Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story - Episode 2
An in-depth look at the real crime story of serial killers and couple, Fred and Rose West, revealing what took place at true house of horror, 25 Cromwell Street and other addresses in Gloucester over the course of many years. With witness testimony from those closest to the victims and rarely seen archive footage of the Wests. This true crime documentary also looks at recent police efforts to find the body of Mary Bastholm and tells her story, as well as the stories of the twelve other young women known to have been murdered by serial killers, Fred and Rose West, before they were caught and convicted in 1995.
They once professed to love the thrill of the kill and would often film their killings for their own sick pleasure. This true crime film will explore their psychology, how they killed and what may have led them to commit such heinous crimes, and tells the story of these depraved murderers from start to finish and explore their backgrounds, motivations and probable other crimes.
Fred and Rose West became Britain's most notorious killer couple, this true crime film tells the story of their victims and raises the question of how many more lives may have been lost to these most evil and deranged serial killer couple.
They once professed to love the thrill of the kill and would often film their killings for their own sick pleasure. This true crime film will explore their psychology, how they killed and what may have led them to commit such heinous crimes, and tells the story of these depraved murderers from start to finish and explore their backgrounds, motivations and probable other crimes.
Fred and Rose West became Britain's most notorious killer couple, this true crime film tells the story of their victims and raises the question of how many more lives may have been lost to these most evil and deranged serial killer couple.
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TVTranscript
00:00:00Fred had this notion that life could be quite lovely still in the future. Rose could get
00:00:15a little place close to wherever he was in prison and perhaps bake some quiche and bring
00:00:21it in for him and that life as a result wouldn't be too bad. But there was the realisation
00:00:31sinking into Fred that Rose was not about to wait tearfully for him. Fred gave instruction
00:00:43to me. I Frederick Walter Stephen West instruct Howard Ogden Solicitor that I am not guilty
00:00:54of the 10 charges of murder that I face. That I wish to be further interviewed to tell the
00:01:01police that the persons responsible are my wife Rosemary West and others unknown. I have
00:01:10only tried to protect someone else and so still cannot tell you the whole truth as I
00:01:18believe you well know. Builder Frederick West has now been charged with a total of nine murders.
00:01:36All those poor girls, all those lives he took. Frederick West minutes away from a reunion with
00:01:45his wife Rosemary is driven into Gloucester Magistrates Court. I didn't quite believe how
00:01:50violent and cruel she could be. They did not see the person, they saw a prey, a sex toy.
00:01:58She's wearing the girl's shoes and she killed her, in her dress and gown, but how far can you go?
00:02:03Rose was definitely the dominant one, whatever she wanted she got. I couldn't understand how
00:02:11she could do the things she's done. Is it really you? Was it really you? And did you really do it?
00:02:16We were people with souls who were dealing with the soulless. Body number 11, another chapter in
00:02:25this extraordinary murder investigation. All of us who were involved are affected to the grave.
00:02:36This is where we got hell of a problem, we've got to get it all out. I know how they were killed,
00:02:40because I've seen Rose do that to a girl once. She did so much damage to her that she had to kill him.
00:03:05Cromwell Street has a new look about it today. The house sign that's become a symbol for this
00:03:18investigation has been taken down by police. They feared it had become a macabre collector's piece.
00:03:24This morning the ninth set of remains discovered in the cellar on Tuesday night were taken for
00:03:29further detailed examination. Early indications are that the body was a female aged between 17 and 20.
00:03:36Fred had originally been married to a woman called Rena Costello.
00:04:03All we knew about him early on was that he came from Perrishbyshire originally. He lived in Scotland,
00:04:14or he met this girl in Scotland that he married and had two children with, Charmaine and Anne-Marie.
00:04:22They moved back to a caravan park in Gloucester and then Rena left or disappeared. He gave an
00:04:37account of what had happened to Rena that she had turned up in Gloucester. Fred had agreed to meet
00:04:46her and I think he met her at a pub in Barton Street.
00:05:16The account that Fred gives is garbled in that he suggests there was something accidental in
00:05:45how he strangled her. Murder and making love go together dovetail very well in any account Fred
00:05:53West gives. Fred was from the much Markle area and so that he was well aware of that location
00:06:12and that locality. Much Markle is a nice little village. Nothing really happens out there. Most
00:06:24of the properties in Much Markle are all detached. I would have thought it'd be ideal for somewhere
00:06:29to be placed into a field and they would never ever find them again. He was able to pinpoint
00:06:39the fields in which they were likely to be buried. The indication made to me from the
00:06:47investigation teams that there were two large fields. I think they were 15 acres and 20 acres
00:06:52in size. If you have some human remains somewhere, where are they? Fred was taken out from the
00:07:04custody suite in Gloucester Police Station in a police field with blacked out windows. It was
00:07:09about four or five o'clock in the morning. Taken out to the side. Fred was escorted by detectives
00:07:16and it was really to sort of indicate roughly where he thought he buried the remains. This
00:07:25caused the whole investigation to ramp up considerably because not only was Cromwell
00:07:31Street a center of the investigation, so were two fields out on the Gloucestershire border.
00:07:36The indications were that Fred's first wife was in one of the fields,
00:07:41that's Rena Costello, and that in the other field was a former girlfriend of Fred's called Honey McFall.
00:07:51He indicated to us that Rena Costello was buried by a tree which was on the edge of the field.
00:07:59Ground-penetrating radar was used. The device had run over the surface and said,
00:08:04oh there's a disturbance. So we dug out an area very, very near to the tree that
00:08:08Fred had indicated. It was at that point we then found the remains of Rena Costello.
00:08:16Roughly one and a half meters in the ground, dismembered, and suddenly that's where she was
00:08:22laid to rest. Well yesterday evening Frederick West was charged with the murder of Catherine
00:08:29West, Renee Costello, and she was the first wife of Frederick West and was last seen in
00:08:33or around Gloucestershire in either 1969 or 1971.
00:08:36Not long after he got with Rose, he got the two children, Charmaine and Anne-Marie,
00:08:54had to come and live with them.
00:08:56And at that time they got a house in Midland Road, and we only ever went there once that I can remember.
00:09:07Fred and Rose lived at 25 Midland Road prior to moving to Cromwell Street.
00:09:15Heather was born shortly after they moved there in 1970, and so that was the original
00:09:25nest of that nuclear family. I was in care till I was 19. It was a difficult time for
00:09:45me. I needed a job. The job arose, and I went after it. It would be the November-December
00:09:56time that I stayed with Fred and Rose. I used to sleep in the front bedroom. I had the room
00:10:06with the children. I was quite happy. Anne-Marie was a sweet little soul, very, very friendly.
00:10:24She wanted to talk about her dolls or whatever that she played with. Heather herself was
00:10:32just a baby, and she was just a pure delight. Absolutely lovely little soul. I did mention
00:10:45to Anne-Marie one day, there was a photo on the side of a little girl, and I did remember
00:10:53asking, who's that? Is that a cousin or something? She said, no, it's my sister, and she's gone
00:11:01to live with her mum. Now, that would have been Charmaine. It's hard to explain. I found
00:11:21the whole thing awful to deal with. It was the worst, because it was his own child. The
00:11:34account that Anne-Marie was told was that Rina had turned up and collected Charmaine
00:11:39to take her back to Glasgow. And that was the account accepted by her school, where
00:11:49she was taken out of school. Fred and Rose never spoke about Charmaine at all. And I do know that
00:12:01Fred had not long come out of being behind bars. We made extensive inquiries regarding Charmaine's
00:12:09background and her attendance at school. We were able to trace school records, which showed when
00:12:15she was there and when she was last seen at the school. These seemed to coincide with the time
00:12:21that Rose would have been looking after her, but Fred would not have been there. Fred was at an
00:12:28open prison at Leigh Hill, and we know that Rose used to go and visit him there, as did the children.
00:12:35I can't even remember meeting Charmaine. I can't even remember her. At some point in time,
00:12:46they stopped talking about Charmaine. Initially, there was two children, and then Charmaine was
00:12:52gone back to Scotland with her mother. That's what we were told.
00:13:05They were talking to Fred, and he said that they may find something in Midland Road,
00:13:19because he used to live there. Fred had mentioned a girl's name, but that person hadn't been found.
00:13:26One of the daughters hadn't been seen and was last seen alive at that house. She hadn't been
00:13:38seen in Cromwell Street at all. So I suppose they put two and two together and thought that
00:13:45if his one daughter Heather is here, who's at the other house?
00:13:56She'd reacted in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don
00:14:26think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think
00:14:56anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone
00:15:26would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would
00:15:56react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react in a way that I don't think anyone would react
00:16:27We would go to close the caravan up and bring Rose home for the night.
00:16:31You'd get there and find that she'd already shut the caravan down
00:16:38and wasn't there waiting for me. She was off with the customers.
00:16:44She abandoned selling hot dogs to have sex and service five pipe layers in the back of a van
00:16:53parked in the lay-by near the hot dog stand and she'd be sat in the car with them or in the van
00:16:59with him or whatever and I'll have to wait for her to come back before we could pack the van up
00:17:05and come home you know. You kind of realise that what's going on is at odds with this rather
00:17:14innocent sugary naive teenager that Rose West is trying to paint. She seemed to be wanting to be
00:17:25too sexually active for somebody of that age you know and she again wanted to be around older men
00:17:31which you think and you start to form the picture don't you. Bill Letts used to come around Cromwell
00:17:39Street even after Rose was with Fred. Her father was making love to her. He would never sexually
00:17:47abuse her. She was more willing than he was. I caught him at least half a dozen times.
00:17:55I can remember when it was only a small house and the bed for Rose was in our front room and we were
00:18:11in bed one evening we could hear her crying downstairs and Lenny said go down and see what's
00:18:16the matter with her. I went down and she's just crying and rocking herself and I said what's
00:18:23happened you know I don't want this life. She was fed up with her home life you know
00:18:31then it was just after that Rose met Fred.
00:18:38It was my feeling that Fred was the older person showing her love and looking after her and
00:18:46and telling her what was right and wrong what she can and can't do a bit like she would have had from
00:18:51my dad.
00:19:02They're still seeking Charmaine. We've done that from the outset of the inquiry and if anyone has
00:19:07any information relative to Charmaine we'd like to hear from them. The search is about to widen
00:19:12to addresses where Frederick West used to live. Once we completed our searches at 25 Cromwell
00:19:18Street we were then able to move on to 25 Midland Road.
00:19:35At 25 Midland Road there were other residents there who knew Fred and Rose. I mean she was 17
00:19:44with those babies. They knew of Rose and knew the difficulties she was having.
00:20:03A neighbour in the top flat Mrs Giles had a daughter the same age as Charmaine.
00:20:08On one occasion Mrs Giles's daughter had seen what must have been Rosemary about to beat
00:20:13little Charmaine with a wooden spoon. Charmaine standing on a chair with her hands tied behind
00:20:19with a belt. When Mrs Giles spoke to Rosemary she recalls Rosemary saying
00:20:24she's gone to live with her mother and bloody good riddance.
00:20:36Radar equipment which successfully helped pinpoint the bodies hidden at 25 Cromwell Street
00:20:41has now been in use at Midland Road. Charmaine disappeared when she was living in Midland Road.
00:20:49Perhaps she's in Midland Road.
00:20:53In the kitchen Fred was present and indicated that we may find remains
00:20:58below the floor of the kitchen.
00:21:02The search team excavated the floor went down about eight or nine feet
00:21:08and then they found a smaller set of remains because it was the remains of a child.
00:21:13It was a really sad really sad moment.
00:21:18Body number 11 is brought from 25 Midland Road Frederick West's home of the early 1970s.
00:21:25At that point we brought back and let the pathologist do their work.
00:21:32The pathologist concluded that the body had been placed on its back.
00:21:36There was a possibility that the legs had been amputated at hip level.
00:21:42There was a pretty strong presumption who it was
00:21:48but what mattered in her case was the time of death.
00:21:59To charge Fred alone he would have had to have been out of prison and of course there was the
00:22:05possibility that if Fred was in prison then Rose should be charged.
00:22:11There was a strong possibility that Rose West could have killed Charmaine alone.
00:22:25Once Rose was bailed off at the end of February she was already in this mode of huge shock and
00:22:32resentment of Fred West and what had he done blaming him. The whole momentum of the inquiry
00:22:39into the serial killing really stepped up. She was rearrested but once more
00:22:50denied any involvement whatsoever and she maintained that stance throughout.
00:22:54There was no shock and grief but I suppose Rose already knew entirely what was unfolding.
00:23:09Detectives won't comment on speculation they belong to Anna McFall
00:23:13once Frederick West's nanny. This was the 12th set of human remains that the search teams had found.
00:23:20Again it's that sort of closure and at least we know where you know Anna McFall ended up.
00:23:31So as far as we are concerned the 12 that we've identified are the extent of the victims.
00:23:38There's been much talk that there were others that he could have killed. One in particular
00:23:45one in particular a girl in Gloucester Mary Bastholme who I would have thought that fitted
00:23:53his modus operandi to a T.
00:23:58Mary Bastholme never reached the village of Hardwick and the last that was seen of her
00:24:03was at this bus stop on the main A38 road. The link was a pop-in cafe. Mary Bastholme worked
00:24:11there part-time as a waitress. Fred West was known to have frequented that cafe with Anna McFall
00:24:18one of his early victims who perished in July of 1967. It's also known that he
00:24:24did work building some toilets and possibly working on some drains there.
00:24:31So the police in 94 did some checks at the cafe.
00:24:37They had to weigh the evidence and obviously the disruption they felt wasn't justified.
00:24:42To go into the cafe and start digging and suspend the business.
00:24:51He was an evil man.
00:24:55Unconvinced Fred knew exactly where she is. However he denied that that was the case.
00:25:01Whether he was protecting others that might have been involved at that stage I don't know
00:25:06and I'm surprised that if he had been involved that he didn't admit to it
00:25:10but that is one unanswered question that got.
00:25:14Fred West was a prolific liar. I'm quite sure that he did kill Mary Bastholme
00:25:22but trying to extract the remote strands of truth from Fred's fantasies and lies
00:25:28was very difficult.
00:25:45No I can't. Now it's true that by that stage her resentment of being implicated
00:25:53had reached a pitch where she was telling me she wanted nothing to do with Fred West.
00:25:58Frederick West minutes away from a reunion with his wife Rosemary is driven into Gloucester
00:26:03Magistrates Court. She arrived moments later. This the first time they'd seen each other
00:26:07since they were arrested four months ago.
00:26:12The first time practically all the press ever laid eyes on them was at the
00:26:16Magistrates Court hearing in Gloucester.
00:26:18I was sat there with all these other press from all over the world thinking
00:26:24gosh and I looked to my right was Rose and coming up the steps was Fred.
00:26:32He seemed to want to make eye contact with her but from the outset she was very much that way
00:26:39of not wanting to have any dealings with him whatsoever.
00:26:42She blanked him in the dock. I know that there's a popular consensus with many
00:26:50observers and writers that that had a massive impact on Fred West.
00:26:55He appeared to be a little bit upset by the fact that she appeared quite cold to him.
00:27:01When he was subsequently taken back down into the Magistrates Court he was
00:27:05the fact that she was treating him in this way.
00:27:10Once Rose had been arrested and once they had met in the dock and she had cold shouldered him
00:27:20this is instruction to me. I, Frederick Walter West,
00:27:26instruct Howard Ogden Solicitor that I am not guilty of the ten charges of murder that I face,
00:27:34that I wish to be further interviewed to tell the police that the persons responsible
00:27:40are my wife Rosemary West and that I am not guilty of the ten charges of murder.
00:27:49to tell the police that the persons responsible are my wife Rosemary West and,
00:27:56insert the word possibly, her late father William Letts and others unknown.
00:28:05This is where we've got a hell of a problem. We've got to get it all out and sort it out
00:28:10because I have mixed it up deliberately for the police.
00:28:14I know how they were killed. I've seen Rose do that to a girl once.
00:28:18She hurt her and did so much damage to her that she had to fucking kill them.
00:28:26Fred West did a complete U-turn and said that he was not guilty of any of the
00:28:32murders and it was all down to Rose West and if he was guilty of anything it was just
00:28:36burying the bodies after Rose had killed them.
00:28:40Fred was always concerned about Rose until he got a very clear message from her at one stage
00:28:47and she is just not interested and she's turning her head away and he's dead in the water.
00:28:54He was on his own so far as she was concerned and that message without anything being said
00:29:03just through demeanour sank home in Fred.
00:29:13Fred was just desperate, bumbling along. With Rose there was none of that
00:29:20and she was determined that she would avoid this and put all the shit onto Fred.
00:29:27For now it seems as if the world's camera lens is focused on a street in Gloucester.
00:29:32People here can't begin to properly take in what has happened.
00:29:36I had the chief of police come here and investigated it and
00:29:43he told me not to look at the paper or watch the news.
00:29:50Many a time the jokes was going around the cafeteria where I worked
00:29:53and I had to go in the toilets and just I had a good cry and then go back to work with eight people knowing.
00:29:59It was really hard hearing jokes going around.
00:30:04It's like when I was at work I didn't know Anne-Marie was starting there, Fred West's daughter.
00:30:10It's just she walked in through the canteen door when I worked there in the canteen
00:30:14and I hid it. At work I hid it from Anne-Marie.
00:30:21I didn't want her knowing because I thought she'd been through enough.
00:30:28Now one day she said to me, look at this in the paper Cher.
00:30:34Without thinking I said I'm not allowed to look at papers or anything and then she
00:30:38come from behind the cigarette kiosk and she said to me, she put her arms around me and she said why.
00:30:44She said one of them was somebody you knew wasn't it. I said Cher it was my best friend Monita.
00:30:52And she just gave me the biggest hug. I said look when you're down I'll hold you up
00:30:58and Anne-Marie said the same to me. She said when you're down Cher I'll hold you up.
00:31:13So
00:31:32Linda Goff was a seamstress. She was offered accommodation at 25 Cromwell Street.
00:31:43In early April 1973 a woman friend collected Linda to take her for a drink. She was in her
00:31:50mid-20s with dark hair. Soon afterwards Linda left home saying she was moving into a flat.
00:31:56She was then aged about 17 and very naive after a very sheltered life.
00:32:03Her mother went there on one occasion to try and locate Linda who hadn't been heard of for
00:32:08a little while and spoke to Fred and Rose who both came up with some explanation about the
00:32:14fact that she had left that address and gone elsewhere. I was about to leave when I noticed
00:32:25she was wearing Linda's slippers. Then I noticed some of Linda's clothing on the washing line
00:32:29blowing in the wind stated Mrs. Goff. The woman said Linda had left clothing there when she went
00:32:34away. Linda's mother was rather suspicious about this but had nothing else to go on at that stage.
00:32:43She spoke to an officer police officer that she knew but there was no report ever of Linda being
00:32:50classed as a missing person. This appeared to be quite brazen by Rose but probably a feeling that
00:32:58she could get away with it and that nobody was going to ask any more questions about Linda's
00:33:03disappearance. The grim reality was that Linda had met a dreadful death at the hands of Fred and Rose West.
00:33:21She's wearing the girl's shoes and she killed her for fuck's sake
00:33:25and her dressing gown. I mean how fucking far can you go? You know I said you wore a fucking coat after
00:33:31you killed her. She said I washed it. Fucking hell what are you?
00:33:41It was put to Rose West and her reply was simply no comment. Initially I didn't quite believe or grasp
00:33:50how violent and cruel she could be because in her normal kind of conversational state she was
00:33:58a very reasonable person to get on with you know and it wouldn't be fair for me to say that
00:34:03she wasn't a good client to deal with. What evolved you know the evidence
00:34:08was that she was a very cruel woman in her own right.
00:34:15Everything's pointed to Fred doing all of this and what happened to the girls and
00:34:19the spotlight wasn't really on her but when you thought of it logically she knows more than she's
00:34:26letting go. So perhaps she has a lot more in this than what meets the eye.
00:34:35Frederick West the builder accused of mass murder is driven into Gloucester Magistrates Court.
00:34:41She arrived moments later.
00:34:50Fred West had felt somehow he had some control. He felt he would take the rap for Heather
00:34:56and no other remains would be found but of course the thing snowballed
00:35:02completely out of his control. All of a sudden he finds himself blaming Rose. That was when
00:35:08I felt Fred West was in a seriously bad place. He was withdrawn and depressed.
00:35:16New Year's Day of 1995 I got a phone call asking me if I'd heard anything and I said heard what?
00:35:24They'd heard that Fred had topped himself.
00:35:39Oh he could go and hang himself anyway when he's supposed to have been being
00:35:43watched all the time I don't know. Monster. Evil.
00:35:49All those not just one eight but all those poor girls.
00:35:54All those lives he took. And that really hurts me. I wish he'd suffered in prison.
00:36:05Our worst fears were realised when we heard that he had committed suicide.
00:36:10This obviously could have affected the the case against Rose. Although she'd been charged with
00:36:15offences it was to a great degree circumstantial at that stage and so that we were left with that
00:36:23situation where the whole case against Rose could have folded. I then quickly made arrangements to
00:36:32drive to see Rose West. I felt initially there was a warm glow about her. When she mentioned
00:36:40Fred West it wasn't with the same venom that she had been talking about him. Part of her was in a
00:36:48rather subdued almost gleeful way but there were lumps in her eyes. They didn't turn into tears
00:36:56that rolled down her cheeks but I was trying to discern was she upset or was she happy.
00:37:09To me I just thought he's put the blame on her and he's gone and hung himself.
00:37:20I'm going to take her with me one way or another you know. He should have stood trial and perhaps
00:37:25hopefully we'd find other victims of his because I'm convinced there's at least one. Fred West's
00:37:32suicide left many other questions unanswered. Peter Bastome remains convinced that his sister
00:37:38Mary was another victim. I believe he took a lot of secrets to his grave not only in
00:37:45Now when Fred West was interviewed he denied killing Mary Bastome, denied it to the police
00:37:52but there has always been a suspicion that Fred West killed more women than he admitted to the
00:37:57police and he was making admissions to his son Stephen shortly before he committed suicide.
00:38:05He was a young man. He was a young man. He was a young man. He was a young man. He was a young
00:38:11man. Not a hair was left on his head. He's died as a result of a multitude of
00:38:12surviving asualhoon violence. But at
00:38:24the same time he was also denying that he was involved in killing anybody
00:38:28and that he was just burying the bodies. So with that kind of really unreliable flaky narrative
00:38:38Um, where do you begin?
00:38:43Following Fred's, uh, death,
00:38:46then, of course, the spotlight is exclusively upon Rose.
00:38:51There was no further case against Fred,
00:38:54so Rose had to face the whole thing alone.
00:38:57The duty of the, uh, prosecution
00:39:00is to present a case
00:39:03that is so overwhelming,
00:39:06albeit it may be circumstantial,
00:39:11that there is no way
00:39:14that you could have been unaware of the goings-on,
00:39:19that it simply would not make sense.
00:39:28Rosemary West in public for the first time
00:39:31since her husband was found hanging in his cell on New Year's Day.
00:39:34It was a court appearance she was due to share with him.
00:39:44What we did hear in great detail
00:39:47was the pathological evidence from the doctors
00:39:50who had examined all the remains.
00:39:52They were finding...
00:39:54..facial tape around their mouths and their noses.
00:39:59They were finding where their hands had been tied together.
00:40:05It just must have been awful for them.
00:40:08There were so many weird, salacious details in this case
00:40:13that Rose was very much part of the picture.
00:40:16She must have known about what was going on
00:40:19because it was such confined spaces
00:40:21to have enabled him to carry out these crimes.
00:40:29She then became the centre of all interest
00:40:33and the serial murder case was entirely focused on her then.
00:40:39Peter Badge, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, told Mrs West
00:40:43he'd listened to the evidence of the Crown
00:40:45and he was satisfied she should stand trial before a jury.
00:40:50In the dock, Rosemary Pauline West, who's 41,
00:40:53stayed silent as the decision was made public.
00:40:57Mrs West's lawyer said his client's morale was reasonable.
00:41:00Mrs West is aware of the way the matter has progressed
00:41:03despite the flimsy evidence.
00:41:05Mrs West maintains her innocence.
00:41:07She strenuously denies all the charges that have been put against her.
00:41:11So it was determined at a committal
00:41:13that there was a prima facie case against Rose West on her own
00:41:16and she would be going to trial.
00:41:18So it was a circumstantial case
00:41:20and it would have been a circumstantial case
00:41:22against Fred as much against Rose
00:41:24to say they were there and saw Fred and Rose kill somebody.
00:41:40The court atmosphere, I would say, was electric.
00:41:44It was the real thing.
00:41:47In all this momentum,
00:41:50this build-up to subject to British justice
00:41:54some truly horrific event,
00:41:57you can never anticipate how the trial would go.
00:42:00At Winchester Crown Court for Rose's trial,
00:42:03she really didn't show a lot of emotion at all.
00:42:06She denied any involvement whatsoever
00:42:08and she maintained that stance throughout, even at her trial.
00:42:13I was a bit of a mess when I got to the court.
00:42:16My time in court was focused on what I'd heard where Heather was concerned.
00:42:21Had I seen any of the gentlemen that had visited Rose?
00:42:25Were there any pointers to what they had been doing?
00:42:29She stared directly at me and I stared directly back.
00:42:33It felt surreal to be facing Rose West.
00:42:36It just felt like, is it really you? Was it really you?
00:42:39It just felt like, is it really you? Was it really you?
00:42:42Did you really do it?
00:43:01I knew Theresa Singer-Tanner.
00:43:06I really liked her because she had strong views about human rights
00:43:11and wanting to save the world.
00:43:15And she was also my friend.
00:43:17We had something in common, being both Swiss.
00:43:23I just still cannot understand how it all happened.
00:43:28She was fearless.
00:43:30She never, never thought that it would happen.
00:43:33But she took risks the moment she hitchhiked.
00:43:42In relation to Theresa Singer-Tanner, one of the victims,
00:43:45she was hitchhiking through the Gloucester area,
00:43:48en route to Holyhead and then to Ireland,
00:43:51where it would seem that Fred and Rose picked her up at some stage
00:43:55and took her back to Cromwell Street.
00:43:59Rose's trial showed that this was the type of category
00:44:02that they were using of young women picking up hitchhikers
00:44:06or people that were just passing through the Gloucester area.
00:44:17How often do you see a hitchhiker now?
00:44:20You don't.
00:44:22As a lorry driver in the 70s, I'd drive up to Scotland
00:44:26and I'd pick up two girls that were hitchhiking.
00:44:30A few days later, you'd pick up another couple of girls
00:44:34or a girl and a guy hitchhiking, coming back down, you know?
00:44:39You used to see it all the time.
00:44:41To get someone to get in your van or your car with you...
00:44:47..it's difficult, isn't it?
00:44:49Let alone getting them to come back with you and to live with you
00:44:53and he would never have got the girls without her help.
00:44:59She was the one who could talk to people,
00:45:03make them feel comfortable.
00:45:08Mr Fred West picked her up in his little van
00:45:15and opened the door, Rosemary smiling.
00:45:19You know, 21-year-old, like Teresa.
00:45:24So they were two girls together.
00:45:27Many people would fall for that.
00:45:30When you decide to hitchhike, most probably you take risk,
00:45:35but they may not have looked risky at all
00:45:38until you were in their house.
00:45:42I think they were masters at that game.
00:45:45You know, they did not see the person.
00:45:48They saw a prey, a sex toy, someone to murder.
00:45:53That gave them already so much excitement.
00:46:05Caroline Owens, who was a superb witness,
00:46:11eventually was a crucial witness at court in relation to Rose.
00:46:28Caroline Owens was a young woman
00:46:30who became the nanny for Fred and Rose
00:46:36and went to live at 25 Cromwell Street.
00:46:42After several weeks, she started to feel very uncomfortable,
00:46:46particularly about Rose's attention to her.
00:46:49It was a case of Fred and Rose
00:46:52trying to coax her into a relationship.
00:46:56So she decided to leave.
00:46:59She was aware that the Wests weren't happy about that.
00:47:03Some months later, she was hitchhiking again.
00:47:09She was abducted and sexually abused
00:47:11by Fred and Rose through the night.
00:47:15When the opportunity arose, she was able to escape,
00:47:20reported it to the police.
00:47:23What she described was abduction.
00:47:26It was an abduction.
00:47:29What she described was abduction, sexual abuse, rape.
00:47:34With the use of bindings and beatings,
00:47:36she had her genitalia beaten by Fred with a belt.
00:47:40And it should have been a rape trial.
00:47:42Somehow, Fred and Rose seemed to convince the magistrates
00:47:46that they were just a young couple
00:47:49who were getting on with their lives and had made a mistake.
00:47:55So the thing was kicked into touch as a sexual assault,
00:47:59fined 25 quid and cost a magistrate.
00:48:02THEY CHATTER
00:48:20We decided to call Rose West as a witness.
00:48:25There was the possibility that she might have been able
00:48:28been able to paint a picture that effectively made it credible that somehow Fred was doing
00:48:35all these dreadful things in his own concealed time. It was possible for her to say, look,
00:48:41I had all these children to look after. I was just too busy to know it was a large house
00:48:47and Fred worked long hours on his own. I didn't always know where he was or what he was doing.
00:48:58It seemed that Anne-Marie was a mini-mum. She had to get the children ready for school
00:49:02in the morning as well as getting herself ready for school, while Rose sat there smoking.
00:49:09She must have known what he was doing. At no stage did she still make any admissions
00:49:17regarding any of the victims and that she was not cooperative at any stage in relation
00:49:25to what had taken place. I felt that the jury were prepared to give her a chance. I remember
00:49:30her saying in the courtroom, it was all Fred. Fred did this, Fred did that. It was slightly
00:49:37frustrating from the point of view that we would have liked to have heard her story as
00:49:42to how these victims died and what her involvement was. And I thought to myself at the time,
00:49:49I don't know if Fred did do it all himself. I think she was part of it. She might not
00:49:59have been the catalyst, but she was definitely part of it. I couldn't understand how she
00:50:06could do the things she's done. I mean, I know at the beginning we thought she's just
00:50:11the innocent party, but it brought her true colours out of what she did. And she couldn't
00:50:21have got away with it without her.
00:50:29Anna Marie came to Winchester in a closed van protected by a police escort to face her
00:50:34stepmother across a silent courtroom.
00:50:38Anna Marie's evidence was very significant.
00:50:44She told the jury, I just kept asking, what's going on? What's happening? Rosemary was whispering
00:50:49to my father and laughing, adding, these are things that I've locked away, things that
00:50:54hurt. I never told anyone because I believed what happened was normal.
00:51:00Anna Marie had been abducted and taken down to the cellar by Fred and Rose. Bound, gagged,
00:51:09strapped to some weird metal contraption that Fred had made at work, beaten and sexually
00:51:16abused. Likewise, Caroline Irne, who'd made her first statement about how she'd been abducted,
00:51:25bound, gagged, beaten, raped.
00:51:29The things that they were saying in the court, the more I heard, the more I really was very
00:51:36upset by it all. It was not something I wanted to hear.
00:51:42So there was a picture emerging and that was what the prosecution relied on, to say that
00:51:47these other victims went through a similar process of abduction. But there was no question
00:51:54that Anna Marie implicated Rose as someone who was entirely complicit and present and
00:52:02involved in her abuse.
00:52:09The way that she was abducted and assaulted, but thankfully was able to escape from their
00:52:17clutches, but bore quite a striking resemblance to some of those other victims that we found
00:52:23and what happened to them.
00:52:26But in terms of the criminal burden of proof, how does that totally incriminate Rose? I
00:52:32mean, still a lot of question marks.
00:52:35I think one of my main worries was that she would get let off and then she would come
00:52:41and hunt me down. If she gets away with this, she'll come and she'll kill me.
00:52:51Rosemary West has always maintained she knew nothing of the murders with which she is charged.
00:53:09The court also heard from Dr David Whittaker, a forensic dentist of 30 years' experience.
00:53:15A set of remains arrived for me in Cardiff, which was totally different. Firstly, it was
00:53:24a small child, whereas all the others were adults. The problem was that the police said
00:53:34to me that they wondered if it was possible to determine when she had died, not just who
00:53:42she was, but when she died. I sort of thought to myself, there's a lot more to that question
00:53:49than meets the eye.
00:53:54This is an x-ray of Charmaine and this is the kind of information that we need to be
00:54:02able to determine the age at which the child died. Some of the teeth are not complete.
00:54:10They're only partially formed and it's by looking at all of those teeth and estimating
00:54:18how far the growth has gone that we can work out how old the individual is.
00:54:28I was able to determine that this individual was about eight and a half years old, which
00:54:35could only be Charmaine.
00:54:43The photograph used by Dr Whittaker came to light. A brilliant photograph of Charmaine
00:54:53and Anne-Marie smiling at the camera. That gave a really excellent opportunity for Dr
00:55:01Whittaker to do a very thorough forensic match.
00:55:14This is one of the three or four professionally taken photographs of Charmaine, but it was
00:55:21this one that we didn't get until just before the trial and it was the crucial set of photographs
00:55:29really in the whole case and what we're looking for is the exact details of fit along here
00:55:39of these tiny little ridges on the teeth and the position of these teeth and particularly
00:55:48it's the movement of all these upper teeth between the photograph being taken and the
00:55:56body and the death and that movement enables me to calculate the length of time that's
00:56:02expired and therefore to calculate the time of death.
00:56:14Because it turned out that the results of my calculations of the time of death more
00:56:21or less fitted exactly to the time that Frederick West was in jail.
00:56:28It had to be Rose who was responsible for Charmaine's killing. Because of the work that
00:56:33Professor Whittaker had done, the timing of it was while Fred was in prison and Rose was
00:56:39the only one that was looking after her. She was definitely involved with killing Charmaine.
00:56:47I was showing merging images in front of Rosemary West as the defendant in the dock.
00:57:00Well, it's one of the very few times when I couldn't avoid looking at Rosemary because
00:57:09I was virtually staring either at my screen with these images coming up or if I just glanced
00:57:17sideways that much, there was Rosemary because she had to be in that line of vision to be
00:57:23able to see the images. Probably the most disconcerting thing for me, I couldn't avoid
00:57:30seeing the change in her face as these images came up. She showed very, very little, if
00:57:39any emotion, except at this one event of seeing her stepdaughter visibly projected in front
00:57:49of her in full colour and then merging images. It just went through my mind, she is not happy
00:57:57at that at all.
00:57:59This was vitally important for us because it took Rose away from just a suggestion that
00:58:05she'd been involved in killing and nothing that we could specifically prove other than
00:58:09the fact that we thought that she would have been there. But this was something that we
00:58:14could actually say that it was her and her on her own without any involvement of Fred
00:58:20who actually killed Charmaine.
00:58:23So we put her as not just an accomplice but an actual killer in her own right.
00:58:38I'm never confident on trial because it's going before a jury, people that don't know
00:58:44It's going before a jury, people that don't know the case, so this is our jury system.
00:58:53It was a tense period when the case was concluded, the jury retired.
00:58:58Once I'd given evidence I watched it like a hawk until that final verdict. I couldn't
00:59:04see any reason why she would get let off because of what she'd done, but what if there was
00:59:09a technicality somewhere? What if she got away with it?
00:59:17She saw little of the short journey from her prison cell, reporters and cameras hoping
00:59:23for the briefest glimpse of the woman facing ten murder charges.
00:59:27The media coverage was just about everywhere at the trial. Some of it was very, very heart
00:59:33wrenching to watch so I would watch about ten seconds and switch it off because I couldn't
00:59:37deal with it. As it was starting to come to an end I started to watch because I wanted
00:59:41to make sure that she was put down.
00:59:44The verdict came back after a deliberation of about six hours and Rose West was found
00:59:50guilty of all ten murders.
00:59:55The judge was brief and polite, didn't waste time. He asked Rose West, he said stand up
01:00:02Rose West.
01:00:04Rosemary Pauline West, on each of the ten counts of murder the sentence is one of life
01:00:09imprisonment.
01:00:11There was no kind of emotive rant by the judge, he was very brief but very clear in what he
01:00:18had to say.
01:00:19The trial came to a dramatic end at lunchtime today.
01:00:22My client is totally devastated, she wept uncontrollably after hearing the verdict of
01:00:30She was very shocked and by the time she was back in the holding cells at Winchester Prison
01:00:35she was very, very distraught. She was in a very bad way. The enormity of being formally
01:00:45found guilty of something so dreadful, any other response would have been beyond belief.
01:00:52But she wasn't saying I'm innocent, I'm innocent, how can this happen to me?
01:00:57She was just cursing Fred West in between and she could catch her breath.
01:01:10When I heard the verdict, I had to switch to every channel to make sure every channel
01:01:14had the same verdict. I was very relieved.
01:01:18I felt that my job had been completed, no exhilaration about the fact that she was convicted
01:01:25but just of a job well done.
01:01:29I wasn't surprised she was found guilty and it's normal, I think she should stay in prison
01:01:36for the rest of her life.
01:01:39But she still thinks she's innocent, she still thinks she hasn't done anything wrong.
01:01:44Let her think it, is all I say, but no, never let her out again.
01:01:49I'm so glad that she is behind bars and she's never coming out, not for any reason.
01:02:07Ever since this has happened, my one granddaughter, it petrifies me when she goes out.
01:02:15Always thinking of what happened to Juanita, it's always there.
01:02:20It's because I'm worried, worried sick that there's so many sick people out there.
01:02:28That if she comes home in the dark, somebody could be waiting for her, you don't know.
01:02:35I wish, you know, we could reach people, psychopaths, people like that before
01:02:43they behave the way they do.
01:02:46But they exist, you know, one in a hundred person as psychopathic tendencies.
01:02:52They cannot feel for other people.
01:02:57It's very scary.
01:03:02The inquiry was concluded, the convictions had been obtained and that was the end of the matter.
01:03:07But there are a lot of questions that haven't been asked, it's not clear how many victims there were.
01:03:12We always knew there would be more bodies, more victims, but it's just a matter of finding them.
01:03:28There was a tip-off that there may be something buried below the basement
01:03:37and or toilets of what was the popping cafe and the name of Mary Basto was being discussed.
01:03:46When the 1994 investigation first started, if someone had told me that 27 years later
01:03:54the police would still be digging, I would have been amazed by that.
01:03:58But I was incredulous as to what new information there could be
01:04:02or whether it was a convenient moment for the police to do something that perhaps they felt they should have done sooner.
01:04:33I don't think this is the final piece of the jigsaw.
01:04:39One of the wicked and sinister things about the West case is that troubling feeling that there's more that needs to be discovered.
01:04:51It's quite likely that there'll be still developments in this case, perhaps in 50 years' time.
01:05:03It's just too hard. I can still see her in front of me laughing and us giggling.
01:05:10And that's what I remember.
01:05:14My memories are very visual. I very often see Heather and I playing hopscotch.
01:05:22Shirley. Shirley is constantly in my vision.
01:05:26I think about the way she looked. She was blooming when I left.
01:05:29None of them, not one of those victims, deserve what they went through.
01:05:33This is always going to be a part of my memory. To me it was very personal because I'd lived there.
01:05:41The effects of the West case are still being felt and I think they always will.
01:05:48It's like a time bomb exploding. You miss people, you're going to see again.
01:05:53You hope to see again. All that is gone now.
01:06:00All of us who were involved are affected to the grave.
01:06:08I can only say, rest in peace.
01:06:14Yeah, rest in peace.
01:06:16Rest in peace.
01:06:46© transcript Emily Beynon