girl.
“They told me to forget all about it.”
Doherty had been left with lifelong anxieties and a sense of guilt, “blaming herself – absolutely wrongly” for not being more insistent that police took her case more seriously, the judge said.
The Old Bailey also heard officers stopped their research into possible vehicles linked to Victoria’s abduction and that Wright’s DNA was in the national database from 2001, 20 years before he was arrested over Victoria’s death.
The DNA led to him being identified as a suspect in the 2006 murders, but it took advances in scientific analysis to provide evidence linking him to swabs taken from Victoria’s body at the time.
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC also referenced a possible inquiry into missed opportunities, telling the court: “A decision will be made by Suffolk Police as to the format and ambit of any inquiry following the hearing.”
Wright, wearing a grey sweatshirt and trousers, showed no emotion, even as Gemma, and Victoria’s brother, Steven – who also spoke on behalf of his father, Graham – cried while detailing what his actions have done to them.