When he had gone, Rose abused Anna Marie with the vibrator and then left her tied to the frame for a while. Later in the afternoon, Anna Marie, who was cut and bruised, was made to take a bath. Rose poured salt into the water first, saying it would sting, but that this was good for her, too.
10
THE SPIDERS’ WEB
Late one chilly November evening in 1972, Fred and Rose were driving through the outskirts of Tewkesbury when they came to the Gupshill Manor public house, a large half-timbered inn on the Gloucester Road. The pub had just closed for the night and the car park was emptying. On the opposite side of the highway, the Wests noticed a pretty teenage girl huddling for warmth in the cold night air as she thumbed for a lift.
They stopped and asked where she was going. She said that she was on her way home to the town of Cinderford, twenty-three miles to the south-west, beyond Gloucester on the other side of the River Severn. Despite the fact that Cinderford was a considerable detour, the Wests offered her a lift all the way home. The girl assumed they were a respectable married couple and that it was therefore safe to accept. Rose smiled and stepped out of the coupé so she could pull the passenger seat forward and let the girl into the back.
Her name was Caroline Owens. She was seventeen years old, and regularly hitch-hiked from Cinderford to Tewkesbury to see her boyfriend, Tony Coates. When it was time to go home, she waited opposite the Gupshill Manor because she knew a telephone engineer who would always give her a lift if he was passing on his night shift.
Caroline lived with her mother, Elizabeth, and stepfather in a council house in Hill Dean, an estate at Cinderford, a small mining community set high up on a hill just inside the northern border of the Forest of Dean. Caroline, who was one of fifteen children, disliked her stepfather, ‘Pickles’ Harris, and was looking for a job and somewhere new to live. Fred and Rose said they needed a girl to help look after their children. Would Caroline like to come to Gloucester and work as their nanny? They could pay £3 per week and would give her a lift home every Tuesday. Fred and Rose visited Caroline’s home, taking their children with them. They told Caroline’s mother that they would ‘keep an eye’ on her, and that she would be ‘all right living with them’. Caroline thought the West children were ‘cute’.
A few days later, having discussed it with her mother, Caroline arrived at Cromwell Street to take up the job. She shared a bedroom with the eldest girl, Anna Marie, who was very affectionate, but seemed to be frightened of her parents. ‘She was withdrawn when they were around,’ said Caroline.
Fred was out at work most of the day, as were the lodgers, Benjamin Stanniland and Alan Davis. There were few visitors to the house – just Rose’s younger brothers; Fred’s brother, John; and the coloured men Rose regularly entertained – so Caroline and Rose were often alone together. Caroline was petite, with a pretty face and long brown hair – she was later crowned Miss Forest of Dean 1977 – and Rose found her very attractive. She took strands of her hair and stroked it while they were talking, and also touched her legs. She admired Caroline’s eyes, and would often barge in when she was taking a bath.
When Fred was at home he talked about sex incessantly. One evening he told Caroline that he carried out medical operations, including abortions. This led on to comments about Anna Marie, with Fred claiming that his daughter had already lost her virginity. Caroline was astonished to hear this, as Anna Marie was only eight years old. She asked what Fred meant. Seeming to realise his indiscretion, Fred hurriedly explained that Anna Marie had not lost her virginity to a man, but by falling off her bicycle – the same extraordinary lie he had told Elizabeth Agius at Midland Road.
In the evenings there was a great deal of activity at the house. The lodgers, who were mostly young men at the time, brought back friends and girlfriends; cannabis was smoked and impromptu parties held in the lodgers’ quarters – often ending in a sexual free-for-all. It was after one of these sessions that Caroline had sex with Benjamin Stanniland, and then Alan Davis. Her regular boyfriend, Tony, and another young man also spent the night at the house with her. Rose too had sex with the lodgers, and was seen around the house wearing skimpy, see-through clothing. One lodger at the time, David Evans, says, ‘She was the landlady, but she came upstairs now and again because she liked sex.’
Caroline decided she disliked Fred. She was not frightened of him, but rather pitied him and thought him inadequate. ‘He was a little man with a big head. He was so cocky, a know-all,’ she says. Life was made more difficult at the house because Fred and Rose were arguing between themselves. Together with Fred’s distasteful conversation and Rose’s lesbian advances, Caroline decided that the job was not working out. After several weeks at Cromwell Street, she announced that she was leaving.
Rose had wanted to have sex with Caroline and was frustrated by her departure. She told Fred they would have to ‘get’ her – and, over the next few days, they formulated a plan to abduct and rape Caroline. When he was interviewed by police in 1994, Fred made it clear that murder was the likely outcome. He said the attack on Caroline Owens had been a test to see if Rose could help abduct a girl.
The plan was put into operation on 6 December 1972. They knew Caroline’s routine and chose a day when she would visit Tony Coates in Tewkesbury. Earlier in the day, Caroline was walking in Barton Street, Gloucester, when she saw Fred and Rose driving in their grey Ford Popular. In retrospect, it appears that they were stalking her. By 10:30 that evening, she had said goodbye to her boyfriend and was back at her usual hitch-hiking position opposite the Gupshill Manor. It was dark, and the Gloucester Road was quiet. She had not been standing there long when the Wests pulled up. Caroline had no particular reason to be scared of them, so she accepted a lift. Rose told Fred that she wanted to have a ‘girl’s chat’ with Caroline and clambered into the back beside her.
They drove south through the suburbs of Tewkesbury until they were in pitch-dark countryside. After twenty minutes or so, Gloucester’s cathedral spire rose in the distance, illuminated by floodlights. Fred bypassed the city centre and crossed the River Severn on the A40. During the journey, Caroline had become increasingly uncomfortable in the back seat. Rose had turned the conversation round to sex, and had slipped her arm over Caroline’s shoulder. When Caroline looked at Rose, she saw that she was grinning at her in a maniacal way.
Fred barked from the front, ‘You had sex tonight with Tony?’ Caroline was embarrassed and replied that she had not. Rose was now touching her breasts and thighs and caressing her face. She tried to kiss her on the mouth and Caroline had to push her away. ‘What’s her tits like?’ growled Fred.
They came to the Highnam roundabout, two miles outside Gloucester. Instead of taking the A40 to Huntley and then Cinderford, which was their normal route, Fred steered the car on to the A48 road to Chepstow. Caroline asked where they were going, and Fred said that he just wanted to ‘have a look’. Fred turned the car towards a five-bar gate, and parked so that the Ford’s yellow headlights illuminated the wooden slats and muddy field. Caroline was still fending off Rose’s hands and kisses, and noticed that Rose was ‘looking at [her] in a nasty way’. Fred turned round in his seat to face the women. He told Caroline that she was a ‘bitch’, and then punched her in the face several times, making her black out.
When Caroline came round she was still in the car. Her arms had been tied behind her back with her scarf, Rose was holding her and Fred was winding brown adhesive tape around her head, gagging her. ‘My reaction was terror and panic. I couldn’t open my mouth even if I tried.’ She was forced to breathe through her nose. Fred started the car up again and they began moving; she was being held down with her face pressed against the back seat of the car and could hear Rose cackling with pleasure. All Caroline could see from her awkward position were the tops of street lights. She guessed they were back in Gloucester, and felt tears running down her face.
The car came to a stop and the engine was switched off. Caroline was pushed inside 25
Cromwell Street and bundled up the stairs, while Fred and Rose pawed at her, laughing. They entered a room on the first floor which contained a sofa and a mattress. Fred then produced a knife and came towards her, making Caroline cringe. The blade was laid against her cheek. Fred turned it under the tape and cut. He ripped the tape roughly from her face, yanking out some of her brown hair. The knife had cut her slightly and Fred apologised.
They tried to calm their captive, and then removed all of Caroline’s clothes apart from her shoes. Fred tied Caroline’s hands behind her back with rope, blindfolded her and gagged her with cotton wool. Caroline’s eyes swivelled around, searching for light. She felt hands touching her, entering her vagina. They were smooth and the fingernails were long. Then a rougher, larger hand touched her; it was as if ‘they were carrying out an examination’.
She heard Fred talking about her genitalia. He said, ‘She is big inside, but the lips are too fat. They will get in the way of the clitoris.’ Caroline remembered what Fred had said about performing operations. Rose held Caroline’s legs apart, and Fred started to beat Caroline’s vagina with the buckle end of a leather belt, saying that he wanted to flatten her clitoris. Caroline counted ten strokes; the pain was appalling. Rose then performed cunnilingus on Caroline, while Fred fondled Rose’s breasts and had sex with Rose from behind.
Fred had not yet made any attempt to penetrate Caroline himself: Rose had been the one who was directly involved in the sexual assault. But in the early hours of the morning, Rose briefly left the room, leaving Fred and Caroline together. Furtively, obviously anxious that Rose should not catch him, Fred raped Caroline. It seemed to last for no more than a minute, then Fred withdrew and got dressed. He turned to Caroline and made her promise not to tell. She saw that he was crying.
Fred and Rose finally exhausted themselves and fell asleep. Caroline attempted to get out of the house through a window, but was unable to escape because of her tied hands.
At about seven in the morning, there was a knock at the front door of the house. Fred went and let the visitor in, bringing him quite near the room where Caroline was being held. She could hear their voices and tried to make a noise to draw the man’s attention, but Rose placed a pillow over her head to smother her. When the visitor had gone, Fred came back into the room. He was furious, snarling, ‘I’ll keep you in the cellar and let my black friends have you, and when we’re finished we’ll kill you and bury you under the paving stones of Gloucester.’ Hundreds of girls were already buried there, he added, and nobody would ever find her.
In the morning Fred said he was sorry for what had happened, and that it was Rose’s idea that they ‘get’ her. He started crying again and said she had been brought to the house for ‘Rose’s pleasure’. He added that Rose was like this when she was pregnant. Would Caroline forgive them and come back to work as their nanny? Caroline knew that her only hope of survival was to pretend she would. ‘I thought I was going to be dead,’ she says. She helped clean up the house, even doing the vacuuming, played with Anna Marie and Heather, had three hot baths, at Fred’s insistence, to wash away the brown gum marks that had been left on her face by the masking tape, and then got ready to go out. They all left the house and got in the Ford, intending to visit the launderette together. But when they arrived at the launderette, Fred had trouble parking, so he let Caroline and Rose out while he went to find a space. Caroline saw her chance to escape, and told Rose she would see her tomorrow.
When she got home to Cinderford, Caroline’s mother Elizabeth noticed the bruising on her daughter’s face. At first Caroline refused to tell her what had happened, saying that people would come and kill her if she spoke about it. But gradually the truth came out, and her mother contacted the police.
Detectives went to Cromwell Street and interviewed Rose, who demonstrated a belligerence which belied her innocent appearance and youth. When DC Kevan Price asked if the allegations were true, Rose mockingly replied, ‘Don’t be fucking daft. What do you think I am?’ But her hardness of character was not complemented by any criminal common sense. When the police asked if they might search the Ford Popular, Rose replied, ‘Please your bloody self.’ This was a mistake, as inside the car was a button from Caroline’s coat. A partially used roll of brown adhesive tape was found in the lounge, and a search of the house also uncovered a collection of pornographic photographs.
Fred and Rose were arrested. Rose told the police that she would not talk ‘because I told my husband I would say nothing’, but then went on to admit performing lesbian acts on Caroline. Fred also admitted assault. During questioning, it emerged that Rose was supposed to have psychiatric help for her lesbian tendencies, but Rose probably invented this story, hoping it would mitigate what she had done to Caroline. In any event, Rose never received any such psychiatric advice or counselling.
To press rape charges against Fred and Rose would have meant Caroline Owens giving evidence in court. Partly because of her reluctance to go through with such an ordeal, it was agreed that the Wests would plead guilty if they were charged with the lesser offence of assault.
Gloucester Magistrates Court is a bland building of sand-coloured brick, built in 1965 and furnished primarily with linoleum and fold-back plastic chairs. The case was heard there on Friday 12 January 1973. Fred was thirty-one years old and well-used to the criminal justice procedure. His wife, in her first court appearance, was nineteen and had just found out that she was pregnant again. They were jointly charged with indecent assault causing actual bodily harm; Police Inspector William Kingscott presented the prosecution case.
The horror of Caroline Owens’ ordeal was then steadily undermined by the defence, until it sounded as if she had practically asked to have sex. The court heard that Caroline had offered ‘passive co-operation’; that the door had remained unlocked throughout but she made no attempt to call for assistance, or to get away. The Wests, on the other hand, were portrayed as a sympathetic young couple with several children to care for; it was also suggested in court that Rose was seeking psychiatric treatment. When Fred came to give evidence, he readily admitted assault and said, ‘I don’t know why I did it, it just happened.’
The magistrates retired to think the matter over in chambers. Although Fred had several previous convictions, they decided that his past offences had no relevance to this case. As a man, Frederick West struck the magistrates as a ‘docile’ sort who did not look capable of violence. The police who had handled his arrest agreed. As for Rose, she had no criminal history at all and was pregnant. It seemed inappropriate to gaol either of them. It was up to the chairman of the bench, John Smith, to deliver the verdict. He would live to regret his words.
Mr Smith returned to the modernist courtroom, sat and turned to the dock. ‘We do not think that sending you to prison will do you any good,’ he told the Wests. They were fined £25 on each of the four charges, and were allowed to walk free. When Caroline heard the verdict, she was bitterly disappointed. ‘It made me feel like I wasn’t worth anything,’ she says. Shortly afterwards she attempted to take her own life.
As Fred and Rose wandered back through the shopping centre to Cromwell Street, it must have dawned on them what a very narrow escape they had enjoyed: they had set out to abduct, rape and murder Caroline Owens and had made the potentially disastrous decision of letting her go because they thought she would come back for more. Yet, even though she had gone to the police, they had still got away with only a fine. They might not be so lucky the next time. The next girl would have to be killed.
The Wests had been cultivating the friendship of Lynda Gough, the Co-op seamstress who had conducted sometimes tempestuous relationships with several of their lodgers and occasionally helped out by baby-sitting. When Caroline Owens left Cromwell Street, Fred and Rose suggested that Lynda step in to look after their children permanently, and come to live with them at the house. Soon afterwards Lynda told her parents that she was planning to move to a flat in the centre of the city. A week later, in
March 1973, while Lynda was still living at home, a woman called round to invite her out for a drink. Mrs June Gough thought the woman was a little overweight – she was in fact five months pregnant.
On 19 April, two weeks before Lynda’s twentieth birthday, June Gough returned home at lunchtime as usual to find that Lynda had gone. She had taken most of her possessions with her, and left a short note which read:
Dear Mum and Dad
Please don’t worry about me. I have got a flat and I will come and see you sometime.
Love Lin
Lynda was a rebellious, headstrong girl who did not take kindly to being given advice by her parents. When Mr and Mrs Gough read her note, they were concerned about the daughter they loved, but decided to wait a while before going after her. ‘Her father and I felt, “Let her have her head for a bit; she’ll be back,”’ says June Gough.
Rose was sexually attracted to Lynda, just as she had been to Caroline Owens. The girls were of a similar type: petite brunettes of the same age group. It was no coincidence that both Lynda and Caroline Owens had been offered work at Cromwell Street as nanny to the West children. If Fred and Rose were spiders, this was the web they used to trap their prey.
Lynda became involved in a sexual situation with Fred and Rose. It may have started in much the same way as with Caroline Owens, or Lynda may initially have been willing to have sex with them. However it began, what Fred and Rose did with Lynda went far beyond what she had expected, and even beyond the abuse that Caroline Owens had suffered.
Lynda was gagged with brown adhesive parcel tape two inches wide, together with white surgical tape which was wrapped around her head to prevent her screaming. Gagging was also a form of extreme sado-masochism which Fred and Rose found sexually exciting. They possessed magazines featuring women with complete rubber head-masks breathing through tiny tubes.
Fred & Rose Page 14