In 1946 the family moved to Moorcourt Cottage, a semi-detached building adjacent to Moorcourt Farm, on the outskirts of Much Marcle, where Fred's father worked as a milking herdsman and harvest hand. The cottage had no electricity and was heated by a log fire. [5] By 1951 Fred's mother had given birth to eight children, six of whom survived; Fred was always his mother's favourite. [6] He was seen as a mother's boy and relied mostly on his siblings for companionship. At pretrial proceedings in February, Rose pleaded not guilty to ten charges of murder (the murder of Charmaine West having been added to the original nine after Fred's suicide, and two counts of rape and indecent assault of young girls having been dropped with a view for later resubmission), though her counsel conceded that circumstantial evidence indicated Rose's willingness to subject young girls to sadistic physical and sexual abuse. [178] [179] While the police investigation into the West murders was thorough and deservedly earned commendation for the way it was conducted, it is fair to say that even the officers were not satisfied that the full extent of the case had been fully excavated and resolved. There is much that remains a mystery. There are many questions that will not go away. In giving my account as her defence solicitor I revisit and review the many conversations that we had. I have also reviewed available evidence relating to the victims and have given close scrutiny to the early years and the disappearance in 1968 of a young woman who did not appear on the indictments of either Fred or Rose West. Her file remains open as that of an unsolved missing person. To his appropriate adult, Fred claimed there were up to 20 further victims he and his wife had killed, "not in one place but spread around", [206] and he intended to reveal the location of one body per year to investigators. [207] [208] On March 4, West passed a handwritten note to his solicitor saying: “I wish to admit to a further (approx) nine killings expressly Charmaine, Rena, Lynda Gough and others to be identified.”

Fred West took his own life the following year while awaiting trial. Rose West, meanwhile, was given ten life sentences the same year. Heather's disappearance, Fred and Rose's constantly changing stories about their daughter's whereabouts, plus their allusions to foul play, ultimately led to police enquiries as to Heather's whereabouts. These enquiries culminated in a search warrant being issued to excavate the Wests' garden in February 1994. [141] [142] Arrest [ edit ] 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. Even in the West case, in the trial, where identities were established, it was never entirely clear what fate befell those women and those young girls. It’s known that they were abducted, it’s known that the quality of their lives in their last days would have been appalling … It’s a nightmare trying to speculate about precisely what did happen to those girls.” May: Shirley Robinson, (18). Another former lodger at 25 Cromwell Street, Robinson was bisexual and engaged in casual sex with Fred and Rose. At the time of her disappearance, she had been eight months pregnant with Fred's child, and her baby boy had been due to be born on 11 June. No sexual motive existed for this murder, and the prosecution contended at Rose's trial that Robinson had been murdered as her pregnancy threatened the stability of the Wests' relationship. [225] Fred had originally planned to sell their baby to a childless couple and had professional photographs taken with Robinson for this purpose. [226]He pointed out that Fred was incarcerated when Charmaine West was killed; claimed that the Wests had each learned from their mistake in allowing Caroline Owens to live (they "would never be so trusting again"); [182] and said that the gag on victim Thérèse Siegenthaler had a "feminine" touch‍—‌a scarf tied in a bow. [183] 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.

By the mid-1980s, rumours of Rose's sex life had reached several of the children's classmates, and although the West children had been instructed never to divulge details of their home lives to their peers, Heather confided to her friends that many of these rumours were true. The father of one of these classmates was a friend of the Wests; as such, word soon reached Fred and Rose that Heather had divulged details of her home life—including details of her mother's promiscuity—to her classmates. Fred was so concerned by these revelations that he began to escort Heather to and from school. [86] They’d both been subjected to incest, and they both had abused as well, so when they both met it was the worst possible combination,” she said.Police firmly believe the Wests were responsible for further unsolved murders and disappearances. They believed they committed ten murders between 1971 and 1979, at least seven of which were for sexual purposes. Following the rash of murders between 1973 and 1975, Fred and Rose are not known to have committed any murders until 1978. They committed one further murder in 1979, followed by an eight-year lull until they murdered their daughter in 1987. Police do not know of any further murders they committed before their 1994 arrest although Fred con

Rose occasionally sexually abused Anna Marie herself, and later took extreme gratification in degrading her with acts such as binding Anna Marie to various items of furniture before encouraging Fred to rape her, and forcing her to perform household chores while wearing sexual devices and a mini-skirt. [97] From the age of 13, Fred and Rose forced Anna Marie to prostitute herself within the household, with her clients being informed Anna Marie was 16. Rose was always present in the room when these acts occurred, [98] to ensure Anna Marie did not reveal her true age. [99] On one occasion when Anna Marie was aged 13 or 14, Rose took her to a local pub, insisting she drink several glasses of barley wine. Several hours later, Fred arrived at the pub to collect Rose and Anna Marie. Once they had left the premises, Anna Marie was bundled into her father's van and beaten by Rose, who asked her: "Do you think you could be my friend?" before she was sexually abused by her father and stepmother. [100] Caroline Owens [ edit ] 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. 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. 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.Ferguson emphasised that Fred, before meeting Rose, had committed at least one murder strikingly similar to those at issue in the present trial, and that the prosecution's case was largely circumstantial. He contended that Rose was unaware of the extent of Fred's sadism, and urged the jury to not be prejudiced by her promiscuity and domineering manner.

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. 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] Fred confessed on February 26 to killing two more women, one named Shirley Robinson, 18, and another subsequently identified by police as Alison Chambers, 16. The remains of both were later found in the garden. June 1961 - Fred arrested on suspicion of child molestation after a 13-year-old local girl is discovered to be pregnant by her GP. It becomes clear that Fred has had sex with her on several occasions.When each of the West children reached the age of seven, they were assigned numerous daily chores to perform in the house; they were rarely allowed to socialise outside the household perimeters unless either of their parents were present, and had to follow strict guidelines imposed by their parents, with severe punishment—almost always physical—being the penalty for not conforming to the household rules. The children feared being the recipients of violence from their parents, the vast majority inflicted by Rose, occasionally by Fred. The violence was sometimes irrational, indiscreet or just inflicted for Rose's gratification; she always took great care not to mark the children's faces or hands in these assaults. Firstly Heather, and subsequently her younger brother Stephen (born 1973), ran away from home; both returned to Cromwell Street after several weeks of alternately sleeping rough or staying with friends, and both were beaten when they returned home. [86] Between 1972 and 1992, the West children were admitted to the Accident and Emergency department of local hospitals 31 times; the injuries were explained as accidents and never reported to social services. [87] [88] In June 1961, [16] Fred's 13-year-old sister, Kitty, told her mother that Fred had been raping her since the previous December, and had impregnated her. Fred was arrested, and freely admitted to police he had been molesting young girls since his early teens and asked, "Doesn't everybody do it?" [17] He was tried on 9 November at Herefordshire Assizes. Though disgusted by her son's actions, Fred's mother had been prepared to testify in his defence. Immediately prior to her scheduled testimony, Kitty changed her mind and refused to testify [18] and the case collapsed. [19] Much of Fred's family effectively disowned him, [9] his mother banished him from the household, and he moved into the Much Marcle house of his aunt Violet. By mid-1962, he had reconciled with his parents, but not with most of his family. [20] Catherine "Rena" Costello [ edit ] Marriage [ edit ]