Fred & Rose

by Howard Sounes

  Winchester is a genteel city with a splendid cathedral, famous public school and many fine buildings. The pedestrianised broadway leading from the statue of King Alfred by the Guildhall up the hill to the law courts is lined with fashionable shops. It is a prosperous, middle-class place – the ancient centre of England. Winchester Combined Court sits on top of the hill where a fort has stood since Roman times; the steps up to it follow the contours of the earthworks which have defended the city over the centuries.

  The morning of Tuesday 3 October 1995 was mild, slightly damp with the threat of rain. Rose was awake by 7 A.M., and breakfasted on a boiled egg, cereal and toast. She then dressed in conservative clothes especially chosen for her trial, an outfit she would wear with little alteration every day for the next eight weeks: a long skirt, blouse and black jacket. She hung a small gold cross around her neck and put on gold-coloured earrings, circular with a filigree inlay. She applied a little rouge make-up to enliven her sallow cheeks, but despite the care she had taken to look her best, she still looked unhealthy, or ‘buffeted by life’ as her QC would later phrase it.

  Rose was then led to the police van that would take her to court. She was triple-locked into a steel inner capsule with a bulletproof glass panel – designed to prevent escape and to foil any attack on the prisoner. Two prison officers sat on a bench beside the capsule, and a third officer joined the driver in front. The police motorcycle outriders then switched on their headlights and the group of vehicles swept down into Winchester, where camera crews and newspaper photographers jostled behind crowd barriers.

  Number Three court at Winchester is an enormous, hangar-like space. Rose would later hear, to her obvious surprise, that 25 Cromwell Street could be fitted into the court with room left over. The ceiling features a large square of fluorescent lights. To the sides of this are windows covered with plastic, so they will not shatter in the event of a bomb going off. PVC panels, coloured a dirty cream and looking like the cushions of a 1960s sofa, cover two walls. The judge sits on a vast wooden dais, so gigantic and forbidding it would have been in keeping with the brutal architecture favoured by Mussolini. Behind the dais is an expanse of wood veneer and a drape of blue cloth.

  Justice Mantell entered the court dressed in his scarlet robes and bowed solemnly before sitting. Between him and the dock sat the counsel, wearing black silk and white wigs. In an attempt to speed the trial along, the court stenographers – who sat beneath the judge – would type each word of the proceedings into a computer system known as CaseView, and Justice Mantell and the counsel all had LCD monitors in front of them. The police, including John Bennett, sat by the witness box, and the press and court artists were divided into two sections facing each other on opposite sides of the room. In annexes across the hall, dozens more journalists listened to the proceedings through speakers.

  Rose stepped into the dock at 10:30 A.M., bowed awkwardly to the judge (although it is not customary for the defendant to do so), then sat and looked impassively ahead, with her lips slightly parted and her sleek brown hair flopping forward over her large spectacles.

  A jury of eight men and four women, apparently ordinary local people who seemed both surprised and pleased to be told which case they had been selected for, were quickly chosen without objection. Then the court clerk read out the ten counts of murder. It had been decided previously that the rape and assault charges would not be heard at this time, but set aside for a possible later trial. To all ten murders the jury were told that Rosemary Pauline West had already entered a plea of not guilty.

  The judge turned in his throne-like chair, smiled engagingly at the jury, and warned them not to be influenced by anything they might have read about the case, which he conceded had its ‘sensational aspects’. He then dismissed them for the day so he could hear legal arguments. As the journalists scurried off to file long descriptions of Rose in the dock – although she had been as impassive as stone throughout – Brian Leveson and Richard Ferguson discussed legal technicalities about what evidence the jury should hear in the coming weeks.

  Richard Ferguson for the defence said the evidence of Rose’s sex life and the alleged treatment of Caroline Owens, Miss A and Kathryn Halliday had no place in the trial, and therefore should not be admitted – it was ‘disputed evidence’ and the whole Crown case was built on ‘shaky ground’.

  The prosecution, however, suggested the treatment of these women was ‘similar fact evidence’, meaning that it established a pattern of behaviour repeated in the killings. Justice Mantell decided the point by citing the legend of Bluebeard, who, as recounted in many folk tales, murdered a number of his wives and chopped off their heads. The judge said that if one of the wives about to be beheaded had escaped and told her story, then that would be admissible evidence of Bluebeard committing multiple murder. In the same way, he would allow the jury to hear about the ordeals of Caroline Owens and others. This was a considerable victory for the prosecution, because it meant that the jury would hear evidence of Rose’s penchant for sadistic lesbian sex.

  After a day of rest, so Brian Leveson could observe the Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, the case started in earnest on Friday 6 October. Brian Leveson’s opening speech was a marathon piece of oratory, sixty-one pages long in document form. It would take all of that day and a portion of the following Monday to read.

  Although some in court felt his delivery was not as effective as that of his predecessor Neil Butterfield, the content of the story he had to tell was moving and deeply shocking to those who, until now, had no detailed knowledge of what Fred and Rose had actually done to those young women and girls found buried in Gloucester. Standing with one hand resting on his portable shelf of law books, Brian Leveson described how in February 1994 the police had gone to Cromwell Street to find Heather West, and had stumbled upon secrets ‘more terrible than words can express’: the remains of dismembered and decapitated young girls ‘dumped without dignity or respect’ in holes beneath the garden, bathroom and cellar. An unprecedented police investigation had followed. He said that, for at least seven of the victims, ‘their last moments on earth were as objects of the sexual depravity of this woman and her husband now dead’. In the dock Rose sat without apparent emotion, studied now by the members of the jury who looked keenly at her for the first time. She would later appear to cry, rubbing her eyes under her spectacles.

  Brian Leveson said that Fred and Rose were ‘in it together’, and that although the evidence against her was circumstantial – because ‘nobody says “I saw Frederick stab” or “I saw Rosemary strangle”’ – the jury would find that evidence convincing. Mr Leveson continued: ‘At the core of this case is the relationship between Frederick and Rosemary West; what they knew about each other, what they did together, what they did to others and how far each was prepared to go. Much of what follows can be explained in the context that both were obsessed with sex … The Wests shared a knowledge of each other which bound them together.’

  He went on to describe the macabre way in which the victims were found at Cromwell Street: young girls hidden in holes which formed a pattern in the cellar, a ‘circle of death’. He said that, with the help of forensic scientists, these victims would ‘speak from the grave as to what happened to them’.

  The first witness for the prosecution would be Rose’s mother. Now aged seventy-six, Daisy Letts cut a tiny figure in the witness box, all but obscured by the four microphones before her – a wizened, white-haired head dwarfed by the panoply of law. She answered questions in a small voice, addressing the counsel with unnecessary subservience as ‘sir’. Rose watched her mother closely, and, at one stage between questions, Daisy darted a furtive look back at the daughter she had not seen in the flesh for many years. Their gaze met for a moment and then Daisy snapped away. This was the conclusive moment of their tragic relationship: mother giving evidence against daughter, recalling the moment half a lifetime before when Rose had said there was nothing Fred would not do, even murder.

>   When Daisy left the box after a little less than an hour, her handkerchief clutched in her hand, it seemed unlikely that she would ever face her youngest daughter again.

  Next came Rose’s elder sister Glenys, whom Rose had also not seen for years. Glenys glared at Rose as she entered the court, declining the offer of a seat. Her voice trembled as she told how Fred had explained to her his ‘open marriage’ with Rose, and asked if she had ever thought of trying it. With every movement of her body, every inflection of her voice, it was clear that Glenys felt acutely the shame into which Rose had finally dragged her family.

  One of the early dramas of the trial was the evidence of Elizabeth Agius, the woman who had lived next door to the Wests in Midland Road, and who had baby-sat for them while they went cruising the streets for young girls. Mrs Agius had travelled from her home in Malta for the hearing, and was extremely unhappy about giving evidence. A ruddy-faced, middle-aged woman with tightly permed hair, she looked like life had worn her out. Under vigorous cross-examination by Richard Ferguson for the defence, she denied telling the police that she had ended up in bed with a naked Fred and Rose after drinking a drugged cup of tea, and that Fred had had intercourse with her. Ferguson said she was lying – a suggestion indignantly denied. She also denied sleeping with Fred while Rose had been in hospital giving birth to her daughter Mae.

  It was then established that Mrs Agius had already been paid for interviews given to both the BBC and independent television, and had contacted the Sun newspaper even before speaking with the police. Asked why she had not told the press to go away when they knocked on her door, she tartly replied: ‘They don’t know what going away means, do they?’ She then left the box and returned home to Malta. But the following day the court heard that Mrs Agius had indeed told a police officer that she had been in bed with Fred and Rose, but that she would deny this if asked in court because she feared her husband would leave her if he found out. This somewhat undermined her reliability.

  A more effective prosecution witness was Caroline Owens, who had long prepared for her appearance. Still an attractive woman at thirty-nine, neatly dressed in dark jacket and white blouse and with her hair tied back, she retold the story of her ordeal at the hands of Fred and Rose that winter night in 1972, when she had been hitch-hiking home to Cinderford from Tewkesbury. Her evidence about being tied up, beaten and raped at 25 Cromwell Street was powerful, particularly as she recalled the moment when Fred had threatened to murder her and bury her ‘under the paving stones of Gloucester’, where nobody would ever find her. Under cross-examination she admitted having entered into a contract with the Sun newspaper worth £20,000. It was suggested that she had exaggerated her ordeal for commercial gain. But whatever damage this revelation did to her evidence was forgotten when the court heard the tragic story of how she had tried to take her own life after the rape. She then broke down in tears, sobbing that she only ‘wanted to get justice for the girls who didn’t make it. I feel like it was my fault.’

  Up in the public gallery sympathy was expressed for Caroline Owens, with general agreement that if she was to get £20,000 for her story then she deserved every penny. ‘I would have done the same,’ said housewife Christine Reeves. ‘I thought she was a very brave lady.’

  Gallery seats had become much sought-after, and many of those who came to watch were, perhaps surprisingly, attractive young college girls: media or law students of exactly the age and type who had been murdered by the woman in the dock. They leaned over the gallery’s glass barrier at each adjournment, stretching for a glimpse of the woman who was dominating the television news each evening, and were frustrated to find they could not see her because her chair was directly beneath where they were sitting.

  The evidence of Lynda Gough’s mother, June Gough, was commanding in its poignancy. Now a grey-haired, retired council worker, she eloquently recounted the tragic story of how she had confronted Rose West on the doorstep of 25 Cromwell Street and seen her wearing her daughter’s slippers. Mrs Gough’s description of her rebellious but loved daughter was moving in its honest simplicity. She said that Lynda was ‘cheerful, happy and friendly. She accepted some advice, but as she got older – I would say eighteen or nineteen – she started to rebel against our advice, like a lot of teenagers in those days as well as today. They think they are clever, and really they are only just beginning their lives.’

  The court heard from former lodgers at Cromwell Street. Benjamin Stanniland, David Evans, and others who had rented rooms from the Wests in the 1970s were now grizzled middle-aged men with receding hair and lined faces. They spoke of the free and easy lifestyle of ‘flat-land’, and Benjamin Stanniland cheerfully agreed, under cross-examination, that some of them had been ‘known to the police’. Many girls had been brought back to the house and girlfriends had been shared around – as had cannabis, and bearded David Evans nervously admitted to ‘seven or eight’ convictions for possession of drugs over the intervening years. Richard Ferguson was trying to establish that people had come and gone from the house all the time, that there had even been police raids for drugs, yet the police had seen nothing suspicious so why should Rose? Outside the court Stanniland and Evans posed jauntily for the ranks of assembled photographers before sauntering off into obscurity again.

  Another former lodger, Liz Brewer, recalled how Rose had told her that when she retired she planned to spend all her time having sex. She remembered Rose’s ‘special room’ and the constant lewd talk. ‘Rose had her boyfriends and Fred his girlfriends. They were quite happy … they seemed to have a bond between them,’ she said. Just like Caroline Owens and Elizabeth Agius, this witness had entered into a contract to sell her story. She had also begun to write her ‘memories’ of life at Cromwell Street in book form. The message that Richard Ferguson was gently repeating to the jury was that many of the Crown’s witnesses had something to gain from a conviction.

  The court heard evidence of ‘thumps, crashes, wails and shrieks’ coming from Rose’s ‘special room’ at Cromwell Street. They were wails of sexual excitement, but not necessarily of pleasure, and occurred late at night after male visitors went into the room.

  Community nurse Jane Bayle, who had visited the house as a young girl, described how she had been unnerved by Rose, who had ‘stared a lot and dressed as a child’. Another witness told how Fred had cheerfully introduced Rose as his wife and Shirley Robinson as his lover.

  Miss A gave evidence on Monday 16 October, the start of the third week of the trial. A sad-looking young woman, in a black-and-white striped dress, her face and demeanour were marked by both her upbringing in a children’s home and consequent adult life of poverty and domestic problems. When she first met Rose, she said, she had thought of her as a big sister, a shoulder to cry on, but then she had been savagely abused, tied up and raped.

  Under cross-examination by Richard Ferguson, it emerged that when Miss A was only fourteen she had run away with Rose’s brother, Graham Letts, who was aged nineteen at the time. They set up home above a café in Cheltenham. When a middle-aged neighbour discovered how young Miss A was, he blackmailed her into having sex. Miss A admitted that all this was true, but denied knowing that Rose was Graham’s sister when she visited Cromwell Street – the unspoken inference being that she had a grudge against the family.

  Then details of her mental health emerged: she had visited clinics on several occasions, wrongly convinced she was pregnant, and had attempted suicide. Mr Ferguson suggested she had seen a psychiatrist at the Coney Hill Mental Hospital, and had been experiencing bizarre hallucinations of a headless man. He said she tended to fantasise; she had also undergone a course of Electro-Convulsive Therapy and had heard voices in her head. Mr Ferguson asked if she had been diagnosed schizophrenic. Although Miss A denied this, she agreed that in her mind she had seen ‘a man in black’, and that this man was Fred West. The cross-examination had been a skilful one, based on her medical records, and the effect was to make the witness appear unreliable.
Neither was the prosecution helped by the revelation that she, too, had agreed a deal with a newspaper, this time worth £30,000.

  The next day, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Heather West’s birth, the court heard about both the cruel and, surprisingly, caring side to the Wests. When Heather had disappeared in 1987 Rose had callously told neighbour Margaretta Dix that she was ‘not bothered’ if Heather was ‘alive or dead’. But it seems Fred and Rose were also capable of compassion, for when Mrs Dix’s husband died suddenly, it was the Wests who went to comfort her.

  There was also unexpected testimony about Fred and Rose’s relationship. A former girlfriend of Steve West told how Fred and Rose had argued, on occasion even leaving Rose with a black eye, and that Rose had once said, ‘After everything we have been through together, he treats me like this.’ Another witness remembered Rose saying she was lucky that Fred stayed with her.

  A fascinating insight into Rose’s life as a prostitute was provided when a middle-aged man named Arthur Dobbs came to give evidence. Grey-haired and dressed in a business suit, white shirt, floral tie and silver-rimmed spectacles, he looked like a GP. But Mr Dobbs’ appearance was deceptive. After separating from his wife in 1985–86, he said he had visited a sex shop in Gloucester and bought a contact magazine. Through this he met ‘Mandy’, a woman he later discovered was Rose West. He had entered a bedroom at 25 Cromwell Street where he had been told by Rose to undress, as Fred watched. Fred then told him to ‘get on with it’ and left the room. Dobbs paid Rose £10. The relationship continued for eighteen months; after a while Dobbs carried out repairs on Fred’s van in exchange for having sex with Rose for free. One day Rose told him that Fred had been having sex with the children. Dobbs claimed he had telephoned social services anonymously some time between 1986 and 1988 to tell them about what he had discovered. If this was true, it indicated another missed opportunity by the authorities.