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THE WEST MURDERS:
Fred and Rose
SCRIPT
Programme One
The Police Confessions.
Fred and Rose in home video.
NARRATOR:
GLOUCESTER BUILDER FREDERICK WEST, HIS WIFE ROSEMARY, AND THE HOUSE THAT HID A DARK SECRET.
Slo-mo of cellar, still bathroom.
Garden with children on swing.
Cromwell Street packed with onlookers.
Pictures of victims.
A security guard carries something down a corridor.
NARRATOR:
THE BODIES OF FIVE YOUNG WOMEN IN THE CELLAR, AND ONE MORE IN THE BATHROOM. IN THE GARDEN WHERE HIS CHILDREN PLAYED, THREE MORE YOUNG WOMEN LAY, INCLUDING A TEENAGE DAUGHTER. THE WORLD LOOKED ON IN HORROR AS FAMILY MAN FRED WEST WAS CHARGED WITH A SPREE OF KIDNAP, RAPE, SEX CRIME AND MURDER THAT COST 12 YOUNG LIVES. THE SECRETS OF 25 CROMWELL STREET SEEMED LOST WHEN FRED WEST TOOK HIS OWN LIFE IN 1995, LEAVING HIS PROSTITUTE WIFE TO BE CONVICTED ALONE.
The camera follows into a room that contains flickering television, tapes whirring, hung up suit of a murderer, and the detritus of a murder investigation, files, tapes, photographs.
NARRATOR:
BUT FREDERICK WEST LEFT A LEGACY. A SECRET ARCHIVE OF PERSONAL BELONGINGS, LETTERS, HOME MOVIES AND TAPED CONFESSIONS THAT TELL THE STORY OF HIS CAPTURE, HIS INTERROGATION AND THE LIFE THAT MADE A MURDERER.
Security guard puts a metal sign saying 25 Cromwell Street on table along with a pile of audio tapes and video tapes.
NARRATOR:
THE ARCHIVE REVEALS THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE MAN ACCUSED OF BRITAIN'S MOST NOTORIOUS SEX CRIMES. TAPES AND DOCUMENTS, NEVER BEFORE REVEALED, TELL THE STORY OF THE MURDERS THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Yeah, see, you've got the killing all wrong, no, nobody went through hell, enjoyment turned to disaster, well most of it anyway.
TITLE CARD:
PROGRAMME 1: CONFESSION TO MURDER
25 Cromwell Street.
Fred West walks down track of forest in home movies.
The empty bed from West home movies.
NARRATOR:
INSIDE 25 CROMWELL STREET, CONFESSED MASS MURDERER FRED WEST HAD TURNED HIS WIFE'S BEDROOM INTO A HOME MOVIE STUDIO.
West bed shots and blind changing.
Fred walks past.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I'll see you later.
Empty bed
NARRATOR:
HE MADE FILMS STARRING HIS PROSTITUTE WIFE, ROSE.
Rose sits down, waiting for client.
West child:
Dad, come in.
Steps are heard on stairs.
Rose turns her head.
NARRATOR:
ROSE SERVICED MEN IN A FIRST FLOOR BROTHEL FRED HAD MADE FOR HER.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Rose West
Rose West:
I've got the advantage on you. I'm already undressed.
NARRATOR:
THEIR FILMS WERE PART OF THE SHARED BUSINESS OF SEX AND PORNOGRAPHY. THE SAME CAMERA WAS USED TO FILM HIS CHILDREN AT THE FOREST OF DEAN IN 1991. POLICE TOOK THE CHILDREN AWAY IN 1992, ACCUSING WEST OF FILMING THE RAPE OF ONE HIS DAUGHTERS.
Exterior Cromwell Street.
Car driving in Cotwolds.
STRAPLINE:
Howard Ogden, Defence Solicitor
Howard Ogden:
I first got to know Fred through representing him in 1992, through linked criminal and care proceedings. The allegation in the Crown Court was of rape and buggery of one of his daughters. And I knew then that this was a curious set-up. The care proceedings revealed the scenario of children who were kept locked in a cellar, who were brought up for the purpose of being "broken in" by their dad, i.e., introduced to sex for the first time by their dad and rewarded by fresh cream cakes that were kept for the purpose. Now this was not ordinary family life as one knew it in Gloucestershire, and not surprisingly there were issues of the children going into care, and there was the trial in respect of his daughter. Now I have the curious and unwelcome distinction of having got Fred West a "not guilty" verdict, when it came to the first morning of the trial his daughter bottled out and felt that she couldn't give evidence. And God bless her, we now all understand why she was fearful of doing so. In the previous proceedings, WDC Savage, Hazel Savage, had organised a family tree. And that family tree showed that there were gaps. And one of those gaps was Heather.
Family photograph of Heather, from Heather to reveal family.
NARRATOR:
HEATHER WAS ONE OF FRED WEST'S ELEVEN CHILDREN FROM TWO MARRIAGES AND OTHER RELATIONSHIPS.
Home movies of Rose sliding down hill before stream.
NARRATOR:
POLICE NOTICED HEATHER WEST WAS CONSPICIOUS BY HER ABSENCE ON THE FILMS OF FAMILY OUTINGS CONFISCATED WHEN THE YOUNGEST CHILDREN WERE TAKEN INTO CARE. ONCE IN CARE, THE WEST CHILDREN REVEALED WHAT THEY CALLED A FAMILY JOKE. THEIR MISSING SISTER WAS MURDERED AND BURIED UNDER THE PATIO. IT TOOK POLICE 18 MONTHS TO GATHER ENOUGH EVIDENCE FOR A WARRANT TO DIG UP THE CROMWELL STREET PATIO. FRED WEST WASN'T AT HOME WHEN POLICE CAME TO FIND HEATHER ON FEBRUARY 24, 1994.
Cromwell St exterior
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Rose rung me at work in the middle of the day. Yeah, and said the police was digging the garden up. Come home quick. So I shot off with the van and I went through the back roads that weren't so busy. Anyway I got home and Hazel Savage come and I went down to the police station. I had nothing to bloody hide.
NARRATOR:
AT 7:32 PM ON FEBRUARY 24, WEST WENT TO GLOUCESTER STATION TO MOCK POLICE FOR ACTING ON THE "FAMILY JOKE" THAT HEATHER WAS BURIED UNDER THE PATIO.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
No, this all started from where Anne said it in her statement. I mean just supposing you did, I mean you're not going to sit there and say your sister's under the patio. I mean I think we better pack it up, Hazel, we're talking rubbish aren't we, I mean you're digging me place up, carry on doing it, I mean why bother. You'd have dug that up for nothing, but you put the patio back now.
NARRATOR:
POLICE TOLD WEST TO PUT THEM IN TOUCH WITH HIS DAUGHTER AND THEY WOULD CALL OFF THE SEARCH.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
She come up to Birmingham hoping to make a lot of money, and I said look, Heather, get.
NARRATOR:
FRED WEST LEFT THE STATION TO SPEND THE NIGHT AT CROMWELL STREET WITH HIS FAMILY.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I'm going out from here in a few minutes and see what I can do. I don't know yet, my mind is not clear at the moment, I think the last thing that I think, it's a joke, believe me.
NIGHT SHOTS AT CROMWELL STREET
Subtitle: February 25, 1994
NARRATOR:
THE NEXT DAY THE CITY OF GLOUCESTER AWOKE TO NEWS OF THE HUNT FOR A LOCAL BUILDER'S MISSING DAUGHTER.
STRAPLINE:
HTV NEWS REPORT, FEBRUARY 25TH 1994
Backyard digging
HTV Reporter:
Detectives and forensic specialists began digging in the back garden of a house in Cromwell in Gloucester city centre, after being granted search warrants by city magistrates. They're looking for the remains of a sixteen=year-old girl, Heather West, who disappeared from the house in 1986 or 87.
Police officer:
We know that she was sixteen or seventeen when she went missing, but apart from that, we've got very little information. The police arrested the girl's parents and they're being questioned about Heather's disappearance. The couple are Frederick West, 52, who's a builder, and his wife Rosemary, who's 45. They were taken from the house at lunch time.
Howard Ogden driving in car,
Ogden rear view mirror.
Howard Ogden:
I was on my way to court in Stroud, going through a type of hairpin section of the Cotswolds, when I got a call from Anne, my secretary that I now had a client in custody in Gloucester who wanted me there, by the name of Fred West. Of course I'd represented him before, so she said, Fred's phoned and he's in custody. It's for murder. I rang to speak to Fred straightaway, and I was being dismissive of it. And I gave the immortal advice, Well Fred, it's obviously a load of bollocks, say nothing till I get there. To which I was taken aback by his response, because he said, I did it. When I arrived at the police station his instructions were that he had killed Heather. The description that Fred gave as to Heather's death was horrendous, and it simply left one cold and disbelieving. Probably because of the manner in which it was delivered, because it was delivered in such a matter-of-fact style, and the detail was so gruesome, and recalled so vividly, that it was frankly chilling.*
Rostrum still Fred West
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
And then I brought the two hands up and grabbed her round the neck. I didn't mean, I didn't grab her round the neck to choke her or nothing, all I was gunna do was grab her around the neck to shake her. Well I mean when you, I mean I'd been squeezing her, squeezing her neck I mean I haven't gone that quick, it's surprising how long somebody can hold you round the neck before, before you, you know, I suppose, I mean, I can undo three quarter nuts without a spanner when we've just locked them on, and turn them, and I can undo them.
NARRATOR:
AS PART OF HER STUDIES TO BE A SOCIAL WORKER, Janet Leach VOLUNTEEERED TO BE ON A ROSTER TO LOOK AFTER THE INTERESTS OF VULNERABLE PEOPLE IN POLICE INTERVIEWS, A POSITION KNOWN AS THE APPROPRIATE ADULT. SHE WAS ASSIGNED TO FRED WEST, NOT KNOWING HIS CRIMES.
STRAPLINE:
Janet Leach, Appropriate Adult
Janet Leach:
Normally they give you the name of a person that you're actually gonna go and sit in with. This time they just phoned me back and said, 52-year-old male. So I said, Yeah, fine. I just assumed it was somebody with a learning difficulty or something like that. I subsequently found out that he did have quite a lot of difficulty with reading and writing, and I did quite a bit of work with him on that. He used to say when he'd laid the patio, he used to sit where he'd buried her, and he used to cry, and he used to talk to her a lot. And sort of say he was sorry for what had happened.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I've spent more times standing down the garden by her than I like to think. I used to just go out there and stand and say prayers by her and all that. I used to actually tell her to rise and come up. That's a secret I have kept to myself for eight years, I never told anybody.
END PART ONE
START PART TWO
NARRATOR:
ON THE THIRD DAY OF WHAT WOULD BECOME BRITAIN'S WORST SERIAL MURDER CASE, POLICE HAD A SUSPECT BUT NO BODY. CONFESSED MURDERER FRED WEST SEIZED THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE HIS STORY. A 21-YEAR-OLD TRAINEE WAS STANDING IN FOR WEST'S Defence Solicitor, WHEN WEST STOPPED WEEPING AFTER GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF MURDER.
Scott Canavan wide, playing cards in pub.
STRAPLINE:
Scott Canavan, Solicitor's Clerk.
Scott Canavan:
He'd already admitted to the murder of his daughter Heather the day before, and they were interviewing him further about this. He was obviously distressed. The police doctor was called and gave him diazepam, which is Valium. And this reacted with him kinda funny: he went off, he started telling a story about Heather being involved in drugs and running drugs.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Heather's alive and well. Right. She's possibly at this moment in Bahrain. She works for a drugs cartel. She's got no identification, that's why you can't find her. There's more than her recruited from the Gloucester area for drug running. They're looked after like queens. I got no idea what her name is BECAUSE I will not let her tell me. She contacts me whenever she's in this country. Now whether you believe it or not is entirely up to you.
Tracking shot to office of home office pathologist.
NARRATOR:
BUT WHILE FRED WEST CLAIMED HIS DAUGHTER WAS ALIVE, SEARCHERS MADE A DISCOVERY IN HIS GARDEN. THEY FOUND A HUMAN THIGH BONE IN THE MUD.
Track to Bernard Knight at desk.
STRAPLINE:
Sir Bernard Knight, Home Office Forensic Pathologist
Bernard Knight:
And they brought a bone to the police station. I went straight to the police station, I hadn't been to Cromwell Street. And it was obviously a human thigh bone, a femur. And obviously a youngish person, and obviously female. You can tell that just at a glance.
NARRATOR:
WEST'S INTERROGATION WAS STOPPED WHILE EVERYONE EXCEPT WEST WAS TOLD OF THE NEWS. BUT AS THE FIRST BONE WAS PULLED FROM THE EARTH IN CROMWELL STREET, WEST DESCRIBED THE FIRST OF A SERIES OF BIZARRE VISIONS THAT WOULD EVENTUALLY GIVE RISE TO QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS SANITY.
Destruction Of Extension Of 25 Cromwell Street.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
When I walked in here, I sat down there, I could feel my head like lifting up and then I was going sort of into space and, and I could see diggers and everything all ploughing round and ripping the house up and tearing the floor boards up and bull dozing the house down and it's all weird and I couldn't, I couldn't, well, I could see it all in me mind. And everything was gone wrong, I mean I, I don't know what, I can't, I've been, we've been trying, I've been trying to explain how the feeling, what happened, now I don't know if it was the pills, and that's the only thing I can think it was, I haven't done nothing else.
Early Garden Dig Pictures.
Bernard Knight:
They started digging in three places: one right up against the bathroom, that was a particularly evil, stinking hole, because there was I think a broken sewer pipe near. The problem was of course the water table was so high that soon as you got below the surface everything was semi-liquid. And it was a mixture of sewage, decomposed body and good old Gloucestershire mud.
NARRATOR:
WEST AGAIN ADMITTED THE MURDER OF HIS DAUGHTER. HE WAS FEARFUL OF THE REACTIONS OF HIS WIFE.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Has Rose been told yet? How did she take it? You don't know how, how she took it? Because I expect she hates me now.
NARRATOR:
AFTER HEATHER'S BODY HAD BEEN FOUND, POLICE BEGAN TAPING ROSE WEST'S REACTIONS IN A BUGGED SAFE HOUSE.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Rose West
Rose West:
I mean look, if I got near the bastard now, I'd put me fucking hands round his throat, and somebody would have to fucking pry 'em off. Mae, he has taken your sister's and my daughter's fucking life. This is something you don't fucking forgive. I'd never forgive that. You don't forgive that. You never forget it.
Garden Dig Night Footage
NARRATOR:
FOR TWO HOURS AFTER THE FIRST REMAINS WERE FOUND, POLICE BELIEVED THEY WERE DEALING WITH LITTLE MORE THAN A DOMESTIC MURDER. THE INVESTIGATION CHANGED WHEN THE HOME OFFICE PATHOLOGIST MADE ANOTHER FIND.
Bernard Knight:
I scrabbled about a bit in the muck and the mud, 'cos it was filling up with water all the time, it was being pumped out. And I always remember picking up a couple more bones and looking up at Superintendent Bennett, rather mischievously perhaps, and saying, Well, I've seen one thighbone, so either this lady's got three legs or you've got more than one body.
NARRATOR:
THE POLICE, SHIFTING THE FIRST BONES TO A MAKESHIFT MORGUE, NOW SUSPECTED THERE WERE MORE SECRETS IN THE GARDEN. WEST WAS GIVEN A CHANCE TO TELL WHAT HE KNEW.
STRAPLINE:
Voices Of Scott Canavan & Fred West
Scott Canavan:
Do you know of any other bones being there?
Fred West:
Well, that's a peculiar question to ask, ain't it? Yeah, no, Heather is in there.
NARRATOR:
WHEN WEST WAS TOLD OF THE THIRD LEG BONE IN HIS GARDEN, THERE WAS A DRAMATIC PAUSE.
Scott Canavan:
Have you any knowledge where this other bone might have come from at all?
Fred West:
Yes, Shirley Robinson, the girl who caused the problem.
NARRATOR:
WEST HAD RENTED SHIRLEY ROBINSON A ROOM IN HIS CROMWELL STREET HOME IN 1978. HE HAD AN AFFAIR WITH HER UNDER THE NOSE OF HIS WIFE.
STRAPLINE:
Voice Of Christine West
Christine West:
This one particular Sunday we go in and there's the children playin', and Rose.
STRAPLINE:
Christine & Doug West
Christine West:
And there's this young woman sat on the sofa. And Fred said, Come on in. I'll introduce you, 'e said, this is Shirley, Shirley Robinson. She's one of the lodgers. She's on 'er own, we invited 'er down to join in the family. As you can see from 'er condition, she's expectin' a baby.
NARRATOR:
WEST SAID HE HAD STRANGLED HIS LOVER THEN BURIED HER, AS HIS WIFE SLEPT.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
It was a bright moonlight night, I remember that, the moon was shining bright. Well that was it, I dug the middle of the pool out quietly, got the pool out, and there was already a fair size hole under there. So I felt, I can't get her down through there, and I was looking at her body, and I thought I am gunna have to cut her up again. And I'm thinking where is this gunna end? By this time there is three, sorry, two, that's right, two, not three, that Shirley and Heather, where is this going to stop, I've got to give myself up, I have got to tell Rose, so she can get somebody to help me, so I don't do this thing again. Because the problem I have got, and I know it's a problem ,and I knew I should have got help with it.
Exterior of bugged safe house.
NARRATOR:
INSIDE THE BUGGED SAFE HOUSE, ROSE WEST SAID SHE HAD SUSPECTED HER HUSBAND'S PERVERSIONS.
Rose in bedroom
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Rose West
Rose West:
See Mae, look, I told you as you know well, I told you that I thought Dad was a very sick man, yeah, and it's come out he is a very sick man, and the worst liar I ever could have dreamed of, but nobody could have known.
Bernard Knight:
It was obvious that the head had been detached from the rest of the body and the legs in virtually all of them. In the case of Heather, which is the hole I described they went to first, again it was obvious that some of the bones had been deliberately badly damaged. The thighbones, one was broken right through, and they had cuts on them from what could be an axe or a very sharp cleaver. Not a knife. Well there were knife marks as well, as it happens, but I mean the obvious things were these shattering, heavy blows that had gone right through one of the femurs.
NARRATOR:
IT WAS NOW CRUCIAL POLICE LINK THE SHATTERED BONES TO FRED WEST, BY ASKING HIM HOW HE'D CUT UP THE BODIES.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I looked round everywhere to try and find a knife or something. I looked at the axe, I had a chop axe, chopper I mean, there was no way I could touch it, touch her with it, I just couldn't, I just couldn't do it. So I went, I looked up and I seen this knife sticking out, it's got like two prongs on the end, two sharp points comes out on the end of it, and then it's got big serrated edges all along it, you saw blocks of ice with it, and I got that, and I tried it with the big ones first, and, and it was terrible, I mean it was, I'm sweating, I'm just about, everything's going on at this time. So I finally manage to do it. To take her head off and then her legs, I mean I just cut through the side of that ,and twisted her legs round, and the cracking of it, and that was unbearable, and I mean, I can hear that now in my sleep, I wake up very often screaming, I can hear it going CRACK.
NARRATOR:
FURTHER QUESTIONING PROMPTED WEST INTO CONTRADICTORY AND BIZARRE EXCUSES FOR WHY HE'D CUT UP THE BODIES.
Fred West:
I've said that all the way, I wanted to make sure they were dead. I think the fear I had was burying somebody alive. That's the big fear. I mean I, I don't want to be covering anybody up that's alive. You know what I mean, it's bad enough that somebody's dead, but I mean to actually be able to sit there and think, well, is that person alive trying to get out?
NARRATOR:
BY SATURDAY NIGHT, FRED WEST HAD CONFESSED TO TWO MURDERS, AND POLICE HAD FOUND TWO BODIES. THEN, DURING A CIGARETTE BREAK, FRED WEST SPOKE TO HOWARD OGDEN.
STRAPLINE:
Howard Ogden, Defence Solicitor
Howard Ogden reads defence file February 26:
In between police interviews he told me there was another one out there, he called Shirley's mate. It seemed that both women were buried in the garden. The murder of Shirley's mate was by strangulation using a flex.
Morning in Gloucester.
Cathedral bells ring in sunlight.
NARRATOR:
AS BELLS RANG AT GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL ON SUNDAY MORNING, POLICE CONTINUED A SEARCH FOR WHAT THEY THOUGHT WERE THREE BODIES. POLICE TOOK WEST BACK TO HIS GARDEN TO POINT OUT WHERE HE HAD BURIED HIS THIRD VICTIM, A GIRL HE KNEW ONLY AS SHIRLEY'S MATE. WEST SAID HE HAD SEEN REMAINS IN ONE OF THE NEWLY DUG HOLES.
News footage of garden dig.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
When I walked through the canvas I looked straight across and I could see here, she was showing, I think she is in a plastic bag, I think, I think she was in the corner. There's a big hollow, and behind it if you look underneath the step, you can see her, there's a big hole.
NARRATOR:
AFTER TEARFUL BREAKDOWNS IN THE FIRST CONFESSIONS, WEST MOVED TO SHOCKING INVESTIGATORS WITH DETAIL ON HOW HE'D CUT UP HIS OWN DAUGHTER.
Fred West:
That's easy, ain't it, she's looking at me, I thought no, it's simple, isn't it, if somebody's sat there looking at you, you're not going to use a knife on a person, are you. And I just went like that, and I closed her eyes, and they stayed shut, and that was that.
STRAPLINE:
HTV NEWS 3rd March 1994
HTV Reporter:
Mr West looked pale and drawn as he was brought into court. It was during the reading of the second murder charge that he collapsed. After several moments he was helped back to his feet. The chairman of the bench asked him are you all right, and he replied yes sir, the only time he spoke during the ten minute hearing.
Still of Fred.
Cut to aerial shot of police working in backyard of 25 Cromwell.
Cut to still of Heather and friend.
HTV Reporter:
Frederick West was making his second appearance following the discovery of three bodies buried in the back garden of his house in Cromwell Street in Gloucester. One of whom is still unidentified. The other's been named as Shirley Anne Robinson, a former lodger at the house, who was aged 18. She was eight months pregnant.
Colour still of Shirley and Fred.
STRAPLINE:
Christine & Doug West
Christine West:
Then there was a picture in the paper of Shirley. And I said to him, I said, that is Shirley. Shirley Robinson. I said, We met 'er at Fred's. When we knew she was one of the victims, then we thought, the baby she was carrying, was it Fred's?
STRAPLINE:
HTV NEWS 5th MARCH 1994 GLOUCESTER MURDERS
Journalists outside front of 25 Cromwell.
Journalist:
Day Ten of the grisly police operation, and no sign of let-up in the search for evidence and perhaps more bodies at number 25 Cromwell Street. The police are using sophisticated electronic equipment that'll locate cavities and objects beneath bricks and concrete. The grim possibility is that there could be a fourth body inside this house.
Scott Canavan interview in pub.
Scott Canavan:
So myself and Janet took Fred aside in between interviews, into a separate cell, and spoke with him, telling him that they weren't messing him about. If there are any bodies, from a defence point of view, it'd be better if he tells us who they are, where they are.
STRAPLINE:
Janet Leach, Appropriate Adult
Janet Leach:
I just said to Fred, Look, you know, enough's enough. I can't cope with it. You've got to, if there's more, then you've got to tell them there's more. And he said, No, I've told you everything and there's not any more. And I said, Well, you know, I don't believe you. I'm going. And as I got up to walk out he said, No, just… There is.
Scott Canavan:
And his words were, There's a fucking load more. At which point [nervous laughter] I was really quite shocked, a cold shiver ran down my spine. About two minutes later, I said, Okay Fred, explain to me what you mean, 'There's loads more bodies down there.' I said, How many? He said, Five or six. And at that point, I again left the police station and went to phone my boss Howard Ogden. I just didn't have a clue what to do in that situation.
Janet Leach:
I said, Well, I'll draw the cellar. Which I did. And he pinpointed where the victims were.
Close up Murder Note
Ogden Reads Murder Note, Defence file March 4.
Howard Ogden:
I, Frederick West, authorise to my solicitor, Howard Ogden, that I wish to admit to a further approximately nine killings, expressly Charmayne, Reena, Linda Gough, and others to be identified. F. West. Took this written instruction immediately to Superintendent Bennett, as a result of which, he insisted that WDC Savage be brought in, and read the note to her, whereupon there was great excitement and displays of emotion, and then the whole of the incident room team were advised.
Cromwell Street at night.
Ogden Reads Defence File March 4.
Howard Ogden:
Visit to scene at 25 Cromwell Street between 10:00 PM and twelve midnight. This was very eerie. Required to dress in boiler suit etc. to preserve anonymity. Two Police Officers guarding the scene. Had to wait until the press had left the scene, thinking there was no activity. Noted flowers in the doorway of the house.
BASEMENT IN SLOW MOTION
Ogden Reads Defence File Notes Of May 3.
Howard Ogden:
He could feel where the bodies were. They were coming up out of the ground at him as though they were at a party. He knew them all individually, albeit they were coming at him thick and fast. They wanted to reassure him that they were better off where they were, and they had also visited him in his cell. Going back to the spirits in the basement, he had regretted telling the police where they were all in one go, since he had been able to handle Heather coming back up to him on an individual basis, but it was very difficult when the spirits were altogether present in the basement.
Howard Ogden in picture.
Howard Ogden:
They had said it was all right what he had done, and they would wait for him. This frightened him. It was a new experience. They were reassuring him. Their reaction obviously surprised him, as he could not understand it. They were all smiling when they left him, that night in the basement.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
When they come up into you, when the visions come into you, it's beautiful, ain't no messing, that's lovely, but it's when they die away from you, 'cos you're, you're trying to hold 'em. You know you just got 'em, then they sort of, you can feel 'em pulling away from you, and you're trying to struggle to stop 'em, and that's where I think, where you get the whole feeling from.
David Canter Reading Anne's Journal.
NARRATOR:
BRITAIN'S LEADING CRIMINOLOGIST HAS BEEN STUDYING WEST USING MATERIAL FROM THE ARCHIVE.
Close up Professor David Canter.
STRAPLINE:
Professor David Canter, Centre for Investigative Psychology, University of Liverpool
David Canter:
I don't think Fred West had the intellectual ability to develop a long-term ploy that he could build up and use, to distract them from what they were doing in the Investigation. But he had lots of possibilities, lots of ideas, to say, If I admit to this one perhaps they won't look at the others, or, If I suggest that I'm really a bit bizarre, a bit weird, then perhaps that'll give me a different way out. Or, Perhaps I can blame somebody else, or perhaps I can suggest there is some hidden individual I don't know anything about, who is the cause of all this. I think these were ideas he had from time to time, that he tried to feed into the investigation.
END PART TWO
-------------------
START PART THREE
Diggers in back garden.
Bernard Knight leaves back door.
NARRATOR:
DAY TEN OF THE WEST MURDER INQUIRY. POLICE, HAVING FOUND THREE BODIES IN THE GARDEN OF 25 CROMWELL STREET, WERE FACED WITH FRED WEST'S CLAIM THAT GHOSTS HAD LED HIM TO SIX MORE BODIES UNDER THE HOUSE. THEY TURNED TO MORE TANGIBLE METHODS OF INVESTIGATION TO FIND THEM.
STRAPLINE:
Sir Bernard Knight, Home Office Forensic Pathologist
Sir Bernard Knight:
Especially when we went into the cellar, the police had a big job to pneumatically drill up the concrete first and get a hole going. And I wasn't there then, obviously there was no need for me. And then they'd dig in these supposed locations, I mean I think there were a few false alarms as well. Then they'd dig down a bit until they came to something that either was a bone, or that they suspected was a bone, and then I'd come up and look.
STRAPLINE:
HTV News March 1, 1994
March 1
Bennett in press conference,
The remains of two further people were found in separate locations.
March 5
Night steam shovel.
Police officers found in two separate areas two significant and separate finds.
March 6
Diggers in front of house with jack hammer.
This morning discovered what is considered to be evidence of further remains.
March 7
Police PR woman makes Announcement.
This brings to a total of seven, that's three in the garden and four in the cellar.
March 8
Removal men knock down extension wall.
Last night discovered yet a further set of human remains.
March 9
Two men inside tent.
Last night discovered what we believe to be a further set of human remains.
Bernard Knight:
There was no way I could ever tell how long either the bodies had been there or when they were killed. I could only tell they were females of a certain age. From there I handed the material over to Dr Whittaker, who did all the work.
Dr David Whittaker Pulls Out Drawers.
STRAPLINE:
Dr David Whittaker, forensic orthodontist, Cardiff University
David Whittaker:
So what I'm doing is collecting information. Taking x-rays, doing my best. And then I'm ringing up the police in Gloucester, every night, or every week, and saying, I've got as far as this. I can't go any further, don't know who she is, but if we could get some photographs, then I might be able to do something.
David Whittaker sync at drawers
David Whittaker:
And the police then, their team start collecting photographs from family, from anywhere they could get them. So the photos started flooding in, and the trouble was I started getting more depressed with each one. There's one here, for instance, with two little children in a pushchair. And there's Fred, at the back. But they're far too young. I need photographs approximating the age-group of the person I'm trying to identify.
Tracking shot to reveal Dr Whittaker and colleague adjusting skulls
David Whittaker:
Well, let's have a look-see and see if we can get it up, can you tilt the head around a bit, and see if we can?
Shadow of skull
David Whittaker:
As they're recovered it's discovered they're all female and they're roughly in the same age group. The skeletal features are going to be extremely similar. So I knew early on we had a major problem. Not only finding out who these girls could possibly be, but from my point of view, making sure we knew which set of remains were which. But we identified all of them, every single one, using laboratory methods.
Image of skull and face merge.
David Whittaker:
Can you imagine a head in one hand, and a photograph in the other, and then we electronically merge those to look for points of similarity.
NARRATOR:
WEST TOLD DIFFERENT STORIES ABOUT HOW THE NAMELESS VICTIMS HAD DIED, MANY UNCONVINCING AND CONTRADICTORY. AT FIRST HE SAID HE'D KILLED TO COVER UP ADULTERY, WHEN A DRIVING JOB IN THE 1970s GAVE HIM THE CHANCE TO ABUSE HITCH-HIKERS FOR SEX.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Yeah but there was this rape thing that she was on about in the van, she was going to say I'd raped her and everything else, and the whole fear, and this is something we've got to go into. Was the, the biggest fear that was in me, was Rose finding out that I was messing with other women. So I brought the girl in, I brought her in a box. I put her in there and carried her in and down the stairs and at that time the hole that she's in was already dug out, there was a big piece dug up there. See like at that time it meant, a noise in the basement meant nothing because I was there every night digging and raking concrete and getting these stones out and throwing them out through the window.
STRAPLINE:
Professor David Canter, Centre for Investigative Psychology, University of Liverpool
Professor David Canter:
He'd learned a kind of streetwise way of reading what other people were thinking of doing, and trying to feed to them some account that he thought they would accept. So once the police focused on him, he drew on all these skills and all this experience as fully as he could.
NARRATOR:
WEST TRIED WINNING SYMPATHY, SAYING AN URGE TO KILL SPARKED OFF UNPLANNED ATTACKS.
Police interview March 6
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
After all of them I felt really ill, really ill, it was just this urge at the time, when they, when they upset me, that I went for them, and as soon as it was over I felt, I felt you know what the hell did you do that for, you know, I mean it was, it wasn't what I meant to do at all.
NARRATOR:
BUT THE DIG TEAM WAS FINDING EVIDENCE HORRIBLY REMOVED FROM UNPLANNED ATTACKS.
Sir Bernard Knight:
There was a knife there, a long sort of hand knife. I don't think it was anything to do with dissecting or decapitating the bodies, it didn't have a point on it, it was a round-ended one. And there were lots of bindings, mostly sort of underclothes tied in loops and knots. Belts. And of course a lot of this sticky parcel adhesive tape which had been wound round in a sort of mask shape. One of the skulls, I don't remember which one, had, some of 'em had this sticky tape around 'em, but this had more than usual. And had some plastic tubes growing from the position of the nostrils.
West archive widow with television in background.
As lights go out, DVE of sticky tape lady.
NARRATOR:
POLICE KNEW ABOUT WEST'S APPETITE FOR PORNOGRAPHY. WHEN THEY RAIDED HIS HOME IN 1992 FOLLOWING ALLEGATIONS HE'D RAPED HIS TEENAGE DAUGHTER, THEY FOUND CONTACT MAGAZINES IN WHICH HIS WIFE ADVERTISED HER SERVICES AS MANDY AND A LARGE COLLECTION OF PORNOGRAPHIC VIDEOTAPES PORTRAYING BONDAGE AND TORTURE OF YOUNG GIRLS.
STRAPLINE:
Scott Canavan, Solicitors Clerk
Scott Canavan:
Well, those interviews, that's where it became apparent that there was sexual motives in the killings, 'cos there was different items found in the graves of the victims: some bound up, of all kinds of descriptions. Which to me put a different light on Fred, I mean I did start to see him quite differently at that point, 'cos as I say before it was all like being told a story. At that point it became real, and I started to imagine then what these poor victims had actually gone through before they died.
NARRATOR:
THERE WERE STILL MORE BODIES TO COME. POLICE FOUND HUNDREDS OF GIRLS HAD STAYED AT WEST'S HOUSE. HOWARD OGDEN SET UP A PLOY TO HELP POLICE FIND REMAINS BY EXPOSING WEST TO THE GHOSTS HE CLAIMED TO HAVE SEEN IN HIS BASEMENT.
STRAPLINE:
Howard Ogden, Defence Solicitor
Howard Ogden Reads Defence file, Tuesday March 8
Howard Ogden:
Had also discussed with the senior officers a potential tactical ploy that might help determine whether there were further bodies in the basement or not. If it was right that these spirits had on the previous occasion risen up and been laid to rest in Fred's mind in that they were now content and if, more particularly, their remains had been removed, as they were that day, by the police in deliberate public glare, then those spirits were no longer in the basement to cause complications, so that if there were any other bodies in there then it would only be THEIR spirits that would rise up. The police agreed that this was a good plan to be put into effect that night.
Pan From Cromwell Street Sign.
Scott Canavan Starts A Walk Down Cromwell Street.
Scott Canavan:
It was very late evening, around tenish, eleven o'clock, and there was still, even at that time of night, a crowd of people gathered just outside the police cordons at the end here. They didn't really recognise Fred going into the house. Again very eerie, because there were several holes that corpses had just been dug out of, there were several bones protruding out of holes. He was trying to feel the spirits.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
There is one more girl in there. And I just cannot pinpoint exactly where she is because there was far too much in there last night, I could not stop any of it, you know, I couldn't trap her to where she was, and hold her there, so that I could trace her, you know, that she would go back, because when you get these things like that, the person will actually come out and float round with you, and you can actually send them back to where they are, well, wherever they're buried, they can go back. Yeah, she was flying round the room. I couldn't hold her, to see what she looked like, she would not come, she would not come into my mind for me to hold her and see what she was, I mean it, I mean to be honest, it could be any of the girls. It's not the Dutch girl, I know that, but I mean it could have been any of the other girls, because there is a girl flying round that room. Why she's doing it, is what I'm trying to work on.
Police Interview March 9
Scott Canavan Continues Walk And Arrives Where House Was.
Scott Canavan:
This is the first time I have been back to this spot since 94 when Fred was arrested for the murders. I came back here to help Fred. He was trying to find the one remaining missing body. He came in the front door would have been level with the pole, came in, went through the house and out through the back door, which was all covered with planks 'cos the garden above was being excavated, and so we went back into the house and through one room, and down to the basement.
Basement footage
Scott Canavan:
There were several holes already that had been dug up but there was one body that he had admitted to that they hadn't found. He was given a spray can, I think it was a red paint spray can, and when he asked when he got the feeling to spray the spot, and that's where was dug up next.
NARRATOR:
ON TUESDAY MARCH 10, SEARCHERS FOUND THE FINAL SET OF REMAINS IN THE BASEMENT. NINE BODIES HAD BEEN DUG FROM CROMWELL STREET IN ELEVEN DAYS.
Drawing by Bernard Knight of Grave in Basement
Bernard Knight Draws Skeleton In Cellar.
Bernard Knight:
This is a typical example of the five holes in the cellar. They were pretty much all the same, this kind of square pit, cubical pit really, with the body about two foot, three foot down.
HTV West news report
Computer Generated Image of Cromwell Street shows locations of bodies.
Bernard Knight:
During an eleven-day period, the dismembered remains of nine young women were found buried in and under the property. The West's eldest daughter Heather, Alison Chambers, and Shirley Robinson were found in the back garden. A few yards away under the concrete floor of the cellar, officers discovered Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Lucy Partington, and Juanita Mott. Remains identified as those of Linda Gough were unearthed from beneath the ground floor bathroom. And then searchers found the body of Carol Cooper again in the cellar.
Howard Ogden reads Defence file May 11
Howard Ogden:
Total change of Officers and attitude. Even the setting in the interview room is entirely different with a table taking up a large proportion of it at which is seated Detective Inspector James accompanied by DC Stephen Harris. The attitude of these two Officers was much more "professional" being hard and direct and of a more formal attitude so that we are referred to as "gentlemen" as a group and Fred is referred to as "Mr West". He is shown a series of what are medical type diagrams of skeletons referred to as "speculative chart of bones missing" which have been prepared by a particular Police Officer in each case and have shown in red the areas where bones are missing.
West eyes close.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Could the appropriate adult slip down to the cell and get glasses, please. The diagrams are gone through in the order of their death. In general it shows that the striking feature is that the majority are missing knee caps, hands and feet. 113 missing bones.
Officer:
Can you explain where the missing bones are?
Fred West:
No explanation whatsoever.
Officer:
49 missing bones. Majority from hands and feet.
Fred West:
No comment on that sir.
Officer:
72 bones missing, shoulder blades missing, majority of bones missing are from hands and feet. No idea.
Fred West:
No idea.
Howard Ogden:
At this point Fred becomes very distressed. He cannot look at the diagram. He turns it over and lays over it crying. He is given time to recover composure. He indicates to me he wants to carry on.
Officer:
38 bones missing. Six out of the nine referred to have missing knee caps. You haven't kept them have you? You like souvenirs?
Rostrum up of West sitting on bench.
Fred West:
I keep souvenirs but it's of old time things, not…
Officer:
Eight out of the nine sets of remains have got various articles with them which are used for bondage.
Fred West:
No comment.
Officer:
Did you tie them up before killing them?
Fred West:
No comment.
Officer:
Did you tie them up before dismembering them?
Fred West:
No comment.
Officer:
Rostrum girl bound from West's Readers Wives magazine.
West on couch
Fred West:
I recognise what the cord is, but I don't recognise that particular piece. That's a special nylon cord which is unbreakable. In the last five years I always carried a roll of that on the van.
Officer:
Did you torture them?
Fred West:
No.
Officer:
Were there acts of sadism?
Fred West:
No.
Officer:
Is there someone else involved?
Fred West:
No comment sir.
Officer:
Shown photograph 7, the knife.
Fred West:
I've never seen a knife like that.
Officer:
Shown mask made from tape. Tube inserted into the nostril. He is also shown a series of numbered photographs being various views of the mask made of tape with the skull inserted and/or as recovered from the grave.
Fred West face close up
Fred West:
No idea.
Officer:
Were any of the victims hung up from the beams?
Fred West:
No comment.
Officer:
Were they masked up for bondage?
Fred West:
No comment.
Howard Ogden:
At this stage noticed that Fred was now staring intently across the table at DC Harris who was staring back. It was like one of those situations of trying to stare out the other. I never noticed this in Fred previously.
Officer:
I have to ask if parts were cut off as part of a sado-masochistic ritual.
Fred West:
No comment.
Officer:
You will accept it seemingly occurred in your home.
Fred West:
No comment.
Officer:
These girls all found their way into your cellar where they were tortured and mutilated.
Fred West:
No comment.
Officer:
Was someone taped and hung upside down on a hook in your basement? Do you remember saying that?
Fred West:
[No response]
Officer:
Did it happen to all the girls?
Fred West:
No comment.
Officer:
Was someone taped and hung upside down on a hook in your basement? Do you remember saying that?
Fred West:
No comment.
Officer:
Did it happen to all the girls?
Fred West:
No comment.
Photographs of all the victims with music
Body being carried out of Cromwell Street
NARRATOR
AS CROMWELL STREET GAVE UP THE LAST OF ITS DEAD, THE SEARCH FOR MORE BODIES MOVED TO THE FIELDS FRED WEST HAD PLOUGHED AS A BOY.
Plough shots
Rose at Much Marcle cottage
NARRATOR:
IN THE NEXT EPISODE, SECRET TAPES REVEAL HOW THE SEEDS OF EVIL WERE SOWN IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE AND A GLASGOW BROTHEL, LEADING TO UNION WITH ROSE WEST, THE GIRL HE WOULD SHAPE INTO BRITAIN'S MOST DEPRAVED SERIAL KILLER.
Pan across tapes to Fred and Rose headline.
Fred and Rose
The West Murders
Programme Two
THE FIRST KILLINGS
Producer – David Monaghan
Director - Derek Jones
Researcher – Paul Woods
Fred and Rose from home video.
NARRATOR:
GLOUCESTER BUILDER FREDERICK WEST, HIS WIFE ROSEMARY (pause) AND THE HOUSE THAT HID A DARK SECRET. THE BODIES OF FIVE YOUNG WOMEN IN THE CELLAR, ONE MORE IN THE BATHROOM. THE GARDEN WHERE THEIR CHILDREN PLAYED - A GRAVEYARD FOR THREE MORE BODIES, INCLUDING THEIR TEENAGE DAUGHTER. THE WORLD LOOKED ON IN HORROR, AS A SEARCH FOR FRED WEST'S MISSING DAUGHTER HEATHER REVEALED A SPREE OF KIDNAP, RAPE, SEX CRIME AND MURDER THAT COST TWELVE YOUNG LIVES.
Pictures of victims
A security guard carries 25 Cromwell St sign down a darken corridor.
NARRATOR:
THE SECRETS OF 25 CROMWELL STREET SEEMED LOST WHEN FRED WEST KILLED HIMSELF BEFORE TRIAL IN 1995, LEAVING HIS WIFE ROSE TO BE CONVICTED OF TEN MURDERS. BUT FREDERICK WEST LEFT A LEGACY.
The room contains flickering television, tapes whirring, clothing of a murderer, and the detritus of a murder investigation, files, tapes, photographs.
Home Movie Footage Of Fred & Rose At Forest Of Dean On Monitor
NARRATOR:
A SECRET ARCHIVE OF HOME MOVIES, WRITINGS AND CONFESSIONS GIVE A UNIQUE INSIGHT INTO THE MIND OF A MURDERER. AND REVEAL THAT MORE THAN HIS PARTNER IN MURDER, ROSE, THERE WAS ANOTHER WOMAN HE WAS TRULY OBSESSED WITH, WHOSE DEATH UNLEASHED A KILLING SPREE.
Fred films Rose at Forest of Dean.
STRAPLINE:
Audio from home movies: Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Here you are, look, Rose. It comes down into you, doesn't it? This is the same thing, is it?
Rose West:
Oh the same thing, yeah.
HTV Black and white search archive
STRAPLINE:
HTV West News
NARRATOR:
FRED WEST'S FIRST KNOWN KILLINGS TOOK PLACE IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE A DECADE BEFORE THE CROMWELL STREET MURDERS. IN THE MID-SIXTIES, LOCAL POLICE STRUGGLED WITH A STRING OF CASES INVOLVING MISSING YOUNG WOMEN, AMONG THEM MARY BASTHOLME.
Men walk dogs in field
Policeman in porkpie hat tells of missing girl and Unsolved rapes.
Detective:
We are very concerned at the moment, she has been missing now since Saturday evening and it is causing us a great deal of concern.
Reporter:
And have you any reason at all to suppose that she is still alive?
Detective:
Well we are hoping so of course, early in 1966 there were two rather serious sexual assaults in this particular area, which are bound to have some relevance to this enquiry.
Police question motorist at night.
Reporter:
Does this mean these two particular assaults were never solved?
Detective:
This is true.
Mix to blue sky and pan to Winsom Green prison,
Cut to West interview tape playing.
NARRATOR:
TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS LATER, CONFESSED SERIAL KILLER FRED WEST WOULD THROW LIGHT ON A GENERATION OF UNSOLVED SEX CRIMES IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE WHEN HE RECOUNTED HIS LIFE STORY TO HIS SOLICITOR WHILE AWAITING TRIAL IN WINSOM GREEN PRISON IN BIRMINGHAM. THESE TAPES, KEPT SECRET FROM THE POLICE, REVEAL THE ROOTS OF MURDER IN WEST'S EARLY LIFE.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I had a chat with the Salvation Army bloke in here the other day on how these things start, how people become killers and this all started from home.
Much Marcle sign.
Much Marcle garage.
Church bells ringing
Fred West photo.
Fred West:
Moorcourt Cottages, but it's Moorcourt Farm. We used to go for long walks round the fields.
NARRATOR:
MUCH MARCLE IN HEREFORDSHIRE IS A VILLAGE THAT HOLDS ON TO THE PAST. IT'S MOST CELEBRATED EXPORT IS A TRADITIONAL CIDER, CRUSHED FROM LOCAL FRUIT. FRED WEST HAD HARVESTED CIDER APPLES AS A BOY. HE HAD BEEN CONFIRMED IN THE VILLAGE CHURCH, THE FAVOURED FIRST SON OF A BIG FAMILY. THE WESTS HAD WORKED AS LABOURERS IN MUCH MARCLE'S FIELDS FOR GENERATIONS.
Canter Standing In Front Of Screen Reading Anne's Journal
NARRATOR:
BRITAIN'S LEADING CRIMINOLOGIST HAS BEEN STUDYING WEST USING MATERIAL FROM THE ARCHIVE.
Close-up of Professor David Canter.
STRAPLINE:
Professor David Canter, Centre for Investigative Psychology, University of Liverpool
Students in lecture theatre.
David Canter:
The origin of Fred West's criminal activity has to have very deep roots in his early upbringing. Fred's father Walter was a very easygoing guy who seems to have said to Fred that if you can get away with it, you might as well.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I wanted to be Dad. I admired all he stood for. He was my god, like, he was tall, a big, big man, like he could handle himself, no problem.
Tape player
Pan out from photo of Walter & Daisy West
Track from Daisy to Fred to Walter in Moorcourt Cottages photo
Fred West:
Mother was very old-fashioned, like if you had a girlfriend, girlfriends were strictly out until you were 21, not 16 like, 21, you had a girlfriend, sex and things like that, where dad was different altogether, you know, if it's on offer, take it, son.
Much Marcle: Farmhouse with Roses
Maypole dancing
Walter & Daisy photo
David Canter:
You have this classic double-bind situation in which the child doesn't have clear guidelines, they are pulled this way and that way by the parents. Many people grow up in that sort of situation, but in Fred's case it clearly laid the basis for him to satisfy whatever he wanted to do, whatever he felt he needed to do, without too much concern about the consequences.
Doug and Christina West inside hollowed tree.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
There is Mary, me, John, then Daisy, then Kit, and then Gwen, then Doug.
STRAPLINE:
Doug West, brother
DOUG WEST:
Fred was, we used to say 'e was the blue-eyed boy, 'e could probably get away with things sorta a little bit more than we could. But then 'e could only go so far. I mean you know, at the end of the day, if you done wrong you got punished, and that's the way it was.
Slapstick Policeman at Much Marcle Fair.
Gloucester Bikers.
NARRATOR:
WHEN HE WAS 16, FRED WEST WENT TO HOSPITAL WITH SERIOUS HEAD INJURIES WHEN HE CRASHED HIS MOTORBIKE. FRED WEST'S SOLICITOR READ HIM STATEMENTS DESCRIBING HOW THE FAMILY NOTICED THAT THE CRASH BROUGHT ON A CHANGE.
STRAPLINE:
Howard Ogden, Solicitor
Howard Ogden:
It was noticed by the family over a period of time that Fred had changed. His personality was changing; he'd started lying, boasting, bragging and stealing. He was not the same person. Do you think that's fair?
Fred West:
Ummm.
Howard Ogden:
Yeah.
Photo of young Fred with feet up/cigar.
NARRATOR:
TWO YEARS AFTER THE CRASH, FRED WEST WAS FIRST CHARGED WITH A SEX CRIME. WEST ESCAPED PUNISHMENT FOR INCEST WHEN HIS SISTER, PREGNANT AT 13, REFUSED TO GIVE EVIDENCE.
Newspaper clip from Much Marcle newspaper: "Farm boy Acquitted"
David Canter:
His early sexual assaults, he didn't get particularly severely punished for, in some cases they were dismissed by the legal process. This is part of the build-up of him feeling he can do these things without being challenged, without in fact necessarily recognising it as something that was very wrong, or for which he was particularly guilty.
NARRATOR:
IN 1962, WEST WAS WITH HIS BROTHER JOHN WHEN HE MET A SCOTTISH RUNAWAY, RENA COSTELLO, IN A CAFE IN LEDBURY.
Howard Ogden:
Fred was always a ladies man, he was always the smart one who got the good looking ladies, and I never stood much of a chance.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
[Laughs] All right, then. I mean, I wouldn't go out with a pair of trousers, unless you could cut your wrist on the seams.
NARRATOR:
WEST WAS DRIVING A TRUCK, SO THE 18-YEAR-OLD RUNAWAY RENA HITCHED A LIFT. BUT A POLICE STOP LED TO A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Rena was telling me that she was on the run from a home in what's it's name and she was expecting a baby and all that, and that was all there was to it, she was just telling me her general life story. So anyway a bloody CID shot across in front of me and stopped me in the middle of this fucking street. Rena said shit they're gonna have me and I, I said just tell 'em that I'm the father of the baby, and you've come down to find the father of the baby. And she got away with it. Rena said look, either I'm gonna have to disappear or something, and ah, if we get married, she said, and then I'll get rid of the marriage for you after, and I said, oh all right then. So, I mean it was about a fortnight and we were married.
Fred & Rena wedding shot
DOUG WEST:
'Cos when 'e got married 'e went an' done it in secret. An' when 'e moved to Scotland 'e went on the secret.
Charmaine Pictures
NARRATOR:
ANOTHER SECRET WAS THE BIRTH OF RENA'S FIRST DAUGHTER, CHARMAINE, IN 1963. THE COUPLE PRETENDED CHARMAINE WAS ADOPTED, TO HIDE THE TRUTH THAT THE BABY WAS NOT FRED'S.
Archive: "Swinging Glasgow"
David Canter:
His world is a very concrete one, of particular actions, and particular desires that are to be satisfied and fed. So his original upbringing in Much Marcle had not really given him any framework for understanding the broader ways, or the way that society or the world works. So when he found the opportunity to move out of that into a big city like Glasgow, it would have been an opening up for him of new realms of sexual exploration and of contact with things that he found exciting.
Archive of Sixties Glasgow & Music
NARRATOR:
NOW IN GLASGOW, WEST LEARNT HIS RUNAWAY BRIDE WAS MORE THAN SHE SEEMED. HIS NEW WIFE WAS A STRIPPER.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Rena knew all the top stars and that from clubs and that, 'cos Rena was a stripper in the Calf Jazz club. I mean that's where we got to meet 'em all.
Rena's face projected onto clock.
Ext. HMP Winsom Green
NARRATOR:
FRED WEST CLAIMED RENA HAD DARKER SECRETS. A PAKISTANI BOYFRIEND, WHO HAD FATHERED CHARMAINE. HE RAN BROTHELS. RENA WAS WORKING FOR HIM. AND WEST WAS TO LEARN THE TRADE.
Track across pic of Charmaine to Pic of young Fred & little Charmaine
STRAPLINE:
Howard Ogden, Defence Solicitor
Howard Ogden Reads from solicitor notes.
Howard Ogden:
Fred was later offered a job to become Rena's minder/chauffeur in Scotland by a Pakistani man who was the father of Charmaine. The Pakistani man would set up women for Fred to sleep with and he was told he was not allowed to touch Rena, and he was told this with a knife to his throat. One night when the Pakistani gentleman had gone away on business again, Rena and Fred went to Barrowlands in Glasgow.
Barrowlands archive.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
No, I mean that's when all the trouble come up, when she got drunk that night and we went to Barrowland, that big dance hall up there, and she got drunk and stopped halfway back home and then I…
Howard Ogden:
Give her one?
Fred West:
Give her one, give her one right in all, and she tried to get rid of it, she tried to.
Howard Ogden:
This is Anne Marie.
Fred West:
No, no, yeah, yeah, it's Anne Marie.
Charmaine & Anne in matching red jumpers.
NARRATOR:
FRED AND RENA'S DANCEHALL LIASION CONCEIVED A NEW GIRL, ANNE MARIE WEST. THE BABY WOULD GROW UP TO ENDURE FRED WEST'S WORST SEXUAL DEPRAVITY. BUT UNLIKE HER HALF-SISTER, CHARMAINE, SHE WAS TO SURVIVE. IN 1964, WEST TOOK A JOB DRIVING AN ICE CREAM VAN. IT WAS SELLING ICE CREAMS THAT LED TO HIS ENCOUNTER WITH ANNE MCFALL, WHO WAS TO BECOME HIS CHILD-MINDER, HIS LOVER, AND HIS VERY FIRST VICTIM. IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE WEST INVESTIGATION, POLICE HAD NO IDEA THAT FRED WEST'S FIRST KILLINGS HAD TAKEN PLACE IN THE SIXTIES WHEN HE AND HIS FIRST WIFE RENA LIVED IN A GLOUCESTER CARAVAN PARK.
Cromwell Street.
NARRATOR:
THIS WAS SOME SIX YEARS BEFORE THE KILLING SPREE BEGAN AT CROMWELL STREET, THAT WOULD GRAB THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD. BUT IT IS THESE EARLY CRIMES THAT GIVE THE CLEAREST INSIGHT INTO FRED'S MOTIVATION AND DESCENT INTO DEPRAVITY.
Fred West on track from home video.
Scott Canavan in pub playing cards,
NARRATOR:
DURING THE WEST INVESTIGATION 21-YEAR-OLD SCOTT CANAVAN WAS FRED'S DEFENCE CLERK WHEN FRED FIRST MENTIONED THE FIRST VICTIM - ANNE MCFALL.
STRAPLINE:
Scott Canavan, Solicitor's Clerk
Scott Canavan:
Well, I think he almost rescued her from Scotland, I think she was a prostitute among other things, and I think from what I could tell, she was special to him, and I mean this was when he was quite young, so probably one of his first proper loves.
Janet Leach mowing lawn.
NARRATOR:
ANNE MCFALL ALSO FIGURED HEAVILY IN FRED WEST'S CONVERSATIONS WITH JANET LEACH, THE TRAINEE SOCIAL WORKER CALLED IN BY POLICE TO HELP THE ALMOST ILLITERATE FRED DURING INTERVIEWS.
STRAPLINE:
Janet Leach, Appropriate Adult
Janet Leach:
He was talking about Anne McFall, and how I reminded him so much of Anne McFall. And he said, Just wait till you see a photograph, and then you'll understand. They showed me a photograph of her. He kept saying, Show Janet, show Janet! And when I looked at the photograph, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end, 'cos the resemblance was just uncanny. And then I could realise why he was offloading, 'cos he thought he was talking to 'er, not me.
NARRATOR:
WEST'S OBSESSION WITH JANET LEACH LED HIM TO TELL HER SECRETS HE WOULD NOT TELL THE POLICE. THE FIRST WAS THAT ANNE MCFALL, THE TRUE LOVE SHE SO RESEMBLED, HAD BEEN MURDERED.
END PART ONE
START PART TWO
STRAPLINE:
HTV News Report, 29th March, 1994
Helicopter view of tent in field at Much Marcle.
Reporter:
It's an extraordinary sight in a field in the open Countryside, what looks like a giant inflatable.
Police working in field.
Cut to media with large cameras.
Reporter:
The blue and white tent marks the spot where today Police started digging as part of the search that so far uncovered nine sets of human remains in Cromwell St Gloucester, 15 miles away.
Shots of police equipment.
Cut to helicopter view of police working.
Cut to ground view of police working.
Reporter:
Shortly afterwards the first barrow loads of earth were removed from the tent. A team of ten officers are removing the soil layer by layer to a depth of some three feet, they're anxious not to damage anything that may lie buried there.
Fred & Rena drinking together.
NARRATOR:
AFTER TEN DAYS OF INTERROGATION POLICE HAD TURNED THEIR ATTENTION TO THE WHEREABOUTS OF FRED'S FIRST WIFE RENA, HIS STEP DAUGHTER CHARMAINE, AND HIS NANNEY AND EARLY LOVER ANNE MCFALL.
STRAPLINE:
Howard Ogden, Defence Solicitor
Howard Ogden reads Defence file March 5, 1994
Howard Ogden:
In private consultation thereafter he had remembered who Anne was. She was a female who obviously meant a lot to him in Scotland. She had visited him in the field at Kempley. She was buried in the pond.
Rostrum Anne McFall pic.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Something happened tonight outside there, and something come to me, and tell me that Anne found me. Anne is the one I've been looking for.
Howard Ogden:
The feeling only came really recently in the yard downstairs.
NARRATOR:
IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HIS SOLCITOR, WEST WAXED LYRICAL ABOUT HOW HE MET ANNE MCFALL.
Archive: Glasgow street scenes.
Anne McFall on caravan step.
Anne smiling.
Screen black for several moments.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
There's this young lady sat on the step crying her pissing eyes out, looked like a tramp, and I stopped almost opposite her before I actually seen her. And when I pushed the window open, great big windows, I pushed 'em open like, so I called her over, I said, what's up? And she turned round, she was fucking beautiful, and she was absolutely in rags, and her hair all matted, long flicking hair, but she looked beautiful to me anyway. So I got talking to her and I said do you want an ice cream? Yeah, she said, so I made her up a bloody sundae, one of them big, big sundaes and I said well, come and sit in the van, and eat, have it, and generally got talking to her, and I said, you can come with me if you like for the rest of the day, you know. And then I got to find out what the problem was, that her mother was an alcoholic, and her was selling her body for drink, Anne's, and I said, well, you gotta get out of that, you know. I said, I'll tell you what, I'll take you home with me, I said, and I'll sort something out for you. Anyway, I took her home and told Rena all about it and Rena said yeah, she said, can I stay here, that's all right, so Anne had a bath and cleaned herself up and Rena washed her hair for her, Anne, she looked bloody gorgeous then, you know, long silky hair.
STRAPLINE:
Janet Leach, Appropriate Adult
Janet Leach:
Loved by an Angel: that was because he was having all these thoughts about Anne McFall, he needed, I said to him, why don't you write it? It'll be good for you to get it off your mind, and it'll be good so that it'll improve your writing. And that's what he started to do.
NARRATOR:
DAVID CANTER READS WEST'S JOURNAL IN LECTURE THEATRE.
STRAPLINE:
Professor David Canter, Centre for Investigative Psychology, University of Liverpool
David Canter:
I was loved by an angel. Ana. I met Ana in Glasgow in Scotland she was the children's nanny. She work for my wife, Rena. I had nothing to do with Ana as she was a young girl. She always made me a cup of tea when I came in and my dinner, and always gave me a beautiful little smile as a happy and joyful young lady.
Faces in lecture theatre.
David Canter:
This most curious document gives us a way of trying to see the world from his point of view, what the internal psychological processes were, that gave rise to this series of killings.*
Fred's ice cream van.
NARRATOR:
IN 1965. AN EVENT OCCURRED THAT WOULD HAVE A DOMINO EFFECT ON WEST'S LIFE. AND BRING HIM BACK TO THE FIELDS OF MUCH MARCLE. FRED WEST ACCIDENTALLY KILLED A CHILD. WEST WAS ON HIS ICE CREAM ROUND, WHEN HE RAN OVER A FOUR-YEAR-OLD BOY.
Young Fred with wailing Charmaine & Anne Marie.
Exterior shots of Much Marcle & wacky decorations.
Little Charmaine & Anne Marie on caravan site.
NARRATOR:
THE DEATH LED TO A BREAK IN HIS MARRIAGE. IN DECEMBER 1965, WEST ABANDONED HIS WIFE IN GLASGOW AND TOOK HIS CHILDREN BACK HOME TO MUCH MARCLE. BUT WEST HAD TO HAND THE TWO GIRLS OVER TO SOCIAL SERVICES UNTIL HE FOUND SOMEONE TO LOOK AFTER 18-MONTH-OLD ANNE-MARIE, AND HIS STEP-DAUGHTER CHARMAINE, WHILE HE WAS AT WORK. ANNE MCFALL, THE GLASGOW WAIF HE'D FOUND ON THE STREET, CAME TO HIS RESCUE.
Anne McFall outside caravan.
Caravan site shots.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Then Anne turned up, out of the blue, 'cos what Anne had done, had got my address from off Rena without Rena knowing, and come down to find me. And that was great. Got the kids out.
Howard Ogden:
OK, take your time.
Fred West:
And me and Anne started a relationship.
NARRATOR:
WITHIN MONTHS, FRED WEST MADE ANNE MCFALL PREGNANT.
Archive: cheese rolling.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Anne conceived her baby on Robinswood Hill.
Howard Ogden:
Oh aye.
Fred West:
Where the cheese rolling is.
Howard Ogden:
Yeah.
Fred West:
'Cos we lived below it and we used to walk up the hill together up onto cheese hill, that's where Anne conceived her baby, right in the middle of the fucking bank. Rena didn't know it happened.
Doug West in tree.
STRAPLINE:
Doug West, brother
DOUG WEST:
Fred used to come out 'ome with 'er, an' she was a sweet girl I s'pose you would call 'er, but she used to follow me round the garden like a puppy dog. And I mean I wasn't all that worried at the time, and then of course she went with Fred an' that was the end of it, I never see 'er then.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
No, I never touched Anne in my life, never even laid a finger on her, I thought the world of her, and anybody will tell you that. I would not have had a hair on her head.
David Canter:
The main account we have of Fred West's view of his first wife, is of Rena as a prostitute and a drunkard who breaks all the rules of what a conventional wife should be like. And in contrast, he sees Anne McFall as what a woman would be like who's looking after her man.
Canter in lecture theatre, reads Fred West's journal.
David Canter:
She would chat to me always about the children and what they had been doing all day. I would do my books and go to bed, Rena would come in 4, 5, 6 in the morning, mostly drunk, and just drop on the bed. So, in some ways his contact with Anne helps to emphasise for him the destructive qualities of Rena's life, although of course Fred doesn't have the insight to realise that he is very much a part of that abusive lifestyle that Rena is carrying out and making money out of.
Rostrum Rena.
Caravan park.
NARRATOR:
WHEN RENA ARRIVED UNANNOUNCED TO FIND HER HUSBAND LIVING WITH HIS PREGNANT GIRLFRIEND, WEST WAS WORRIED RENA MIGHT TURN VIOLENT.
Rena facial.
Shots of lakeside caravan park.
Doug West:
I see 'er one night at the pub an' a bloke, I don't know whether 'e actually wanted to chat 'er up or what, but she'd 'ad enough an' she warned 'im an' 'e didn't take the warnin' and that was it. Next thing 'e was gettin' up off the floor. I mean, she did literally lay 'im out, I mean she did pack a wallop.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
She was prostitutin' from the caravan, God knows what wasn't goin' on. And she had other girls with her which went to these parties, in the end never seen 'em no more. Because that's what Anne was used for, was to mingle among these girls and sort out what they were, you know. They'd go and talk to these young girls just starting on the game, you know, sixteen, seventeen years old, where are you from, are you on the run, all that, and once they get to know, you know, runaway from home an' everything, you'll do, you know, mates, pals, buddies. And then they got' 'em. And then they end up in Bristol, whether they supplied 'em anywhere else I don't know, Bristol's the only place I know. And that's where Anne an' that, Rena come every so often and took 'er. But I wanted to stop it, I wanted to get Anne out of it. Y'know. 'Cos she was heavily pregnant, and I don't want her messed up with things like that.
Caravan site shots.
Footage Of 1967 Gloucester Street Carnival.
NARRATOR:
ANNE MCFALL WAS LAST SEEN ALIVE WATCHING THE 1967 GLOUCESTER CARNIVAL. SHE WAS HEAVILY PREGNANT. WEST SAID HE'D MOVED ANNE MCFALL TO ANOTHER CARAVAN SITE TO KEEP HER AWAY FROM HIS WIFE. HE WAS DRIVING FOR AN GLOUCESTER ABBATOIR WHEN ANNE WAS KILLED.
Nighttime driving shots.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I got back to Sandhurst, must have been about half past eleven at night, right. I, parked the lorry in the Road because I had trouble with the lorry on the site because of the smell of the hides and skins and stuff off him. So I parked him and I came round the back way, straight into the caravan.
NARRATOR:
IN SECRET DEFENCE TAPES, WEST CLAIMED HE FOUND RENA, AND HER JAMAICAN PIMP, ROLPH, AT ANNE MCFALL'S CARAVAN. THERE WAS A BODY IN A SUITCASE.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
There's Ralph and Rena in there. Rena's absolutely out of her brains, she hasn't got a clue where she was, what she'd done. Anne was put in a case, a big suitcase, so course I said where's Anne, and Ralph said come outside, so we went round the back of the caravan, and he said Rena's stabbed Anne by mistake. Now I quite believe that, I don't think Rena would have done it absolutely deliberate. I think she was so drugged out of her brains and everything else, drink and God knows what that she just stabbed Anne. So anyway I said to Ralph, what the bloody Hell are we gonna do. And he said we're gonna take her and put her on the tip, on Gloucester tip. I said no, you fucking…
Howard Ogden:
Which is now Gloucester market?
Tip shot.
Nighttime driving.
Fred West:
Yeah, I said no you ain't, I said you're not gonna put her on that tip. By this time I am literally brain dead, I mean I, mind just gone, I mean I hadn't got a clue what I'm thinking, what I'm saying or nothing, so anyway I agreed, I said no, the only place you can put her is in our special place at Marcle, so he said, all right, that'll do. So we drove out there, went down there, and me and him dug the hole together, and Rena sat in the car, watching Anne in the car. Then we both walked back up the field and then him and Rena went down with the car and put Anne in and covered her up and come back up to me. I was sat on that tank, you know the tank just inside the gate, I was sat on there. Splashing water on me face. And that was it, and went back to Gloucester and the case went, wherever, whoever it was went.
Video footage of Fred on bike.
Fred West:
Anne thought the world of me, she was mine, she belonged to me. I mean Rena wasn't belonged to me, Rena belonged to whoever she was with at the moment.
Fred and Rena's faces superimposed on clock.
Fred West:
And I mean Rena always looked after me, don't get me wrong, I mean she never was unkind to me in any way.
Howard Ogden:
The allegation is that you've killed her, isn't it?
Fred West:
Yeah.
Scottish TV news Sting
Scottish Newsreader:
Detectives leading the bodies in the garden enquiry in Gloucestershire are becoming extremely concerned about a Lancashire woman and her daughter. Rena Costello used to live in Hospital Street in Coatbridge from where our crime correspondent Geoff Brown now reports live. Over to you Geoff.
Geoff Brown:
Nothing has been heard of Rena Costello or her daughter, Charmaine for the best part of twenty years, and despite a nationwide appeal, neither of them has been in touch.
Interview room at Gloucester station swings shut.
NARRATOR:
BUT AS POLICE APPEALED FOR NEWS OF RENA COSTELLO, FRED WEST REVEALED SHE WAS ALREADY DEAD. WEST TOLD ONE OF MANY STORIES ABOUT HOW HIS WIFE WAS KILLED.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Anyway she drank as though there was no yesterday and she was well drunk. And when Rena got the drink in her she got very loving. And she started mucking about, and anyway, that was how we decided to go out to the field to our favourite spot, and that's how we came to go out there.
Camera tracks down country road.
Long series of nature shots, briefly interspersed with Gloucester police station.
Fred West:
Now halfway out she kept lying against me while I was driving, and I kept swaying a bit, and I thought well, you know the Police are going to stop me, and I'd had a few drinks, but only shandies. So anyway we got out there, and we stopped under that tree, and then I woke her up, 'cos she was asleep in the back. I woke her up, and we got out, and we made love against, by the tree there, just on the edge of the field there, just round the back of that big oak tree. Then we went for a walk, so then we made love again there, and then we went back to the car, and then I lost me 'ead with her a bit and we had a right set-to and a right row there. And that was when she ended up getting killed against the gate. Then I didn't know what to do then. It was the first time I'd been ever mixed up in anything like that, so the only thing I could think of was to bury her in the field. Well, I mean it was in the middle of the summer, and the ground was rock --hard. Oh I know what was in there as well, one of those, it's like a pick axe, and it's got like an axe on the one side of it and like a blade on the other side of it. It's like a pickaxe, chopped it up mostly with that and then shovelled it out with a spade. Then the problem was it wasn't half big enough 'cos by this time Rena was laying just inside the gate.
STRAPLINE:
Howard Ogden, Defence Solicitor
Howard Ogden reads Defence file April 12
Howard Ogden:
He therefore decided to dismember the body, cutting off the head and legs. The arms were left on the torso. When asked what happened next, Fred said that he filled the hole back in. He said the hole was in the turf at the edge of the field and when he finished, it looked like it hadn't been touched. He said that he washed himself down as he had no shirt on.
Nature shots.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Anyway I washed, and I got back in the car. I had a cigarette, and I just sat there wondering what to do. Then I went and gathered all her clothes up and tidied up. I could see this fire in the distance, all the time glowing, and then I drove down to that. I took the clothes out and threw it over into the middle of the fire and I don't know what, just chucked it. So that was the end of that.
Cut to bonfire.
NARRATOR:
TEN DAYS INTO THE 1994 MURDER ENQUIRY, FRED WEST TOOK INVESTIGATORS TO WHERE HE'D BURIED HIS FIRST WIFE.
Kempley Field Shots.
Camera tracks through foliage to Much Marcle sign pan.
Howard Ogden reads Defence file March 5.
Howard Ogden:
We looked at Ordinance Sheet 149. The hill is called The Fingerpost. There are woods up on the right. Fred said he used to work these fields when he was young. He buried her by a tree in the hedgerow since "being a farmer myself" he did not wish to destroy the crop, so this was a spot where corn would not grow. DC Morgan marked the spot by driving a stake into the ground.
Scott Canavan:
He was taken off the handcuffs, allowed to wander, do his "spiritual" bit again and feel where the bodies are. That's how he used to say where the bodies were: that he could "feel" them rather than remember them.
Howard Ogden:
He could feel her. He could feel she was by this tree. He had been able to feel the warmth of her skin. He believes in the spirit being around. Rena had been in a full evening dress that was white and shimmering and wearing evening shoes. She had a black bra just showing.
Field at twilight.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Rena come fucking straight into me, man, you know, that was something else.
Howard Ogden:
'Cos you'd felt her presence.
Howard Ogden:
She had given him a kiss like only Rena could. This morning he had felt Rena kiss him. Her face was more vivid, she was so real, he could feel the heat of her body, then she started to drift out. It's when they are going out, it's as though they are taking the whole of my insides, they drift away.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
This feeling of bodies coming out of the ground and that, I didn't know I had that.
Howard Ogden:
That's a very strange psychic experience.
Fred West:
That was terrible, that was. But with Rena, I mean I tried to hold it until I could get back to the cells, but I mean, halfway back I just had to let go.
END OF PART ONE
START OF PART TWO
Cheltenham Laundry.
NARRATOR:
ON SUNDAY, APRIL THE 10TH, FRED WEST'S SOLICITOR HAD JUST BEEN TO A CHELTENHAM LAUNDRETTE WHEN HE LEARNT OF A MAJOR DEVELOPMENT.
STRAPLINE:
Howard Ogden, Defence Solicitor
Solicitor Howard Ogden Puts Washing In Machine.
Howard Ogden:
The reason I had specifically gone to the laundry on April tenth, was to wash Fred's smalls. Upon enquiry although the home office sent out a hair dresser to cut his hair they declined to take in his dirty washing. Well, quite frankly as an act of common humanity and decency, plainly these things have to be done. So I lobbed them in with my washing. I got a call from Superintendent Bennett that afternoon on the basis that they believed they had found Rena. We were up to nine murders at that point. The next day he wanted to go out to Kempley in an effort to find Anne McFall's remains, but at this point they believed they had found Rena, and obviously, that was a very dramatic moment in the case.
STRAPLINE:
HTV News 12th April 1994
Policeman carrying black box.
Reporter:
The solemn climax to two weeks of digging in the field at Much Marcle. A box shrouded in black was this afternoon used to take away the human remains found buried there. It's the tenth body to be uncovered during the investigation that began fifteen miles away. Just two hours earlier the home office pathologist had confirmed the remains were human and, like the other nine found in Gloucester, were female.
Bernard Knight:
That's all we really can tell you until we do a lot more to them. They've obviously got to be cleaned up and examined and have further tests.
Dr Whittaker at electron microscope.
STRAPLINE:
Dr David Whittaker, Forensic Dentist, Cardiff University
David Whittaker:
Normally the problem is who is this body, but here you've got not two or three or four but very, very many. And they're all female. It's discovered they're roughly in the same age group, with one or two exceptions, but mostly in the same age group, and so you've got very similar characteristics.
Photo of Rena is laid out.
David Whittaker:
This one is Rena West, and again, luckily, smiling face, that's the crucial thing. All the teeth, they've very level across the end here so they're slightly unusual. That actually might be a denture but that's the sort of thing we'd have to look at, try to work out which. And also we've got good skin folds, good shape of face, that's an ideal sort of picture.
Pan up of Rena pic.
NARRATOR:
THE RETURN TO THE FIELDS HE'D WORKED AS A BOY, AND THE RELIVING OF HIS FIRST KILLINGS, HAD A DEEP EFFECT ON FRED WEST. HE DESCRIBED BEING HAUNTED BY SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, JUST AS HE HAD DONE WITH HIS CROMWELL STREET VICTIMS:
Fred & Rena drinking.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I got such an experience when Rena came up into me in that field. That was something else. I have never got anything like that in my life. And she had this smile on her face. And Anne was in my mind there with her, mixed up with her like, and as Rena went away, Anne sort of stayed there. For the life of me, I couldn't think who the heck Anne was. I mean I said to Janet, after, I said, I got the name Anne in my mind, and I haven't got a clue who it is. And of course that night it all came back to me. I went and sat on the step, lit a fag, and I felt terrible.
Howard Ogden:
This is in the yard?
Fred West:
Yeah. Really felt ill. And I went to put me head in me hand like that. And suddenly Anne came in between it, and more or less pushed her way into me head. And I knew who it was, straight away. So I got in touch with everybody, to get everybody there, because I'd found her, I found her.
STRAPLINE:
Janet Leach, Appropriate Adult
Janet Leach:
And, when he was in the cell, he would talk about Anne McFall, that he had visions of her in a white silvery dress, and that she was just floating above him. And that he couldn't settle, he couldn't do anything until she was found. She was crying for help, that she wanted to be found.
Torch on sign at night at Fingerpost field.
NARRATOR:
IN 1967, FRED WEST HAD BURIED HIS FIRST VICTIM IN THE FIELDS. TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS LATER, THE BODY OF ANNE MCFALL WAS TO BE THE TWELFTH AND FINAL SET OF REMAINS RECOVERED.
Feet walking & field at dusk.
Janet Leach:
He said that he felt the presence of Anne McFall here and she was telling him he had to come back and find her. She was heavily pregnant with Fred's baby, and she wanted to be found. Fred was having visions of Anne McFall, and she was sort of hovering over him, in the cell, she wouldn't go away. He said she was in a long, white, shimmery dress, and she was saying to him, you know, that she had to be found. So when we came out he sort of went right over the field. We were walking round for quite some time, and one of the officers was getting quite annoyed, saying, If you've murdered her you must known where she is, you know, Stop messing about. And he got quite upset, Fred was quite upset about that. Because he said that she was the only one that he ever loved, that she was special to him, and there was no way that he would have done anything to her, that he wanted to be with her. It was frightening, 'cos I don't like the dark anyway. And Fred kept saying, Oh, my 'andcuffs are loose, I can easily get out of 'ere and go in them woods. Nobody'd ever find me.
STRAPLINE:
HTV News 13th April 1994
HTV Reporter:
Another day, another location as the Gloucestershire mass murder enquiry goes on. Today police moved to a field near Much Marcle next to the one where the remains of a women's body had been found over the weekend. As before, they will be digging an area about twenty-five feet by twenty, carefully sifting the soil layer by layer.
Big hole in Fingerpost field.
NARRATOR:
POLICE HAD DUG FOR JUST FOUR DAYS TO FIND RENA, BUT AFTER TWO AND HALF MONTHS THE DIG TEAM HAD FOUND NO SIGN OF ANNE. THEN ON JUNE THE 7TH, A WORKER SAW SOMETHING IN THE SHOVEL OF A DUMP TRUCK. AFTER 55 DAYS OF EXCAVATING THEY HAD BEEN ABOUT TO GIVE UP.
STRAPLINE:
Professor Bernard Knight, Home Office Pathologist
Bernard Knight:
It was a Friday afternoon, anyway. I understood that they were just about to pack in the excavation 'cos they'd been there so long, for months. But a dump truck, apparently, in the last few hours of the excavation, a dump truck had taken up a load of earth, and hey presto, there was a skull in it. So I was called up there to look at this skull, and there it was, sitting on the edge of this dumper truck. And we had to dig away at the bank and find the rest of this body.
NARRATOR:
WEST'S SOLICITOR BROKE THE NEWS TO FRED WEST IN WINSOM GREEN PRISON.
Howard Ogden:
Fred, we've learnt this morning there's been a find at Kempley.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Yeah.
Howard Ogden:
And the police, well, the suggestion obviously is gonna be that this is Anne McFall.
Rape Seed Field Shots.
Fred West:
I want it to be Anne.
Howard Ogden:
Yeah.
Fred West:
Really, I want her found.
Howard Ogden:
Right.
Fred West:
Because I don't know how she died, I don't know anything about what happened to her.
STRAPLINE:
HTV News June 8TH 1994
HTV Bristol
HTV Announcer:
John Bennett Speaks At Conference.
John Bennett:
Officers searching in the Fingerpost field in Kempley found what they believe to be human remains.
Shot of grassy field and various shots of police Excavation work.
Reporter:
There's been speculation that the police have been searching in the Fingerpost Field for the body of a young Scottish woman, Anne McFall
Anne Mcfall photo is put on light box.
David Whittaker:
This is actually the last one, this is Anne McFall. This was an enormous problem for us because this particular set of remains was very badly damaged, and was a reconstruction sort of problem even before we could match the face to anybody. As the skull fades and the face reappears, if you keep your eye on those teeth, you're actually looking at two completely different images, one of them derived from a set of remains that's been buried for many, many years, and the other derived from a photograph that's been lying in somebody's drawer.
Anne Video identification.
NARRATOR:
WEST HAD CLAIMED TO POLICE, ANNE MCFALL'S SPIRIT HAD LED HIM TO WHERE SHE WAS BURIED. IN PRIVATE, HE TOLD HIS SOLICITOR HE HAD LIED ABOUT THIS.
Officer:
I asked you if there was any of those psychic type experiences that wasn't real, and you gave me a one-word answer.
Fred West:
Yeah. Anne.
NARRATOR:
WEST HAD FAKED A HAUNTING TO DISTANCE HIMSELF FROM MURDER, BUT HE ADMITTED HE'D OWNED UP TO HIS FATHER ABOUT THE KILLING OF ANNE. THAT CONFESSION WOULD LEAD TO A LIFELONG RIFT WITH HIS FAMILY, THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER, AND FINALLY, THE MURDEROUS PARTNERSHIP WITH ROSE WEST.
Rainy field.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I went to my father and I told him what had happened. I asked him to go up there with me, because I couldn't go up there on me own at that time. So he walked up there with me, and we stood there talking and he said Look, son, I'm your father, I'm not going to turn you in nor nothing, but if you can live with it, then I'll say nothing. Leave it.
STRAPLINE:
Doug West, Brother
Doug West:
The police come an' said 'ad I any recollection of 'im tellin' Mother that 'e'd buried somebody? Well I said no, but they said, Oh well, we've 'ad information that 'e 'ad.
Doug walking through field.
Pic of Daisy West.
Nature shots.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
How Mother found out, I don't know, whether Dad told her, I don't know, but Mother knew, and I knew that Mother knew.
NARRATOR:
FRED WEST'S MOTHER, DAISY, DIED WITHIN MONTHS OF BEING TOLD HER ELDEST SON'S SECRET.
Walter & Daisy imposed on clock.
Ext. shots of woodland/Gloucester police station.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
So that's how my father come to get involved in it, and the time I was talking to my father in the Garden, he was sat under the plum tree with his chair and his pipe, and, oh, I mean it would have been ten, fifteen years before that I'd ever had a conversation with my father so meaningly, me and my father was close. And he said, well, I haven't got long to go, he said, but I wish you all the best. [Tearful] I know the reason now, because I was gonna find Anne in the end.
Static shot of Anne.
NARRATOR:
FRED WEST FOUND ANNE MCFALL FOR A POLICE DIG TEAM THREE DECADES LATER. WEST'S REDISCOVERY OF ANNE MCFALL BROKE THE LOVE HE HAD FOR HIS PRESENT WIFE. BEFORE HE HAD PROTECTED ROSE WEST FROM ACCUSATIONS OF MURDER. NOW WEST FELT HE NO LONGER LOVED ROSE.
Static West/Ogden.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I had this battle in me head from then on. [sniffs] Anne and Rose, and Anne had just completely pushed Rose out of my mind. Now I've got no feeling towards Rose. Fuckin' crazy. Because Rose had always been Anne in a way to me. And that's how she got away with everything, see. 'Cos I could see no harm in her. I couldn't see nothing wrong with her. Because Anne to me was perfect. I mean she would give her life to me, you know, let alone anything else. [sniffs] She was quite prepared to give her life to me. And when you got somebody to that extent in your life, you've got somebody.
Janet Leach:
Fred said that because of his love for Anne, had she not left when she did, then all of the incidents that happened wouldn't have happened, and that he would have lived happily with her. Because they had a bond, and she was the only one that he ever truly loved. So then he sort of said, Well, I'm not taking the blame for everything, and once Anne McFall had been found, started changing his story to the police.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I have not and still not told you the whole truth, about these matters. From the very first day of this inquiry my main concern being to protect other person or persons, and there is nothing else I wish to say at this time.
Rose West from home movie.
NARRATOR:
IN THE FINAL PROGRAMME, WE EXPLORE THE TWISTED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FRED AND HIS SECOND WIFE, ROSE. WE HEAR THE SECRET TAPE RECORDINGS WHICH REVEAL HOW WEST TURNED ON HIS WIFE, ROSE, ACCUSING HER OF INSTIGATING THE SEXUAL TORTURE AND MURDER OF ELEVEN WOMEN, INCLUDING THEIR OWN DAUGHTER, HEATHER.
Zoom into Fred's face.
END CREDITS ROLL
Fred and Rose
The West Murders
Programme Three
OUR FAMILY OF LOVE
Producer – David Monaghan
Director - Derek Jones
Research – Paul Woods
Fred and Rose from home video.
NARRATOR:
GLOUCESTER BUILDER FREDERICK WEST, HIS WIFE ROSEMARY (pause) AND THE HOUSE THAT HID A DARK SECRET.
Slo-mo of cellar, still of bathroom.
NARRATOR:
THE BODIES OF FIVE YOUNG WOMEN IN THE CELLAR, ONE MORE IN THE BATHROOM.
Garden with children on swing
NARRATOR:
IN THE GARDEN WHERE HIS CHILDREN PLAYED, A GRAVEYARD FOR THREE MORE BODIES, INCLUDING THEIR TEENAGE DAUGHTER.
Cromwell Street packed with onlookers.
NARRATOR:
AS THE WORLD LOOKED ON IN HORROR, A SEARCH FOR THE WEST'S MISSING DAUGHTER HEATHER REVEALED A SPREE OF KIDNAP, RAPE, SEX CRIME AND MURDER THAT COST TWELVE YOUNG LIVES.
Pictures of victims.
A security guard carries something down a darkened corridor.
NARRATOR:
THE SECRETS OF 25 CROMWELL STREET SEEMED LOST WHEN FRED WEST KILLED HIMSELF IN 1995, LEAVING HIS WIFE ROSE TO BE CONVICTED OF TEN MURDERS, BRANDED APALLING AND DEPRAVED.
The camera follows the darkened box into a room.
The room contains flickering television, tapes whirring, hung up suit of a murderer, and the detritus - files, tapes, photographs - of a murder investigation.
NARRATOR:
BUT FREDERICK WEST LEFT A LEGACY.
Security guard puts 25 Cromwell St sign on table. She opens it to reveal a metal sign saying 25 Cromwell Street, and a pile of audio tapes.
NARRATOR:
A SECRET ARCHIVE THAT REVEALS THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE COUPLE ACCUSED OF BRITAIN'S MOST SHOCKING SEX CRIMES. TAPES AND DOCUMENTS, NEVER BEFORE REVEALED, TELL HOW FRED WEST MARRIED A VICTIM OF SEX ABUSE, AND SHAPED HER INTO A SERIAL KILLER.
Static on television with picnic playing.
Moving Rose.
David Canter in Lecture hall.
STRAPLINE:
Professor David Canter, University of Liverpool
NARRATOR:
PROFESSOR DAVID CANTER, BRITAIN'S LEADING CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGIST, HAS STUDIED THE WESTS USING MATERIAL FROM THE ARCHIVE.
David Canter:
By the time that Fred West met Rose, he was already a very dangerous individual who had found ways of killing and getting rid of the bodies, who had found ways of indulging in all forms of sexual appetites and abusing and exploiting others. So, if he found somebody who had similar predilections, then that is a really explosive combination. And it was one of the unhappy coincidences of this whole saga that he met Rose.
NARRATOR:
ROSEMARY LETT'S FATHER, BILL LETTS, BEGAN TO RAPE HIS DAUGHTER AT A YOUNG AGE. THE ABUSE WOULD CONTINUE AFTER SHE ESCAPED INTO A MARRIAGE, IN PART BECAUSE FRED WEST VIEWED INCEST AS A NORMAL RELATIONSHIP.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Her father was making love to her. Her father was sexually abusing her, he was never sexually abusing her, my fucking ass, she was more willing than he was, I mean, as I said, I caught 'em, at least half a dozen times.
David Canter:
Nobody could have gone on to commit a whole series of murders over a number of years if they hadn't grown up in circumstances that somehow or other tolerated some form of physical or sexual or mental abuse.
Janet Leach mows lawn.
NARRATOR:
JANET LEACH WAS A TRAINEE SOCIAL WORKER, WHO LOOKED AFTER FRED WEST'S WELL-BEING DURING POLICE INTERVIEWS. WEST SAID HIS ATTITUDE TO INCEST WAS SHAPED BY HIS EXPERIENCE WITH HIS OWN MOTHER.
STRAPLINE:
Janet Leach, Appropriate Adult
Janet Leach:
Well he said that he, on a lot of occasions, had sex with his mother. He said that that was the norm for them, he didn't see that there was anything wrong in it. That was from an early age.
David Canter:
In coming together with somebody like that, who had a similarly abused background, who had herself been involved in a whole variety of exploitive physical and sexual relationships, for whom any form of acceptable moral standards had long since been kicked out of the window, who presumably also had a very confused view of herself and her own identity, and what she should or shouldn't be doing.
NARRATOR:
ON POLICE BUGGING TAPES NEVER PLAYED IN OPEN COURT, ROSE SAID FRED WEST CONTROLLED HER EVERY MOVE.
Rose West rostrum;
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Rose West
Rose West:
You gotta remember I am sixteen, now I've got this man that, Fred West, right, he's an older man, which my mum told me, get an older man, he'll look after you, he's had his life, he's had his fling, you know, you'll be alright. I'm with this man, and I'm almost completely brainwashed, you know, and I'm doing what he says.
NARRATOR:
FRED WEST, TWELVE YEARS OLDER THAN ROSE AND SCHOOLED IN THE RUNNING OF PROSTITUTES, WOULD MAKE MONEY FROM THE PROMISCUITY BRED INTO HER BY YEARS OF INCESTUOUS ABUSE. CROMWELL STREET BECAME A BROTHEL.
Rose On Bed In Sync To Client.
STRAPLINE:
West home video, Voice of Rose West
Rose West:
That has fucked me for the night.
Client:
I can't help it, can I.
Rose West:
That is massive, man. Is it classified as a dangerous weapon?
Client:
I wouldn't have thought so.
Black client enters room.
Rose West:
I've got the advantage on you. I'm already undressed.
NARRATOR:
ROSE SAID SHE HAD AGREED TO PROSTITUTE HERSELF BECAUSE SHE LOVED FRED WEST.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Rose West
Rose West:
I was in love with your father, whenever I made love with your father, that was it for me. I didn't make love with somebody else and it mean anything. I had to adapt my mind to that, Mae. I had to be able to say oh you know, make excuses, yeah, fine. You know, and literally psych myself up to go. It's all very well, but I had to go out with this bloke I didn't like, and climb into his bed and make love all night, and come home in the morning. Now your mind just, why, see, nobody knows that.
Fred Walks Across Empty Bed To Adjust Blinds.
NARRATOR:
20 YEARS LATER, IN 1991, ROSE WEST WAS STILL ALLOWING FRED WEST TO MAKE THESE VIDEOS OF HER HAVING SEX WITH CLIENTS.
Rose in bed with client.
Rose West:
Looks as though it's going to be hot today. The flowers love this weather, don't they. Have you noticed them?
David Canter:
By the time the relationship between Fred and Rose was established, they were already using each other, and Taking advantage of sexual activity through her Prostitution, and probably already involved in all sorts of coercive sexual activity of abusing others.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
This thing didn't start yesterday, right this ah, imagination. I lived in a world of my own on it, for a reason, because when I went into work and places like that, I mean, half the blokes had shagged my wife and I knew they had.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Rose West
Rose West:
He was sending me fucking out with them. Yeah? And it was just fucking crazy for him to say that I couldn't choose another man, when he was lining them all fucking up for me, and I wasn't even allowed to choose, I've told you, haven't I? You know, that I didn't. It wouldn't be so bad if I liked the people I was sat in the fucking pub with, for, you know for hours every week, you know.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
She'd either flick off with somebody else and be flicked in the car park right by the side of me with half the pub knowing, or flicking say someut in front of, you know lose head with me because I was saying look, you're with me, like, fucking stay here.
NARRATOR:
ALONGSIDE PROSTITUTION, FRED AND ROSE WEST HAD OTHER PLANS: BEARING CHILDREN FOR WHAT THEY CALLED "OUR FAMILY OF LOVE".
STRAPLINE:
West home video
Fred And Rose On Bicycle And At Zoo.
NARRATOR:
BY THE TIME THE WESTS MADE THESE HOLIDAY VIDEOS IN 1992, FRED AND ROSE HAD RAISED TEN CHILDREN INTO THE FAMILY OF LOVE. THREE HAD BEEN FATHERED BY CLIENTS OF ROSES WEST'S PROSTITUTION BUSINESS, TWO HAD ALREADY BEEN MURDERED. FOUR MONTHS AFTER THIS DAY TRIP TO BRISTOL ZOO IN APRIL 1992, POLICE TOOK THE FIVE YOUNGEST INTO CARE, ACCUSING FRED WEST OF VIDEO-TAPING HIS RAPE OF ONE OF HIS DAUGHTERS.
Inside aquarium.
CHILD:
Mum, what's that there?
NARRATOR:
POLICE FAILED TO CONVICT WEST. BUT THAT ENQUIRY REVEALED ANOTHER OF HIS DAUGHTERS, HEATHER, WAS MISSING, AND DEAD UNDER THEIR PATIO. A CHILD ABUSE ENQUIRY HAD LED TO THE DISCOVERY OF MASS MURDER.
David Canter:
We now know from all the studies of child abuse, and what is now often referred to as paedophilia, that there are families in which the children are born and created to be abused within the family situation.
Stephen and Mae West on Couch.
STRAPLINE:
Stephen West & Mae West, Son & Daughter
Mae West:
He'd start by tickling us on the sofa and that, and he'd be touching our private parts, and like if we come in from school, 'cos we'd have like white shirts on, and he'd say Oh you know, how we're developing, and touch us that way, and if you pushed him away, he'd say, Oh you're just a lesbian.
STRAPLINE:
West home
Home movies of Stephen.
NARRATOR:
THE WEST CHILDREN NOT ONLY SUFFERED SEX ABUSE FROM THEIR FATHER. THEY WERE ALSO PHYSICALLY AND SEXUALLY ABUSED BY THEIR MOTHER, ROSE.
Stephen West on Couch.
STRAPLINE:
Stephen West, Son
Stephen West:
She came in, just smiled at me and said don't worry, and she tied the wire around my wrists, and made me lie on the floor, tied around the bottom of the toilet. Got the belt and she just kept hitting me with the belt, and asked me what I'd done wrong. Then she'd use only the buckle end of the belt, and she just keep hitting me, and she'd just keep hitting me, and saying what have you done. It was a house of constant abuse and constant beatings, but certainly we accepted it, that was life.
NARRATOR:
ON SECRET TAPES, FRED WEST CLAIMED HE FOUND OUT ROSE WEST WAS TYING UP HIS CHILDREN AS EARLY AS 1970. WEST, THEN LIVING AT MIDLAND ROAD, GLOUCESTER, WITH HIS DAUGHTER ANNE MARIE AND HIS STEP-DAUGHTER CHARMAINE, SAID HE CONFRONTED ROSE ABOUT THE ABUSE.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Anne Marie said about Rose was tying 'em up. I said to Rose about it and she said oh I'm only playing with 'em, but for some unknown reason it wouldn't go away, I still kept thinking about it, you know it still kept comin' out, why is Rose tying kids up?
NARRATOR:
RENA COSTELLO WAS FRED'S FIRST WIFE, AND THE MOTHER OF CHARMAINE AND ANNE MARIE. THOUGH FRED AND RENA HAD SEPARATED, WEST SAID HE ASKED HIS EX-WIFE TO CHECK HER CHILDREN WERE BEING PROPERLY TREATED BY HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND, ROSE. IN A STORY WEST WITHHELD FROM POLICE, WEST TOLD HIS SOLICITOR THE VISIT LED TO MURDER.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
So I thought I'd get Rena to keep an eye on her. So I went and got in touch with Rena. Whether Rena caught Rose with the kids tied up or what happened, but anyway Rena got killed.
NARRATOR:
WEST, WHO ORIGINALLY CONFESSED TO KILLING HIS FIRST WIFE, NOW SAID ROSE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR HER DEATH. WEST SAID HE'D FOUND OUT HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND HAD GOT RID OF RENA IN 1972.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
We had to clean this garage out, and anyway, Rose is almost shitting herself, you know, and she's looking all the time and that, and when she took stuff out the skip, she didn't drop it in the skip, she dropped it on the flipping road, so I said what the bloody hell's going on, what's wrong with you? She said Rena's in that skip, the body was actually in plastic bags, and there was piece of asbestos on the top of the bin. When I lifted that piece up, boy the stink off that was unreal, even with the plastic bags in there, so I thought, well, I'm not gonna put Rose in prison, I've just come out, and I don't wanna go back.
Field at Kempley.
NARRATOR:
WEST CLAIMED HE DROVE ROSE BACK TO THE FIELDS OF HIS COUNTRY BIRTHPLACE, TO BURY THE DECOMPOSED BODY OF HIS FIRST WIFE, RENA COSTELLO.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I put her in the back, me and Rose went out to Kempley and all, and we buried her, tipped her out of the plastic bags, covered her over, and that levelled it all out, and we went back to Gloucester, 'cos I said to fuckin' Rose hundreds of times over the years, how did you get Rena?
NARRATOR:
NOW BOUND BY A SHARED SECRET OF MURDER, THE WESTS BEGAN A NEW LIFE IN GLOUCESTER THAT WAS TO REVOLVE AROUND SEX AND VIOLENT ATTACKS ON YOUNG GIRLS WHO CROSSED THEIR PATH.
END OF PART ONE
------------------
START PART TWO
Pan from posters on wall.
70's swinging Gloucester sequence with music.
NARRATOR:
IN SEPTEMBER 1972, A SMALL AD TARGETED GLOUCESTER'S YOUTH. FRED AND ROSE WEST HAD ILLEGALLY TURNED THE UPSTAIRS OF THEIR HOME INTO RENTED ROOMS.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
There was so many girls and blokes going in and out of that house, that I hadn't got a bloody clue. I mean Rose was putting people in, taking them out, letting them stay there, taking them there, them bloody young girls, look, and I didn't realise that, 'cos she was having casual sex with some of 'em, wasn't she.
NARRATOR:
ROSE WEST WAS AN INCEST-RAVAGED 18-YEAR-OLD, PUSHED TO PROSTITUTION BY HER HUSBAND. ABUSED BY MEN, SHE BECAME ATTRACTED TO WOMEN, AND CRUEL TO THEM. THE PUBLIC FOUND OUT WHEN THE WESTS KIDNAPPED A BEAUTY QUEEN, CAROLINE OWEN. THE ATTACK WOULD BE KEY EVIDENCE IN ROSE WEST'S MURDER TRIAL 22 YEARS LATER.
STRAPLINE:
HTV News
HTV Newsreader:
The attack on Caroline Owen was a blueprint for a long campaign of sexual violence.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
When Rose attacked that girl that night in that car, I mean I didn't know what to do. Rose had tape in the car ready to tape her mouth up. Tied her hands up with the whats'er and Rose has got her legs open, beating her between the legs. I said for fuck's sake, keep away from her, leave her. I apologised and everything. That's why we only got fined twenty odd pounds.
Bob Constantine:
Mrs Owens claims she'd been knocked senseless by Fred West before being tied up and having tape wrapped round her head. Today it emerged that Mr. and Mrs. West had each been fined £50 after admitting assaulting and an indecency offence against Mrs Owens at Gloucester Magistrates court in 1973.
NARRATOR:
AUTHORITIES AGAIN MISSED A VITAL CHANCE TO STOP THE WESTS. THE CRIMES WERE TO ESCALATE.
STRAPLINE:
Professor David Canter, Liverpool University
David Canter:
There was a process involved. They had become quite alert as to who were potentially vulnerable victims, and they'd become very skilled at attracting those victims in, and making themselves seem very plausible and very innocent, until the victims were within their control.
NARRATOR:
Sharon Compton SURVIVED RAPE AND SEXUAL TORTURE AT 25 CROMWELL STREET. IN 1979, SHARON WAS IN A SOCIAL SERVICE CARE HOME IN GLOUCESTER WHEN SHE MET A FRIEND, ALISON CHAMBERS.
Exterior fence Jordansbrook House girl's care home.
STRAPLINE:
Sharon Compton
Sharon Compton:
Yeah. The reason Alison and I got on so well, we both sort of clicked in, was that we didn't have to say it, but we both knew that we had been abused as children.
Fence at Jordansbrook.
NARRATOR:
WHEN SHARON COMPTON VISITED FRED AND ROSE WEST IN 1979, SHE KNEW NOTHING OF THE SEVEN BODIES UNDER THEIR HOUSE AND GARDEN. ALISON CHAMBERS WAS LOOKING TO RUN AWAY, AND HER FRIEND SHARON SAW THE WESTS WERE ALREADY LURING OTHER CARE HOME GIRLS.
Sharon Compton:
I think I visited Cromwell Street. I wasn't here very long before I started going there with Alison. Most of the other girls were there all the time. Using the rooms. I can say "prostitute" now but I didn't know what a prostitute was then, but I know now, that's what they were doing. I think the other girls and myself were drawn to Cromwell Street because it was just the feeling of being wanted by a family, it was the family routines of everyday, within about a fortnight, Fred's sexual nature was apparent. It was thrown in your face. Rosie's involvement in the sexual side of things taking place was, it was her idea in the first place for Alison and I to perform "blowjobs" with Fred. Rose used to have polyester, God! chiffon scarfs, she had a blue one, turquoisey one, yellow one, and it was that domineering side of pulling it tight, holding you down, tying you to the bed. And they had to be so tight, but she used to say to Fred, Oh don't mark them, don't mark them! And Rosie would say, I want to do more of this, come on, let's do more, let's do more! She used to say it all the time. Fred would play the music normally loud, to cover Alison and I's screams. They'd play the music really loud, Alison, I don't know, played along with this pain side, she thought she was doing good to put up with the pain more and more, whereas I couldn't tolerate it.
NARRATOR:
SHARON'S LAST MEMORY OF ALISON CHAMBERS WAS IN THE CELLAR AT 25 CROMWELL STREET.
Sharon Compton:
I have memories of Alison being hurt at Cromwell Street and to the extent of how she got hurt, I don't know how she would have been able to get up out of the chair. The very first time I was hurt badly there she gave us a cup of tea and it tasted disgusting! It tasted like aspirin, loads and loads of aspirin in this cup of tea. And it sort of made you feel a bit dopey, and funny.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I mean they'd be drugged out their brains then, they wouldn't know what time of day it was, whether they were girls or boys, I mean they hadn't got a clue what they were doing.
NARRATOR:
BUT WHILE THE WESTS SUBDUED GIRLS WITH DRUGS, POLICE OFFICERS WERE IN AND OUT OF CROMWELL STREET. THEY DIDN'T COME FOR FRED WEST. WEST HAD BECOME AN INFORMER, ENCOURAGING DRUG RAIDS WITH TIPOFFS ABOUT HIS OWN LODGERS. SEX ABUSE SESSIONS CONTINUED UNINTERRUPTED.
Sharon Compton:
And there would be people drinking at the bar upstairs, smartly-dressed people there. If they were doing things, then they were watching, then Rosie was making a fuss of them.
NARRATOR:
SHARON COMPTON'S CLAIMS HAD AN EXPLOSIVE EFFECT ON THE WEST INVESTIGATION. NEWSPAPERS REPORTED THAT POLICEMEN WERE HAVING SEX AT CROMWELL STREET AT A TIME GIRLS WERE BEING TORTURED AND KILLED.
THE CLAIMS WERE BACKED BY FRED WEST HIMSELF.
STRAPLINE:
Janet Leach, Appropriate Adult
Janet Leach:
He just said police officers were having sex with Rose. They used to visit Cromwell Street on a regular basis and paid Fred. He just said there were quite a lot of Police involved with relationships with Rose, up on the top room of where she used to "do her business", as he said.
NARRATOR:
AN INVESTIGATION CLEARED THE POLICE OF ANY INVOLVEMENT, BUT THE WEST CASE PROVOKED ANOTHER ENQUIRY. A REPORT INTO THE SOCIAL SERVICE'S HOME THAT LOOKED AFTER ALISON CHAMBERS FOUND CARERS DIDN'T KNOW WHERE SHE WAS, AND HAD LOST TRACK OF HUNDREDS OF OTHERS.
STRAPLINE:
HTV News Report
HTV Logo & Music.
News Reader:
Today's report by the Bridge consultancy says Gloucester Social Services lost trace of one hundred youngsters in their care between 1970 and 1994. Further files on three hundred and ninety missing people have been lost.
Head of Gloucester social services at press conference:
Quite frankly, as carers, we ought to know how many children are missing. The small evidence we have is that the numbers by no means match up to the extrapolated figures the report is alleged to quote.
NARRATOR:
BUT THE REPORT EXCLUDED THE TESTIMONY OF CARE HOME GIRLS THEMSELVES. IN 1979, SHARON COMPTON SAYS AUTHORTIES KNEW RUNAWAYS ENDED UP AT THE HOUSE OF FRED AND ROSE WEST.
Sharon Compton in back of car.
Sharon Compton:
When girls absconded from Jordansbrook, it was up to a couple of members of staff to look. The police were called, and if they were found, they were brought back. But the common knowledge would be that their first place would have been Cromwell Street, to look.
NARRATOR:
OF FRED AND ROSE WEST'S TWELVE MURDER VICTIMS, SEVEN HAD SPENT TIME IN CARE HOMES.
STRAPLINE:
Gloucester MP Douglas French
HTV News 1996
Douglas French:
I think the contents of this report are deeply worrying. They reveal a catalogue of administrative incompetence which almost passes belief. The fact that four hundred files could be missing on children and a hundred children themselves could be missing, and no one it seems has been doing anything about it at all. Some questions clearly need to be answered.
NARRATOR:
THERE HAS STILL BEEN NO FULL-SCALE ENQUIRY INTO THE WEST'S CRIMES.
David Canter:
When you look at the history of the assaults and murders that Fred and Rose were involved in, you'll see that there are lots of points at which it could have been stopped, where somebody could have taken an action, or two or three people could have taken an action and it would have brought it to an end. But that didn't happen. That creates the conditions for further development and further continuation.
Easter Gloucester And Cheltenham
Cross pan to Gloucester Cathedral
Penitents carry cross in Gloucester Easter procession.
Christ carries cross in Cheltenham passion play.
NARRATOR:
AS GLOUCESTER AND CHELTENHAM CELEBRATED EASTER IN 1994, BOTH WEST'S DEFENCE SOLICITOR AND THE MURDER ENQUIRY TEAM LOOKED FORWARD TO A BREAK.
Howard Ogden walks with passion play procession.
NARRATOR:
SIX WEEKS OF HARD INVESTIGATION, AT ALL TIMES IN A SPOTLIGHT OF MASSIVE PRESS INTEREST, HAD BUILT A CLOSE TEAM OF THE 84 OFFICERS ASSIGNED FULL-TIME TO THE CASE.
STRAPLINE:
HTV news footage
Head policeman Superintendent John Bennett
John Bennett:
Happy Easter and on behalf of the enquiry team, we have bought you all an Easter egg.
Laughter.
Policeman hands eggs to journalists.
NARRATOR:
IT WAS DAY FORTY-ONE OF THE ENQUIRY. POLICE HAD RECOVERED NINE BODIES, BUT HAD YET TO IDENTIFY THEM ALL. HOWARD OGDEN HAD HEARD FRED WEST CONFESS TO MURDER IN NINETY SEPARATE POLICE INTERVIEWS. WEST'S WIFE, ROSE, WAS FREE ON BAIL, BUT UNDER INTENSE INVESTIGATION. BUT THERE WAS ABOUT TO BE A DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT. WEST, WHO HAD ALWAYS TAKEN RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MURDERS, SUDDENLY TURNED ON HIS WIFE.
STRAPLINE:
Howard Ogden Defence Solicitor
Howard Ogden:
I recollect taking him in his Easter egg, so that he took part in the Easter festival as well. It was a difficult emotional time for Fred. My concern was to keep him together, to focus his thoughts. Because here was a man who had been spilling the beans for months. Basically, having admitted at that point I think ten murders, it was enough of a responsibility dealing with the admissions that were coming tumbling out, all the way through his instructions were that he had committed these offences. There was a major problem, and the major problem was that the account Fred was now giving was totally at odds with the account he'd been giving us for the last two months. Within an afternoon we had the junior counsel and the consultant psychiatrist in to see Fred.
STRAPLINE:
Janet Leach, Appropriate Adult
Janet Leach:
He was totally mad. He really believed what he was saying at the time. But then if it didn't sound right he'd change it again, to suit himself. He was totally, totally mad. Definitely.
Passion play.
Howard Ogden:
This was such a dramatic change in instructions, to what extent could they be relied upon. And the advice that was given was that it was part and parcel of a serial killer's psyche to go into denial. What happened Easter '94 was I went that evening and sat down with Fred and he gave me a full account of his change of instructions. Which account principally would be summarised as, well, Rose done it.
David Canter:
Once he became aware that she may reveal some of the secrets, then clearly the logic for him is to start fingering her, to start saying she was the real culprit. And to try and get the accusations into her before she started accusing him.
On April 21, Police Took Rose West Into Custody.
STRAPLINE:
HTV News Report 30 June 1994
Police van drives to court.
Reporter:
The couple arrived at Gloucester Magistrate Courts in separate prison vans this morning. Rosemary West who had been brought from Pucklechurch Remand Centre near Bristol, handcuffed throughout the journey. The court appearance was to be the first time they had seen each other since they were arrested four months ago.
Rose then Fred led in under blankets.
Reporter:
In court Rosemary West was brought into the dock first, her head bowed. She sat flanked by two women police officers. When Fred West was escorted into the dock, he leaned forward and touched her shoulder, she didn't acknowledge this gesture, steadfastly ignoring him.
STRAPLINE:
Doug West, Brother
Doug West:
I think that 'e was prepared to take the rap for 'er. But then when they appeared in court she snubbed 'im in court. And once she'd done that, she might as well 'ave pleaded guilty then, because 'e turned. I mean once 'e turned, that was it.
NARRATOR:
FRED WEST TOLD HOWARD OGDEN HE'D LIED TO POLICE FROM THE START.
Prison flag.
Winsom Green prison.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Now wait a minute, this is where we have got a hell of a problem, so we got to get it all out, sorted out, because I have mixed it up deliberately for the police.
NARRATOR:
ACCORDING TO WEST'S LATEST VERSION, THE NIGHT POLICE CAME TO DIG UP HIS PATIO, HE CAME HOME AND TOLD HIS WIFE THERE WAS NO NEED TO WORRY. BUT ROSE HAD A CONFESSION TO MAKE ABOUT WHAT WAS IN THEIR BACK GARDEN.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I said 'cos there's piss-all out there, what you worrying about? And then she said, oh yeah there is, and I can remember taking a breath and swallowing it, I said, what the flaming hell do you mean? She said, Heather's out there. Well, I mean, I just flicking died for a minute, you know, I had to sit down, I was, got a fag and I was trying to light it, and god knows what, so I thought, I said, what do you mean Heather's out there? She said, yeah, Heather's buried out there. So I said, where, she said, at the end of the fence, where the fence used to go across. And it seemed as though my whole life stopped there, finished.
Howard Ogden:
Yeah.
Fred West:
You know, and I couldn't think of nothing, I mean Heather, I mean I thought the bloody world of Heather. So anyway I got to grips with it after a while, and the first thing that come into my mind was I'm gonna have to take this, and sort it out, which I did, all the messes Rose got herself into, I took the fuckin rap for 'em, and helped 'em out of it, so anyway, I said, you have to tell me exactly what happened. She said that Heather was cut up, and I never felt so ill, for a few minutes, seconds, before I could get to grips with it again, and I said, what on earth did you cut her up for, she said, she wouldn't fit in the dustbin. Now the thing that makes it hard, that she cut Heather up, and chucked her in a fucking dustbin.
Howard Ogden:
Mmmm.
Fred West:
Our daughter in a dustbin.
NARRATOR:
WEST SAYS HE STARTED TO COME UP WITH THE FALSE CONFESSION TO THE ONE MURDER HE'D BEEN TOLD ABOUT, THE KILLING OF HIS TEENAGE DAUGHTER, HEATHER.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I am working out what I am going to tell the police, how I am going to handle it, right. One body fully clothed, or I thought, in the first place, but by now I know it is cut up, so I got to think up why the bloody hell I cut her up, I mean what reason for that, I cut this girl up. At least it's only one, I mean, you can get away with accidentally killing two, like, sort of thing, that's the thought that is going through my mind, like. Is that it? There's seven or eight, nine, someut like that. So anyway, Rose told me where the ones in the basement were. I said, fuck me, you haven't done bad, have you?
NARRATOR:
ACCORDING TO WEST, HIS WIFE THEN ADMITTED SHE HAD KILLED ANOTHER OF HIS CHILDREN.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
She said Charmaine. And I said Charmaine? I said Hang on a fuckin' minute. Where's Charmaine? She said, Charmaine's buried in the coal cellar in Midland Road.
NARRATOR:
CHARMAINE WAS FRED WEST'S STEP-DAUGHTER. SHE'D GONE MISSING FROM THEIR PREVIOUS HOME AT 25 MIDLAND ROAD, GLOUCESTER, IN 1971.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Yeah, she's buried in the corner, I said, she's not fuckin' cut up? You know. I mean, you haven't cut a child up? For God's sake, do you know what I mean, that was the feelings coming to me. Oh no, she's not cut up, she said. She's fully clothed, wrapped in blankets and, and buried.
Rostrum pic Charmaine on clock.
STRAPLINE:
HTV News 5th May 1994
Newsreader:
Policeman George Sharpe carried out the black draped box Containing the latest remains to be discovered in the mass murder Investigation. They will now be minutely examined to confirm the Identity of the body.
STRAPLINE:
Dr David Whittaker, Forensic Dentist
David Whittaker:
Although we think this set of remains is Charmaine, legally we don't know. So that was the situation. Actually running close to the trial of Rosemary West. This particular set of remains, Charmaine, became absolutely crucial to that prosecution.
NARRATOR:
FOR ONCE THERE WOULD BE INDEPENDENT SUPPORT FOR WEST'S CLAIM THAT ROSE WEST HAD KILLED CHARMAINE. A SMILING PHOTO OF THE LITTLE GIRL COULD GIVE FRED WEST A GENUINE ALIBI.
David Whittaker:
He was in jail for a relatively small offence, but he was in jail.
NARRATOR:
ON DECEMBER 4, 1970, FRED WEST WENT TO JAIL FOR DISHONESTY AND THEFT OF A VEHICLE TAX DISK. THE SIX AND A HALF MONTH JAIL TERM WOULD POINT TO WEST'S INNOCENCE OF AT LEAST ONE MURDER, THE DEATH OF NINE-YEAR-OLD CHARMAINE WEST. IF SCIENCE COULD PROVE WHEN CHARMAINE DIED, ROSE WEST COULD BE CONVICTED OF THE FIRST OF THE GLOUCESTER KILLINGS.
Close up Charmaine slides.
Close up teeth.
David Whittaker:
We got the original negatives. The original negatives were written on the edge of the film, if you like, the date on which they were taken: 14th of April, the year, whatever it was. That was crucial, because we'd got the quality, we'd got the teeth visible, you can see them here, you can see the amount of information there is there, it's absolutely superb. And we can use it to scale our set of remains, we can look at very small discrepancies between the size of the skull and the size of the photograph, and that tells us how much growth has gone on, okay, between the photograph being taken on the 14th of April and death. And if we can estimate that period of time, we've not only identified Charmaine, but we've determined when she died as well.
Wide shot of Whittaker and assistant.
NARRATOR:
DR. WHITTAKER CONCLUDED THAT CHARMAINE HAD INDEED BEEN KILLED WHEN FRED WEST WAS IN PRISON.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Rose lied to me, which hurt me as well, about Charmaine, she said that Charmaine was an accident or someut, she grabbed her or someut by the throat or someut and killed her, I can't say exactly what she did say, but Heather, ah Charmaine, she said, she killed her, and buried her in a basement underneath at the back of the house, and I was, you didn't cut her up, and she's, oh, no, no, I wouldn't, no, no, nothing like that, she said, she's fully clothed and I wrapped her up in her blanket and buried her, and that's what I said. But that wasn't it at all when the police found her, she was naked, and whether she'd been cut up I don't know.
Rostrum colour still of Charmaine West.
END OF PART TWO
-----------
START PART THREE
NARRATOR:
BEFORE HIS ARREST FOR MASS MURDER, FRED WEST MAINTAINED A CHARADE OF FAMILY LIFE. THE WESTS WERE SEEN HERE AT THE GUY FAWKES CELBRATIONS IN GLOUCESTER PARK IN 1991.
STRAPLINE:
West Home movies: Bon Fire Night
Tara:
Guy Fawkes was a man, wasn't he? He tried to blow up the king, didn't he, and somebody told on him and he got caught, didn't he, with all these explosions and things.
Fred West:
No. Guy Fawkes is a man.
NARRATOR:
THREE YEARS LATER WEST WOULD CLAIM, ON SECRET DEFENCE TAPES, THAT THE MOTHER OF THE FAMILY, ROSE, WAS A SERIAL KILLER, AND HAD BOASTED TO HIM ABOUT THE FIRST VICTIM SHE'D BURIED AT CROMWELL STREET.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
She said, what about Linda Gough. I said, You bitch, because I already had, when she said that, I realised she'd killed her.
NARRATOR:
LINDA GOUGH HAD BEEN THE WESTSLODGER WHEN SHE WENT MISSING IN 1972. WHEN LINDA'S PARENTS WENT TO 25 CROMWELL STREET TO FIND HER, ROSE WEST SAID LINDA HAD MOVED - BUT THE VISITORS NOTICED THAT ROSE WAS WEARING SOME OF THEIR MISSING DAUGHTER'S CLOTHES. LINDA'S PARENTS TOLD A POLICEMAN FRIEND OF THEIR CONCERNS. BUT AGAIN THE WESTS GOT AWAY WITH MURDER.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
She's wearing the girl's shoes and she'd killed her, for fuck's sake. And her dressing gown.
Howard Ogden:
Mmm.
Fred West:
I mean, how fuckin' far can you go. I said, you wore the fuckin' clothes, after you'd killed her. She said, I washed it. And she said, Well, that's where she is, in there. I said fuck me, I remember now, you filled it in, or somebody did. Well, she said, somebody filled it in. 'Cos that was the first one at Cromwell Street. There ain't no doubt about that.
NARRATOR:
AS GIRLS WENT MISSING THROUGHOUT THE SEVENTIES, GLOUCESTER WAS UNAWARE IT HAD BECOME THE SECRET MURDER CAPITAL OF BRITAIN. TEN KILLINGS BY THE WESTS IN AS MANY YEARS GAVE THE TOWN A RATE OF HOMICIDE WORSE THAN LONDON'S.
Tape player in archive.
NARRATOR:
DEFENCE TAPES IN THE ARCHIVE REVEAL FRED WEST BLAMING HIS WIFE FOR THE CROMWELL STREET KILLINGS. BUT EVEN IN HIS DEFENCE, FRED WEST ADMITTED HE'D WATCHED AS ROSE TORTURED A VICTIM BEFORE MURDER.
Tape player.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
I know how they were killed. 'Cos I seen Rose do that to a girl once, she hurt 'em, did so much damage to 'em with that, that she had to fucking kill 'em.
STRAPLINE:
Sharon Compton
Sharon Compton:
She was the one that took control with everything, totally. But she sort of liked women as well as men, she liked to do things to Alison and I as much as what Fred did. But her participation, her whole presence there was, it was sort of like a television programme really, she was the person that was in control, telling people what to do.
West home video of Rose West.
Sharon Compton:
When I first went there with Fred and Rose with reference to sleeping together and Rose taking part with different things, it was different instruments used, with reference to, you know, things inserted into us, and to see how much pain, she really got off on this, this was introduced fairly early on.
Police diggers move green remains box.
NARRATOR:
SEARCHERS RECOVERED EVIDENCE OF EXTREME SEXUAL TORTURE IN THE CROMWELL STREET GRAVES. FRED WEST CLAIMED HIS WIFE ROSE BOASTED SHE'D ACTED ON A PERVERSE SEXUAL MOTIVE.
Rose West in bedroom in home movie.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
She said that she was a beautiful young thing, she said, and all this fuckin' lot, Rose was going on, I felt fuckin' sick, I said, why did you fuckin' kill her for God's sake? Oh I fancied her, she said.
NARRATOR:
DESPITE FRED WEST'S SECRET ACCUSATIONS, BUGGING TAPES REVEAL ROSE WEST WAS CONVINCED SHE'D NOTHING TO CONFESS.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Rose West
Rose West:
They'll never get a confession out of me for something I haven't done. If they think I've got fuck-all to do with this, then the best thing they can do is put me in the cells, and fucking throw the key away. Because I shall always protest my fucking innocence, no matter if I do spend the rest of my life in fucking nick.
NARRATOR:
ON MAY 13, 1994, WEST FINISHED THE LAST OF 132 POLICE INTERVIEWS THAT RESULTED IN TWELVE CHARGES OF MURDER. BUT ONCE IN JAIL AWAITING TRIAL, WEST BEGAN TO CLAIM HE KNEW ABOUT OTHER UNSOLVED MURDERS AND DISAPPEARANCES AROUND GLOUCESTER STRETCHING BACK YEARS.
West Home movie.
Howard Ogden, Defence Solicitor, reads from Defense File July 1
Howard Ogden:
Fred then said that he was convinced that there are a lot more bodies to be found. He said it has been going on for thirty years.
NARRATOR:
AN ENDURING MYSTERY HAD HAUNTED GLOUCESTER FOR YEARS. WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO MARY BASTHOLM?
STRAPLINE:
HTV News 1968
Newsreader:
Mary Bastholme never reached the village of Hardwicke. The last that was seen of her was at this bus stop on the A38. Following her disappearance, the police launched a massive search.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
The girl, Mary Bastholme, remember I said that to you in the car, out the back, give her a fucking sorting out.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
Howard Ogden, Defence Solicitor, reads from notes Of April 5:
Howard Ogden:
He wanted to protect Rose. He held the ace card. He didn't want to tell me what that was, but went on to say that in relation to Mary Bastholme, that she had been buried at Bishops Cleeve.
STRAPLINE:
Janet Leach, Appropriate Adult
Janet Leach:
He actually said that he had actually picked her up from the bus stop. He did say that she had been murdered, that he did know her anyway, and that she willingly got into the car.
NARRATOR:
WEST GAVE DIFFERENT SCENARIOS FOR WHAT HAPPENED. HE TOLD HIS SOLICITOR TO PREPARE A DEFENCE THAT SADISTIC PARTIES IN THE NEARBY CITY OF BRISTOL HAD LED TO BODIES BEING HIDDEN IN HIS HOUSE.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
All the girls were killed somewhere else, there weren't one of them killed at Cromwell Street. I still believe that these girls ended up at these parties in Bristol, they were drugged, sexually abused, and whatever else was done to them. I don't believe they were killed there. They were then taken back to wherever Rose had them, and then they were fuckin' tortured and killed by somebody else.
NARRATOR:
BUT FRED WEST WOULD NEVER BE QUIZZED FURTHER ON WHAT HE KNEW. HIS LEGAL TEAM HAD ADVISED HIM TO REFUSE FURTHER INTERVIEWS. AND AS THE SUMMER WORE ON, THE POLICE HAD NO INCLINATION TO BELIEVE HIS NEW CLAIMS OF INNOCENCE. THE WEST STORY TOOK A FATAL TWIST ON NEW YEAR'S DAY 1995. FRED WEST WAS FOUND DEAD, STRUNG UP IN HIS CELL WITH A HANDMADE NOOSE. A NOTE NEAR THE BODY PROMISED ROSE WEST HE'D WAIT FOR HER IN HEAVEN. THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT THE KILLINGS MAY HAVE DIED WITH FRED WEST.
Janet Leach:
I was so so angry, you know, the fact that he'd actually left me with a load, he'd actually told one of the officers that the only other person he'd told was me, so they knew that I'd got this information. I was just so angry.
NARRATOR:
JANET LEACH HAD BEEN TOLD THERE WERE EVEN MORE BURIAL GROUNDS.
Torch on sign.
Janet Leach:
Fred said that there were two other bodies in shallow graves in the woods, but there was no way that they'd ever find them. Fred said that there were twenty other bodies, not in one place, spread around, and that he would give the police one a year. Well, he told me the truth about the other bodies in the cellar, and what had happened to the girls, so I don't see that he would lie about other bodies.
NARRATOR:
SHARON COMPTON, THE GIRL WHO ESCAPED THE HORRORS OF CROMWELL STREET, POINTED OUT AN ABANDONED FARM IN GLOUCESTER, WHERE SHE SAYS MANY WERE TAKEN.
Sharon Compton:
People used to park all their cars along here. If you go over the gate and to the left of the barn, you'll still see the big stone slab. The barn's still there, and then to the left, you'll just see a big stone slab. Things happened outside. But when you're being hurt outside and you're screaming, there's sort of sounds that you can't drown, in a house with music.
Janet Leach:
Well he just said the farm, it was like, he classed it like a cult, he said, where they'd all go to the farm, and the girls would be picked up and taken there, and some of them would be there for days. And they'd subject them to different forms of abuse, and their fingernails would be burnt off.
Stephen West goes to farm.
NARRATOR:
IN 1996, FRED WEST'S SON STEPHEN SHOWED A GERMAN TV CREW ANOTHER FARM WHERE HIS FATHER CLAIMED TO HAVE SECRETLY BURIED BODIES.
STRAPLINE:
Stephen West, Son
Stephen West:
Dad said he used to drive up here, get out of his car and jump over the wall, and come down here. It was dark, and he never got interrupted, and he brought people here, and he buried young ladies here.
NARRATOR:
IN 1998, THERE WAS A FINAL BURIAL. THIS TIME, CITY AUTHORITIES DECIDED TO KNOCK DOWN THE HOME OF FRED AND ROSE WEST, AND BURIED THE BRICKS AT THE LOCAL TIP.
Sharon Compton:
Everything was so overlooked, nothing was done, and by taking it away, now people can just ignore it, and pretend it never happened.
STRAPLINE:
Professor David Canter, Liverpool University
David Canter:
At any given point in time in the United Kingdom, there are about five or six individuals who have killed a number of times who have not yet been convicted, possibly not yet even caught. So we will continue to see people like this every year or two. If we can recognise that somebody is on the path that could lead to them becoming a serial killer, and take them out of society and control them, then we'll have the possibility of stopping serial killers in the future. So the more we can get to grips with how they see the world, how they think, how they express themselves, and indeed the details of their activities, the more it will enable us to understand what in a sense really makes these people tick. And also will help us to provide a framework which will be of real use to police investigations in the future. The importance of this, the value of studying people like Fred West, is that it then enables us to understand more about the dark side of ourselves. It gives us a fuller understanding of what it means to be human.
Digger Shots & Bricks.
STRAPLINE:
Voice of Fred West
Fred West:
(Laughing) I should go to hell, shouldn't I, for what I've done.
END CREDITS
Music Fades Out
Graphic: Girls on black background with their names.
STRAPLINE:
In memory of:
Anne McFall, Charmaine West, Rena Costello, Lynda Gough, Carol Anne Cooper, Lucy Partington, Juanita Mott, Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Shirley Robinson, Alison Chambers, Heather West
END OF WEST SERIES
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