Fred & Rose

by Howard Sounes

  The murder of Shirley Robinson differs to that of most of the other girls found at Cromwell Street. She, like Kathryn Halliday in later years, was a willing partner to the Wests’ unusual sexual activity. She was not killed to satisfy their pleasure, but because of her pregnancy and the threat it posed to the love of Fred and Rose. For above all, Fred and Rose still loved each other: a passionate love that had crossed over into insanity.

  Apart from murder, Cromwell Street was also the scene of the physical and sexual abuse of children, including the Wests’ own elder daughters Heather and Anna Marie. Talking and listening to the elder West siblings is rather like meeting the survivors of a corrupting religious cult. They lived in unbearable conditions and yet came to accept the most extreme behaviour of the mother and father for whom they still retain love – exactly like the relationship between cult members and their manipulative, abusive, and often deadly leaders. Their future lives will be fraught with difficulty.

  Rose’s barrister, Richard Ferguson, was correct when he pointed out to the jury that they were not considering a normal suburban family: 25 Cromwell Street was a bizarre place, filled with children, lodgers, Rose’s male customers and Fred and Rose’s victims and victims-to-be. So many people passed through the house, including policemen and social service workers, that it is apparently surprising that the murders and child abuse went undetected for so long.

  Cromwell Street was, at times, almost an open house to every waif and stray looking for shelter. But whatever they witnessed, or whatever suspicions they had, these visitors were not the sort who would be inclined to go to the authorities. In many cases, they were in trouble with the police themselves, or runaways from institutions which they feared and loathed.

  When Rose told the runaways who visited her from children’s homes not to say where they had been, she knew well that they would not. Miss A did not tell anybody when she was brutally raped by the Wests. Instead she locked herself in her room, believing that everybody thought girls from children’s homes were naturally ‘bad’.

  It is often asked why the neighbours did not know what was going on. The answer is that Cromwell Street is bedsit-land: a transient, down-at-heel corner of the inner city, where the Wests were among the most stable residents. At least they had a mortgage and brought up a family, both factors which made them a rarity in the street. There were hardly any regular neighbours, just people who came and went, with their own problems to occupy them, waving hello as they walked to the corner shop.

  It is true that the Wests took in lodgers at one stage, and that these lodgers heard and saw many things, but nothing that was not easily explicable at the time. Maybe there was a lot of noise from the house, but Fred was a builder. They may well have suspected that prostitution was going on, but that would not be unusual for the area in which they lived. Young girls came and went, but it was that sort of free and easy place – there was no reason to suspect that women were being raped, tortured, murdered and buried in the cellar. At Rose’s trial, the court heard from a string of witnesses who reported screams and odd conversations at Cromwell Street in the 1970s, but they were only giving this evidence because the publicity of the case had made them put two and two together (maybe some also thought there would be money to be earned from it). These stories would never have been heard otherwise.

  Inevitably the authorities will be criticised, and there were occasions over the years when the suspicions of the social workers and teachers really should have been alerted. It seems extraordinary, for instance, that a child’s disappearance from school is not investigated, as in the case of Charmaine.

  These were the issues addressed at a major press conference held directly after the sentencing of Rose at Winchester. It emerged that the West family had come into contact with the authorities very many times over the years.

  Their children had visited the Accident and Emergency departments of local hospitals, for example, on thirty-one occasions between 1972 and 1992. The medical records showed worrying complaints: a child who had apparently fallen on a knife, another who had hurt her chest ‘falling off a gate’, and a third with lacerations between the toes. Thrush and gonorrhoea had been present in the family and the children suffered from speech impediments and squints – classic symptoms of abused children.

  Fred had also come into open conflict with teachers at their schools, opposing special care and even admitting punching one of his children.

  One of the West children had been in contact with the NSPCC in 1989, but reports of this case had mysteriously been shredded. There had been an anonymous call to social services in 1988, saying children were being left on their own in Cromwell Street: the house was visited but nothing was found to be wrong – and the index card of this incident had also vanished.

  Gloucestershire Health Trust announced it would review its procedures; the NSPCC agreed it needed to ‘learn lessons from this tragic case’; and other authorities made similar statements, saying they would try and learn from any mistakes.

  But we should remember two things before scapegoating these institutions. Firstly, it is only in recent years that direct links have been established between schools, hospitals, social services and the police. If a child with Charmaine’s history were admitted to a casualty unit now with suspicious puncture wounds, one would expect the social services to investigate how she came to be injured, and to remove her into care for her own protection if there was cause for concern. But in 1971 nothing was done, because there was no procedure, and Charmaine was murdered.

  Secondly, and crucially as far as any criminal activity is concerned, the police had no reason to launch a murder inquiry in relation to the Wests until the 1990s simply because they had no firm information. It is, therefore, a testament to Fred and Rose’s bravado that drug squad police could have regularly raided 25 Cromwell Street in the 1970s, and come up with little more than a few reefers, rather than a failure of the officers to be more observant.

  There is another, more difficult fact to face here. It would be inappropriate to challenge too strongly those who have already suffered so much, but before anybody blames the police, the children’s homes or the social services for these tragedies, the families of some of the victims must ask themselves why they did not contact the police straight away. In the case of Juanita Mott, for example, her known links with Cromwell Street may then have been investigated. Incredibly, six of the Wests’ twelve known victims were not officially reported to the police as missing persons.

  Rena, Charmaine and Heather are included in this list because, quite apart from Fred and Rose, they had relations who could well have contacted the police. The West and Letts families are large (see the West Family Tree) and there were plenty of aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, brothers and sisters who might have been expected to ask: ‘Where is Heather?’ or ‘Why haven’t we heard from Rena and Charmaine?’ But not one of Charmaine, Rena and Heather’s relations contacted the police once in all the years these three were missing.

  In the case of the girls who were properly reported as missing persons, there were thorough – and indeed extensive – police searches. That these searches did not take detectives to Cromwell Street was simply because there were no leads to point them in that direction.

  When the suspicions of the police were finally aroused, it still took a long time before a warrant was granted and the garden of Cromwell Street dug up. That this was ever done at all is a credit to Hazel Savage MBE. If financial considerations played a part in the delay then that is a matter for the consciences of those who procrastinated.

  Officially the last victim we know the Wests to have claimed was their daughter Heather, in 1987. But just as it seems improbable that Anna McFall was the first, Heather West was probably not the last (although the killing must have ended when the police investigation began in 1992). Nor were the ten women and children between Anna and Heather the extent of the killing.

  There is an abundance of evidence that many other women h
ave died: Fred himself boasted that he had killed many more – apparently telling Janet Leach there were twenty more – and made sinister allusions to other crimes and other grave sites; but it is the rate at which he and Rose killed that arouses suspicion more than anything: three died in 1974 alone, and yet there were long periods of time when apparently nobody was killed. This is so unlikely it cannot be right. There must be more, but it is not known where they are because, unlike those at Cromwell Street, the police have not been fortunate enough to stumble upon their remains.

  There are a host of other places the Wests could have buried these victims, and maybe even greater horrors are hidden elsewhere. The missing bones, for example; Mary Bastholm; and where did Fred go for so many hours the day he knew the police were about to excavate Cromwell Street? Maybe he blacked out as was later claimed, maybe he just sat and thought about his situation, as John Bennett has suggested. It is certainly odd that he did not take the opportunity to flee, knowing, as he must have done, that the game was up. Possibly Fred used the time to ensure that his other secrets were safe – maybe at another house, or an old farm building, or a café where Fred carried out some renovation work; maybe a lock-up, an allotment or a septic tank.

  It has long been rumoured that Gloucestershire police will start looking for more victims in places such as this, but the practical problems in doing so are enormous: unless the police know the precise spot where a body is buried it is not feasible to dig up the countryside on a hunch, destroying property and creating another blaze of publicity in the process. Even when the police were told exactly where a victim’s remains should be, as in the case of Anna McFall, the excavation can stretch to weeks of digging. Any further search would have all of these problems, coupled with the added disadvantage of Fred not being there to assist. It seems highly unlikely that Rose will ever choose to cooperate in the way Fred did, so further victims will probably only be discovered accidentally, by building or farm work in years to come.

  After the verdict in the Rose West trial, Gloucestershire police announced they were reviewing ‘potential avenues for further investigation’. This included their hope to trace nine young women who had links to Cromwell Street but had never been found. The police simply wanted to ‘establish that they are safe and well’. Sketchy details were released.

  Fred claimed that other people were involved in the murders, and the idea of a group of killers acting together is a sensational, perhaps fantastical one. As ever, it is important to remember that almost everything Fred said contained an element of make-believe.

  All this begs the question: what is the total number of the Wests’ victims? It is futile to try and fix a figure. All we know about for certain is Fred’s casual approach to murder, and the rate of killing of the girls, together with what Fred said to people like Janet Leach and his son, Steve. From this admittedly sketchy evidence it seems likely that he had been killing fairly steadily (apart from when he was in gaol or under police scrutiny) – quite possibly more than once a year – for about thirty years.

  There were times during this mayhem when Fred and Rose’s marriage was tested to breaking point. Fred attacked Rose, and her him; other times she seems to have been preparing to leave him; and Fred clearly dallied with the notion of setting up home with Shirley Robinson instead of Rose. But these were temporary setbacks, and they always came back together again. In the final years before their arrest, Fred and Rose loved each other as much as, if not more than, ever before. The pact of blood had not destroyed them, like the couple in Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, but preserved their love practically in its first flush, so they behaved almost like teenagers. ‘I will love you always,’ Rose wrote to Fred in 1992. She told Daisy Letts, ‘I’m happy, Mum.’

  Rose had been the most wonderful wife for Fred – a willing and enthusiastic partner to his excesses, a sexually voracious younger woman who would deny him nothing and support him in every crisis. She even seemed to enjoy the prostitution he was so keen for her to undertake. For Rose, Fred had been a good husband, a reliable provider who allowed her to have the large family she craved. He had also encouraged and condoned her passion for violent lesbian sex and been willing, in crude terms, to clear up afterwards. When they said they worshipped each other, they meant it. Fred and Rose were the perfect companions.

  In 1992, when they faced prison because of allegations of child abuse, Fred and Rose probably made another pact: if the secret of murder was revealed during the investigation it was agreed between them that Fred would assume all the blame, sacrificing himself for his beloved. Rose would be left with the security of the house, which she could keep or sell at a profit. After the Wests had been served with the warrant to dig up the garden, but before Heather was found on 26 February 1994, Fred and Rose must have rehearsed this agreement: Fred assured Rose he would take all the blame, and that her everlasting love was payment enough.

  Over the next few days he told the police what they wanted to know, going out of his way to exonerate Rose. But the plan went awry. Fred talked about much more than Rose had bargained for: twelve killings, ten of which she could be implicated in. He talked for hour after hour, often making mistakes, letting little titbits slip that contradicted what Rose had said. She was furious with him. She ignored him when they were reunited at Gloucester Magistrates Court, and Fred’s extreme hurt was plain to see. His spirit broke after this: his discussions with police became increasingly contradictory and then downright bizarre. In private he agonised over Rose’s rejection while, in her gaol, Rose told visitors of her hatred for Fred. She now felt sick when she stood next to him: some change from her letters to him only twenty-four months previously: ‘Remember I will love you always and everything will be alright.’

  Fred became confused. He almost implicated her on several occasions, talking darkly about ‘protecting’ another person, or persons. In private discussions with visitors, advisers and even the prison doctor at Winson Green, Fred spoke in an unhindered way about his pact with Rose and how she had betrayed him. Fred last saw Rose at a magistrates court in December 1994. Again she rejected him. A few weeks later he killed himself, offering his life up as a sacrifice – the culmination of a mad and terrible love.

  So we are left with Rose, behind bars now probably for the rest of her active life. Her decision to give evidence at Winchester Crown Court was a revelation to all who witnessed it. She showed herself to be tough and resilient, fighting for her freedom in any way she could: lying, concocting grief, blaming it all on Fred, together with her obvious resentment that she was there at all. Most telling was when she was put under pressure by the prosecution – then a little of her aggression showed through, and the court could clearly see she was capable of real violence.

  This was the multiple killer of ten, maybe many more young women and children, and it appeared she felt no remorse for what she had done (her shows of emotion during the trial seemed almost entirely contrived). For two months she sat through harrowing evidence of what she had inflicted on others, but never once showed genuine compassion or seemed on the verge of telling the truth. Sometimes she even laughed. Her plan in giving evidence was to aid her defence, but it only served to demonstrate what a heartless, aggressive and potentially dangerous creature she is. Her adoption of a cross and a poppy as Remembrance Day approached during the trial were such obviously cynical gestures that she fell even lower in everyone’s estimation.

  For all these reasons, I do not expect Rose will ever tell the truth about her crimes, nor do I think she has any consideration for the families of those she killed.

  The interest in people like Fred and Rose is curious. I would suggest that we are fascinated because we can study them in detail while remaining completely safe. They are like specimens of rare poisonous spiders, impaled on pins and set in cases at the Natural History Museum: we peer through the glass in distaste, secure in the knowledge that we can come to no harm.

  What we can learn from these macabre exhibits, what Fred and Ros
e demonstrated so effectively, is that it is possible to kill repeatedly for many years without being caught (and the Wests might never have been caught, were it not for a few slices of luck) – if there is a partner who will both conspire in the crime and help camouflage it afterwards. A nondescript family home, it seems, is an almost perfect hiding place for the victims of such a violent campaign. If Fred and Rose were able to do this and evade detection for so many years, why should there not be other couples whose lust has twisted itself into similar sadism?

  There might well be houses like 25 Cromwell Street in other parts of Britain, in the sort of shabby places we watch as the suburban train leaves a major city, the neglected streets we pass through on the way to the motorway. One of the many lessons of the story of Fred and Rose West is that horrors could be hidden in those houses, too; horrors of which we might never know.

  THE WEST FAMILY TREE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Howard Sounes (b. 1965), who was born in Welling, a suburb of South East London, was working as a news reporter for the Sunday Mirror in 1994 when he broke the first major stories in the case of Frederick and Rosemary West. Sounes went on to cover the West story extensively for the Sunday Mirror, then the Daily Mirror, up to and including Rose West’s trial in the autumn of 1995. Fred & Rose was first published shortly after Mrs. West’s conviction on ten counts of murder. A bestseller at the time, it has remained in print ever since, becoming one of the most widely read true crime books.

  Shortly after Fred & Rose was published, Sounes resigned from the Daily Mirror to pursue a career as a full-time author. His subsequent books have included a biography of American writer Charles Bukowski (Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life); biographies of musicians Bob Dylan (Down the Highway), Paul McCartney (Fab), and Lou Reed (Notes from the Velvet Underground); a book about Amy Winehouse and other musicians who died at the age of twenty-seven (Amy, 27); a history of the arts in the 1970s (Seventies); and Heist: The True Story of the World’s Biggest Cash Robbery.