Fred & Rose: The Full Story of Fred and Rose West and the Gloucester House of Horrors

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The experts, the forensic psychologists, believe that the pair of them, Fred and Rose West, would have continued rather than to have big gaps between one (victim) and another,” Goatley said. By 6 May, Fred and Rose were jointly charged with five counts of murder, with Rose simply replying, "I'm innocent" upon hearing each formal charge - a response that proved to be a theme throughout each of the 46 interviews investigators held with Rose prior to her trial. [166]

There is a view that a drama about such a subject should not be made, which ignores the fact that since Sophocles, dramatists have engaged with the darkest areas of human experience. But these are real events, the argument goes, doesn't that make it wrong? If so, then the many films which have dealt with the Holocaust, such as Sophie's Choice and Schindler's List, should never have been made. But isn't it too soon? If that is true then Paul Greengrass's United 93, made within a few years of 9/11, should never have seen the light of day. It is in fact 17 years since the Cromwell Street murders came to light – almost the same length of time as between the arrest of Peter Sutcliffe and the making of This Is Personal, my dramatisation of the flawed police hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. At the end of criminal proceedings you often hear police officers and lawyers talking of justice being served, of drawing a line in the sand, of giving closure to the family, of being able to move on. The reality is often very different. Serious crimes change people's lives forever, sometimes victims survive, sometimes they do not and their loved ones must carry the terrible psychological luggage for the rest of their lives. There are no winners. The families of the perpetrators are just as damaged and the ensuing generations burdened with the chilling resonating knowledge of some terrible episode for which their relative was responsible. Appropriate Adult neither recreates those crimes nor attempts a definitive psychological analysis of Fred and Rosemary West. Like This Is Personal and See No Evil, it is about the effects of the crimes rather than crimes themselves. Whereas those earlier dramas focused variously on the police, the victims and their families, and the families of the murderers (whose suffering is often ignored), this one places at its centre a woman who was almost an accidental witness to the uncovering of what happened at 25 Cromwell Street. April: Juanita Mott, (18). Mott had been a former lodger at 25 Cromwell Street, but was living with a family friend in Newent when she disappeared. Mott is believed to have been abducted by the Wests as she hitchhiked along the B4215. In his subsequent confessions to police, Fred would refer to Mott as "the girl from Newent". [224] After the trial, McFall moved into a caravan at the Timberland Caravan Park; Rena alternated between living with Fred and returning to Glasgow. Letters McFall posted to her family and McNeill in Glasgow between 1966 and 1967 indicate she believed a relationship with Fred could offer her a better life than that she had experienced in Scotland, [42] and she tried to persuade Fred to divorce his wife and marry her.In September 1972, the Wests led eight-year-old Anna Marie to the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street, where the child was forced to undress, with Rose tearing her dress from her body upon noting the child's hesitation. [92] She was restrained before Fred raped her [93] with Rose's active encouragement. After the rape, Rose followed Anna Marie to the bathroom and handed her a sanitary towel, explaining to the child: "I'm sorry. Everybody does it to every girl. It's a father's job. Don't worry, and don't say anything to anybody." [94] Making clear these sexual assaults would continue, Fred and Rose then threatened the child with severe beatings if they ever received word she had divulged the sexual abuse she endured at their hands. [95] [n 1] To many of these women, it became apparent Rose and her husband (who regularly participated in threesomes with his wife and her lovers) took a particular pleasure from seeking to take women beyond their sexual limits—typically via sessions involving bondage, as the Wests openly admitted to taking a particular pleasure from any form of sex involving a strong measure of dominance, pain and violence. To cater to these fetishes, they amassed a large collection of bondage and restraining devices, magazines and photographs—later expanding this collection to include videos depicting bestiality and graphic child sexual abuse. [80] As police attempted to lead Fred from the hearing, he resisted their efforts, and again attempted to move towards Rose, who again winced and attempted to writhe away from his grasp. [171] Rose gave no outward reaction as the guilty verdict was delivered, said Summers. “I think she probably knew what was coming.” April: Thérèse Siegenthaler, (21). A sociology student at Greenwich Community College. Siegenthaler was abducted by the Wests as she hitchhiked from South London to Holyhead. Fred mistook her Swiss accent to be a Dutch one, and always referred to her as either "the Dutch girl" or "Tulip". She was reported missing to Scotland Yard by her family in Switzerland when communication from their daughter ceased. [222] Fred later further concealed Siegenthaler's remains by building a false chimney breast on her grave.

August: Alison Chambers, (16). Chambers had been placed into foster care at the age of 14, and had repeatedly absconded from Jordan's Brook House. She became acquainted with the Wests in mid-1979, and Fred later claimed to his solicitor that Chambers had died as a result of Rose becoming "too bloody vicious" with her. Her dismembered body, missing several bones and with a leather belt looped beneath her jaw and tied at the top of her head, was buried in the garden of Cromwell Street. This was the final murder where a definite sexual motive was established. [227] Fred had also led police 17 miles or so out of the city to a field in the village of Kempley – near his birthplace of Much Marcle – where Costello’s remains were found in April. The remains of West’s former nanny and pregnant mistress, Ann McFall, were recovered in June from a field nearby. Despite denying involvement in her death, Fred indicated the area where she was buried. Surely if there is any suspicion of evidence that there might be more bodies around, it follows as night follows day, that there must be an attempt to discover what happened to these missing people," he adds. When Gough's dismembered body was found, the jaw was completely wrapped in adhesive and surgical tape to silence her screams, and two small tubes had likely been inserted into her nasal cavities to allow breathing. Long sections of string and sections of knotted fabric were also discovered with her remains. Gough had likely been suspended from holes carved into the wooden beams supporting the ceiling of the cellar Fred later admitted he had devised for the purpose of suspending his victims' bodies, and likely died of either strangulation or suffocation. [112] Her dismembered body, missing five cervical vertebrae, the patellae and numerous finger bones, was buried in an inspection pit beneath the garage. [113] Dramas about such events need a clear purpose, which is to illuminate those events. The process of making these programmes is a complicated and painstaking one. Of central importance are the feelings of those whose lives have been most directly affected, which is usually the families of victims. Often they have suffered twice, first by losing a loved one in horrific circumstances, second by acquiring a kind of stigma of being associated with a notorious crime.But the documentary makes the case that other locations need to be searched by police, including a derelict farm and a field in the Herefordshire area. The following day (26 February), police began excavating the section of the garden at Cromwell Street where Fred indicated he had buried his daughter's body. Shortly after 4 p.m., police found a human thigh bone protruding from a section of the garden Fred had insisted police need not look in. Excavating the section of the garden where Fred had indicated he had buried his daughter's body, investigators discovered a mass of jumbled human remains encased in the remnants of a bin bag and intertwined with two lengths of rope. These dismembered remains were taken to the police headquarters for further examination, where they were determined to be those of a young woman, with one kneecap and several phalanges missing. [160] The decedent's fingernails were discovered in a pile, suggesting they may have been torn from her fingers as a means of torture. Several hours later, the body was identified via dental records as being that of Heather West. The murders also highlighted how many young women and girls had gone missing in previous decades. Overall, 110 missing people were found to be safe and well as a result of the West inquiry, according to Gloucestershire Constabulary.

All the victims were young women. At least eight of these murders involved the Wests' sexual gratification and included rape, bondage, torture, and mutilation; the victims' dismembered bodies were typically buried in the cellar or garden of the West residence in Gloucester, which became known as the "House of Horrors". Fred is known to have committed at least two murders on his own; Rose is known to have murdered Fred's stepdaughter, Charmaine. The couple were arrested and charged in 1994. In May 2021, police announced their intentions to excavate the grounds of a café in Gloucester after receiving information that the body of Mary Bastholm may have been buried at this location. This search yielded no human remains. [229] At the time of her disappearance, Bastholm worked at this café and Fred is known to have frequented the premises. [230] [231] Furthermore, he is known to have conducted repair work on the drains of this café in late 1967. [232] [n 7] The bodies were found dismembered, stuffed into vertical holes in the ground and with “trophy” parts – such as kneecaps and finger bones – removed which have never been found. Immediately after this court appearance, Fred was re-arrested on suspicion of murdering Anne McFall, whose body had been found on 7 June but had not been officially identified until this date; he was formally charged with McFall's murder on 3 July, appearing in court the following morning. [172] Diversion of culpability [ edit ]Fred is known to have killed at least twelve young women, while Rose is known to have murdered at least nine victims, as well as her eight-year-old step-daughter Charmaine. For twelve years I acted for Rose West as her solicitor and for a time represented both Rose and Fred West in relation to child care proceedings. I acted for Rose in all stages of the numerous criminal allegations brought against her from July 1992 through to the serial murder trial at Winchester Crown Court in October and November of 1995, then the Appeal in the Lord Chief Justice's court in 1996 and a subsequent application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2001. It was only Rose who stood trial and then was convicted of the murder of ten young women. Fred West committed suicide while awaiting trial. Fred later claimed that he had been sexually abused by his mother at age 12, that he had engaged in acts of bestiality in his early teens, and that his belief that incest was normal stemmed from his father's incest with Fred's sisters. [10] Fred's youngest brother, Doug, dismissed these claims as fantasy. [11] Adolescence [ edit ] In May 1992, Fred asked his 13-year-old daughter, Louise, to bring some bottles to a room on the first floor of their home. Rose was not present in the home at the time. Shortly thereafter, the girl's siblings heard her scream, "No, don't!" Later, Fred returned downstairs. Louise was found by her siblings writhing in pain, sobbing that her father had raped and sodomised her, at one stage partially strangling her. [143] When Rose returned home, Louise confided in her mother that she had been raped by Fred; Rose replied, "Oh well. You were asking for it." Over the following weeks, Louise was raped on three further occasions, with Rose personally witnessing one of these rapes before following her distressed and bleeding daughter into the bathroom and asking the child, "Well, what did you expect?" [144] Fred also filmed one of these rapes. Several weeks later, Louise garnered the courage to confide in a close friend what her father had done; this friend told her own mother what had happened on 4 August. In response, the friend's mother anonymously informed the police. Six months later – having found no trace of Heather alive – officers from the Gloucestershire Constabulary obtained a warrant to search 25 Cromwell Street, the Wests’ family home since 1972.