A gripping true crime documentary about the real story of Rose West who, together with her husband Fred West, became Britain's biggest and most notorious serial killers.
Although it's hard to believe now, Rose West was an exceptionally beautiful little girl with long, glossy dark hair and big brown eyes. Looking at photos of young Rose as a child, it is almost impossible to comprehend that she would grow up to become one of Britain's most notorious female serial killers. But Rose West's early life made her the perfect partner for Fred West, and the two committed a string of murders in Gloucester throughout the seventies and eighties. Her part in the killings is very different to that which many people believe even today. So what happened to that little girl to make her capable of such violence? Or was there something wrong - a predisposition to cruelty - which she was born with?
This true-crime documentary goes back to the start of Rose's life to piece together what it was that turned her into a monster. In doing so, it profiles the young Rose West uncovering a fascinating insight into the mind of Britain's most infamous female sexual predator and serial killer.
Watch More "Fred and Rose West: True Crime Documentaries" - Playlist
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Although it's hard to believe now, Rose West was an exceptionally beautiful little girl with long, glossy dark hair and big brown eyes. Looking at photos of young Rose as a child, it is almost impossible to comprehend that she would grow up to become one of Britain's most notorious female serial killers. But Rose West's early life made her the perfect partner for Fred West, and the two committed a string of murders in Gloucester throughout the seventies and eighties. Her part in the killings is very different to that which many people believe even today. So what happened to that little girl to make her capable of such violence? Or was there something wrong - a predisposition to cruelty - which she was born with?
This true-crime documentary goes back to the start of Rose's life to piece together what it was that turned her into a monster. In doing so, it profiles the young Rose West uncovering a fascinating insight into the mind of Britain's most infamous female sexual predator and serial killer.
Watch More "Fred and Rose West: True Crime Documentaries" - Playlist
https://dailymotion.com/playlist/x8uyke
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TVTranscript
00:00:00Rosemary Pauline West. On each of the 10 counts of murder, the sentence is one of life imprisonment.
00:00:07Throughout her trial, Rose West maintained she was innocent.
00:00:12It turned out that she was just 17 when she began the most sadistic killing spree Britain has ever witnessed.
00:00:20She wanted to hurt women as much as she could.
00:00:23The more macabre nature of this torture got progressively worse with one killing following another.
00:00:30But how did this local housewife become one of the most depraved killers in history?
00:00:36Could Rose's childhood have transformed her into a killer?
00:00:40Rose was definitely in charge in the West household. There was no denying that.
00:00:45We'll speak to the people who knew her best.
00:00:48You could hear the screams and the shouts and it was awful to hear.
00:00:53And discover a history of mental illness.
00:00:56She went into a little bubble of her own.
00:00:58Brutal therapies.
00:01:00The seizures would be violent. She would have not found solace in the outside world.
00:01:06And uncovered generations of abuse.
00:01:09He'd actually been grooming her from quite a young age.
00:01:13There's no doubt that he altered his daughter, Rose.
00:01:19Was Rose West raised to become a killer?
00:01:23Or was she born evil?
00:01:341970 marks a new bohemian era for Great Britain.
00:01:38As glam rock topped the charts, the Brits adopted this new free-spirited, permissive lifestyle.
00:01:46And for 16-year-old Rose Mouillette's, life couldn't be better.
00:01:51She's moved in with her new lover, 29-year-old Fred.
00:01:55His step-daughter Charmaine and daughter Anne-Marie.
00:01:58And nine months later, the couple introduce baby Heather to the world.
00:02:04Rose is living the kind of fairytale dream at this point.
00:02:07She's got this little family and she has this old chap who's going to take care of her.
00:02:12So things were looking quite bright at this point.
00:02:15And then Fred goes to prison.
00:02:18And her world comes crashing down.
00:02:21Rose learned the hard way that the man of her dreams was a petty thief.
00:02:25Fred was a kleptomaniac. If anything wasn't actually nailed down, he would take it.
00:02:30And so he was often in and out of prison.
00:02:33Fred was sentenced to 10 months in jail.
00:02:36Leaving Rose all alone to raise baby Heather, Anne-Marie and Charmaine.
00:02:41She was actually living in squalor with three small children, unable to cope.
00:02:47This wasn't the life that Rose had dreamed of.
00:02:50This wasn't what she'd bargained for. This fairytale wasn't working out.
00:02:55Just as Rose was learning a lot about Fred's past, he would learn about hers.
00:03:01Years after the young girl went missing, her remains were uncovered, buried under a kitchen floor.
00:03:09In the summer of 1971, 17-year-old Rose murders her first victim, 8-year-old Charmaine.
00:03:17In Gloucester's Midland Road, she did not get on with her stepmother.
00:03:21She told Rose, you're not my mother, you can't do this, you can't say that to me.
00:03:26And Rose would lash out.
00:03:28She just picked up anything that was to hand and would hit, jab, do whatever.
00:03:34And then she would tie her to the bed and whip her.
00:03:39After one brutal outburst, Rose kills Charmaine.
00:03:43Rosemary West has spent her first night behind prison bars.
00:03:47Rosemary West has been charged with 10 counts of murder.
00:03:50She remains in custody where she denies all involvement.
00:03:53Today, Rosemary West's solicitor told how she's in severe shock.
00:03:57In her cell at Parkhall Church Remand Centre, Rosemary West's reaction was simple.
00:04:02I'm innocent, she told her lawyer.
00:04:08I think that Rose was constructed of her life experiences.
00:04:13She had a reality that she hadn't been able to confront since her childhood,
00:04:17the childhood that was stolen from her.
00:04:21To understand how Rose crossed the line from motherhood to murder,
00:04:25we must go back to a time before she was even born.
00:04:29Rosemary Pauline Letts grew up in beautiful North Devon.
00:04:33Her father, Bill Letts, was in the Navy and was often away for months on end,
00:04:38leaving her mother Daisy at home to raise the children.
00:04:44My name is Jill and I grew up as a child next door to the Letts' family.
00:04:48They lived in a semi-detached and we were right next to them, really, you know.
00:04:53It was fantastic growing up in Northern.
00:04:55It was fantastic growing up in Northern.
00:04:57All the men, they all had jobs and the women were just housewives,
00:05:02bringing up the children, all very house-proud.
00:05:05Lovely brand new houses, nice gardens, wonderful place to grow up in.
00:05:10It seemed like summer was forever, maybe you remember the good times.
00:05:15During the early 1950s, Britain was kind of optimistic.
00:05:19It was coming out of a war, it had managed to get a National Health Service
00:05:23and various other things, however, there was a great deal of poverty
00:05:27and you had an awful lot of ex-servicemen coming into the community
00:05:32ill-fitted to settle into normal life.
00:05:37Whilst pregnant with Rose, Daisy was suffering from severe prenatal depression,
00:05:42so Bill had to leave the Navy and struggled with the domestic duties
00:05:46when settling into civilian life.
00:05:49Bill Letts could best be described as brutal, violent, impossible to like.
00:05:58He bullied, intimidated and indeed, in the end, terrified his wife, Daisy.
00:06:07You could hear the screams and the shouts and bang in and it was awful to hear.
00:06:13Everybody talked about it on the estate.
00:06:16Daisy's teeth would chatter, she would be so frightened.
00:06:19The neighbours would say that she would come around crying and ask for help.
00:06:24I think on occasions my mother did bring social services, but nothing was ever done about it.
00:06:30As the pregnancy progressed, Daisy sank into a deeper depression and sought professional help.
00:06:37The depression is so severe that it's recommended that she consider ECT, convulsive therapy.
00:06:45Very dramatic therapy indeed, involving electrodes attached to the skull,
00:06:51you know, so-called shock therapy.
00:06:55Electroconvulsive therapy was something that was kind of first used in the 40s and in the 50s,
00:07:02but it was very crude.
00:07:05The point about ECT is it has to produce a seizure.
00:07:09Basically, the level of seizure in Daisy's day was that when they break teeth,
00:07:14they would bite through their tongues, they would break bones,
00:07:18there was so much amnesia following it, they wouldn't know which side of the bus stop to stand at.
00:07:23It was kind of like a crude weapon that should only ever be used in very severe depression.
00:07:30So Rose would have felt some of the effects of the ECT and the seizures that were caused by it.
00:07:37And they would be violent.
00:07:43And it was only, I think, the day before that Rose was born that she had her last lot of ECT.
00:07:50I recall the day she came home with her shaven head, carrying baby Rose,
00:07:55and I remember going to my mum saying,
00:07:57God, what's happened to Mrs. Lett? She's got no hair.
00:08:00In my view, it could very well be argued that
00:08:03Rose's neurological development will have been retarded to some degree
00:08:09by the ECT procedures that her mother underwent.
00:08:13To have ECT late in the gestation period,
00:08:17this often is the more sophisticated parts of the brain development,
00:08:21the inhibitory parts, the parts that give us a conscience,
00:08:25that give us empathy, that stop us basically from doing heinous acts.
00:08:32Rose Marie Pauline Letts was born on the 29th of November, 1953.
00:08:38Rose was a very pretty baby, lovely hair and lovely olive skin.
00:08:43But baby Rose was remembered for more than her striking features.
00:08:47I remember seeing little Rose sitting in her pram in the garden.
00:08:51You never heard much from her.
00:08:53And she used to do all these things.
00:08:56I don't know what that was all about.
00:08:58It was a strange thing for a kid to do, really, wasn't it?
00:09:01Rose engaged in stereotypies, basically moving her head, rocking her head.
00:09:07These things will generate endorphins in the body.
00:09:11They will soothe the person.
00:09:14It's a very strange thing for a kid to do, really, isn't it?
00:09:17Rose engaged in stereotypies, basically moving her head, rocking her head.
00:09:22These things will generate endorphins in the body.
00:09:25They will soothe the person.
00:09:29The rocking that you see in Rose would often be seen in children that have been abused,
00:09:34where they're getting comfort from this repeated movement.
00:09:38She would have not found solace in the outside world,
00:09:42and she would turn in on this kind of behaviour to change her biochemistry,
00:09:46to make her feel OK.
00:09:48In this hostile household, Daisy and Bill continue to have more children.
00:09:52But as the family grew, so did Bill's resentment towards them.
00:09:56It's impossible to convey just how dysfunctional the Letts family was.
00:10:02Well, the Letts family didn't fit into the community down there at all.
00:10:07The children never played out.
00:10:09You have a father in Bill Letts who is telling you to behave properly at all times.
00:10:15Swear words are not used. He doesn't use foul language.
00:10:18But he's insisting that everything's clean.
00:10:20If you sit at the table, no-one says anything.
00:10:25Everything has to be done correctly.
00:10:28This is a man who finally found himself in the Navy.
00:10:33As a, oh, I fit in now. I hadn't fitted in before, but I now fit in. I know where I am.
00:10:40Having been forced to leave the Navy, Bill had lost his status and sense of self-worth,
00:10:46something he would try and regain at home by using violence.
00:10:51Letts was fierce and intimidating.
00:10:54You have children who are made to clean the carpet with toothbrushes.
00:10:58You know, it's an extraordinary household.
00:11:00It's unlike anything you could possibly imagine.
00:11:03You have this tyrant of a father telling them what to do.
00:11:08You have a mother who's intimidated to clean everything all the time.
00:11:11The Letts household was basically some kind of bizarre, punitive military camp.
00:11:17It was never really a childlike atmosphere. It was always out in an atmosphere of fear.
00:11:23Every day there was shouting and bawling and smacking.
00:11:27He always walked around with a berry and like a military sort of walk with this long mac thing, you know.
00:11:34And the kids used to walk a bit like that. He was a bit regimented with them.
00:11:37Letts was, and there's no other word for it, a monster.
00:11:43From a very early age, Rose would have seen the elder children's fears.
00:11:48She had a childhood which really she retracted from the world.
00:11:54She went into a little bubble of her own, creating her own life, hiding in the corner,
00:11:59sitting at the back of the class in primary school, playing with her own dolls, removed from the world.
00:12:06To avoid any beatings at the hand of her father, Rose would become reclusive and disengaged.
00:12:13She had these very winsome ways, so while he'd come home and shout and hit most of the other children,
00:12:20if they hadn't done their chores, he would let Rosie off.
00:12:25Bill would exploit Rose's passive demeanour.
00:12:29Bill had a hidden agenda. He was someone who had paedophilic tendencies.
00:12:34He was thinking that that vulnerability that Rose had would make her someone who could be coerced into sexual activity.
00:12:43He'd actually been grooming her from quite a young age.
00:12:48Rosie was the one that was vulnerable. She was the one that wasn't really going to say anything.
00:12:55When Bill inflicted sexual abuse on Rose, he was limiting her development.
00:13:02She was learning the wrong skills and the wrong motivations for life.
00:13:07She was on a path that almost certainly would lead to her being part of abusive relations in the future,
00:13:16and even an instigator of abusive relations.
00:13:26Aged 15, years of incest abuse had normalised sex for Rose.
00:13:31She had earned her reputation as a nymphomaniac amongst the local older men.
00:13:36Rose's engagement with Bill Letts at an early stage meant that she had a model in her head of the older man,
00:13:44which she found normal, which she could relate to.
00:13:47One man who had heard about this highly sexualised teenager was 29-year-old Fred West.
00:13:54Fred lived near Rose, and he had probably heard of her name mentioned,
00:14:01because I think she was getting quite infamous at this time locally.
00:14:04I'm pretty sure that Fred targeted Rose quite early on.
00:14:09She was voluptuous, she was obviously out there in every sense.
00:14:13I think Fred knew that. Fred was a wily man, knew how to exploit.
00:14:20She was at the bus station in Cheltenham when this chap in this mack shuffled over.
00:14:27He got, like she said, ganky green teeth, he was quite scruffy, but he had a good line in chat,
00:14:36and she said he could charm the birds off the trees.
00:14:39So when they were going home on the bus, he sat next to her,
00:14:43and then they discovered they had lots in common, like they both had mothers called Daisy,
00:14:47they both lived close by, that they both had committed incest.
00:14:56When Fred started to talk about things of a sexual nature to do with like bondage, S&M,
00:15:04all the stuff that he was into, then any other girl would have run off, but Rose didn't.
00:15:11She stayed because that was kind of quite a normal thing that she knew of.
00:15:18I think Fred sensed, almost in an animalistic way,
00:15:25that here's someone who could help me do what I want to do.
00:15:29Having left his estranged wife Rena Costello, Fred invited Rose to move into 25 Midland Road,
00:15:37along with his daughter Anne-Marie and stepdaughter Charmaine.
00:15:41Rose made a leap into what was very much the deep end of relationships.
00:15:47She actually did move out of the father's household,
00:15:51stepping into Fred West's life, looking after his two current children.
00:15:58Just weeks after they welcomed their first child together, Fred was jailed for theft,
00:16:05and Rose was left alone to raise the three children, baby Heather, Anne-Marie and Charmaine.
00:16:12Charmaine had always been defiant and stood up to Rose.
00:16:17Rose felt very challenged by her, and she couldn't cope and she would lash out.
00:16:22It was almost like at times losing touch with reality.
00:16:27She was so enraged, like Bill, and then she would tie her to the bed,
00:16:33her legs and arms outstretched, and whip her.
00:16:38It was just lasher, it was just a nightmare.
00:16:43Charmaine absolutely refused to break down, she refused to cry,
00:16:48and that irked Rose that she couldn't get the better of her.
00:16:52The fact that Fred had baggage from previous relationships was highly resented by Rose,
00:16:59who had a very simple view of things.
00:17:01Her vision of her and Fred having a wonderful life together
00:17:04did not include previous relationship children.
00:17:09And when Charmaine would not abide by the rules, Rose killed her.
00:17:15I think Rose, with the stress and luggage that she was carrying,
00:17:23and the anger that she had within her, she was capable of killing Charmaine.
00:17:28She applied the same kind of draconian regime that she'd witnessed with Bill Letts in her own house.
00:17:36I'm not saying that she would have planned to murder her,
00:17:40but she might have just beaten the living daylights out of her.
00:17:43It is believed that Rose hid Charmaine's body in the coal cellar,
00:17:47and that Fred buried the body beneath the kitchen floor when he was released from jail.
00:17:51Charmaine's mother, Rina, came around seeking out where Charmaine had gone.
00:17:58Rina was becoming a problem, and in Fred's mind, she had to go.
00:18:04After strangling Rina, Fred buried her dismembered body in a field near his childhood home.
00:18:10But this was not the first time Fred had committed murder.
00:18:14He is then told Rose about Anna McFall, and the child,
00:18:19that Anna was having, and where they're buried.
00:18:22Three years before meeting Rose, Fred murdered his 18-year-old mistress
00:18:27and their unborn child to avoid his wife Rina finding out.
00:18:31So now they have this bond between them, that they've got a hold over each other,
00:18:38and that won't break until many, many years and murders later.
00:18:50Fred West had a dysfunctional upbringing by his parents, Walter and Daisy,
00:18:55in a remote part of the countryside, 15 miles outside of Gloucester.
00:19:00I was the authorised biographer of Frederick West,
00:19:04given his papers by the official solicitor to the Supreme Court.
00:19:07The first time I ever heard Frederick West's voice was when I listened to the first tape,
00:19:12describing, in a little sing-song Herefordshire accent, what had been happening.
00:19:17The important point to remember about Fred's childhood,
00:19:21was that he came from an extraordinarily incestuous household.
00:19:26Fred himself talked about it in his police interviews.
00:19:30Daisy took Fred to bed and initiated him into sex at a very early age.
00:19:37Fred told the authorities his father had had sex with animals,
00:19:42and there's no question that his father persuaded Fred to have sex with animals.
00:19:46Particularly sheep. It wasn't even surprising.
00:19:50Fred also witnessed his father having sex with young girls,
00:19:55but he was also well aware that his father wouldn't hesitate to hurt a young girl that didn't do what he wanted.
00:20:04They lived in a world which was remote from convention.
00:20:09They did what they wanted, and this was Walter West's universe.
00:20:13He commanded it. What Daisy did, if you want to kill a pig,
00:20:18we'll hang it up in the kitchen and it'll bleed onto the floor.
00:20:21This was not anything like a suburban upbringing. It was completely opposite of that.
00:20:28Fred then took those habits and translated them into an urban environment, Gloucester itself.
00:20:34He was still really a farm labourer at heart.
00:20:38Everybody I ever talked to about Fred West said the same thing.
00:20:44You'd never have believed it. He was just, well, he was just commonplace.
00:20:49He was a little commonplace little man.
00:20:51But one person who always knew exactly what Fred was like was Rose.
00:20:56Rose knew from the very beginning, and she also knew how to press his buttons.
00:21:00As soon as Rose turned 18, they got married.
00:21:04After the birth of their second child, they bought their first home
00:21:08and moved into 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, along with daughters Heather and Anne-Marie.
00:21:14Owning their own home, particularly Rose at such a young age, was a huge thing for her.
00:21:19And of course she was really pleased to be moving into 25 Cromwell Street.
00:21:23I mean, Rose finally, at 25 Cromwell Street, gets her own domain.
00:21:28And she treats it as her domain.
00:21:31And she rules it with a rod of iron.
00:21:33She rules her own children even more fiercely than Bill intimidated her as a child.
00:21:42To help pay the way with the mortgage, the upstairs were turned into bedsits.
00:21:47And they would let them to young, sort of transient people.
00:21:55I was actually a resident at 25 Cromwell Street with Rose, me and Fred being my landlord and landlady.
00:22:01I wasn't working while I was living there or studying.
00:22:04I'd just walked out of home when I was 16.
00:22:07I was just a runaway.
00:22:09I attended St. James Junior School with Anne-Marie and Bill.
00:22:12I was just a runaway.
00:22:14I attended St. James Junior School with Anne-Marie and the year below.
00:22:18So I knew them quite well.
00:22:20I'd seen Rose previously picking Anne-Marie up.
00:22:23I never really kind of put two and two together as Rose Westby and stepmother
00:22:28because she didn't really look much different in the way that she dressed.
00:22:32Schoolgirl type, sort of clothes with skirts and trainers.
00:22:37Not what you would expect for somebody that's a mother-in-law, somebody that was just going on to high school.
00:22:42I bumped into Anne-Marie in town and Anne-Marie was talking to me about how her parents had a room.
00:22:48So I went to the cafe to meet them and it was Fred and Rose.
00:22:53Rose was a very forward person.
00:22:55She said it as it was and she seemed to be the dominant person out of the relationship.
00:23:00Fred wasn't passive but Fred was quiet compared to Rose.
00:23:04He was just sort of like saying, you know, it's your choice if you want to come and have a look.
00:23:07Whereas Rose was, this is the rules and regulations.
00:23:10So there was a lot of difference between the two of them.
00:23:12From what I can remember I moved in about a week later.
00:23:16I'd never lived away from home before so to me it was a room that I could rent and be my own person.
00:23:22It was a very clean house.
00:23:25It always smelt fresh, it smelt of bleach most of the time and everywhere I went it was very clean.
00:23:31James soon began to realise that Fred and Rose were no ordinary couple.
00:23:38The doorbell went but it lit up a red light above the living room door.
00:23:44And I joke, jokingly said, oh is this the red light district?
00:23:48And then Fred come walking in from the other side and went through.
00:23:52That's how I found out that she was having other men in.
00:23:59Rose used her insatiable appetite for sex to make money.
00:24:03Working as a prostitute out of the family home.
00:24:05Something which Fred encouraged.
00:24:08This was somewhere where they had space.
00:24:11Where they could invest if you like in their bizarre activities.
00:24:15For sex to become something that Rose could indulge in endlessly.
00:24:23I kind of was a bit confused over it.
00:24:27Again I was only 16 and naive so why does a woman want other men in?
00:24:31Maybe if that's how they fulfil their relationship that's their choice.
00:24:36It gave them the chance as it were to partition their lives.
00:24:43To be able to control elements.
00:24:46For Fred to engage in voyeuristic activity with Rose's sex activity.
00:24:52Yes she was charging money but this was more about Fred watching.
00:24:57And peering through spy holes that he made in all the doors and walls.
00:25:03He had an intercom system built as well.
00:25:07So wherever he was he could listen.
00:25:10He loved watching Rose particularly performing sexually.
00:25:14He would record it as well.
00:25:16It was archetypal voyeur.
00:25:18He took great pleasure in having sex with Rose after she'd had sex with somebody else.
00:25:24That was one of the things that really turned Fred on.
00:25:26Sometimes he would coat himself in the sperm of her clients that he'd take from condoms.
00:25:33So he felt he was breeding something like a master race.
00:25:38It was just crazy stuff and Rose went along with those delusions.
00:25:43So they really were caught up in a folie a deux.
00:25:46I'm one of the few people who actually saw the videotapes that Fred made of Rose.
00:25:51Doing various extraordinary sexual things.
00:25:55Absolutely revolting.
00:25:57She was actually performing for Fred.
00:26:00Inserting things into herself.
00:26:02Showing the knickers that she'd brought back and used and kept in jars on the mantelpiece in her room.
00:26:08She was showing how enthusiastic she was.
00:26:13And Fred very seldom appeared himself.
00:26:15Fred was always, he'd occasionally pop his head round.
00:26:17He was always behind the camera and Rose was always in front of it.
00:26:21And that played out throughout their entire marriage.
00:26:25I've used the phrase before and I mean it still to this day.
00:26:28She was in every sense the sorcerer's apprentice.
00:26:32The Wests were pushing boundaries.
00:26:35Experimenting with fetishes.
00:26:38She liked.
00:26:40It's no secret.
00:26:42Fred himself talked about it in his political career.
00:26:45Fred himself talked about it in his police interviews.
00:26:48That Rose liked rough sex.
00:26:51She liked hard.
00:26:53She didn't like any chatting up.
00:26:55She liked fierceness.
00:26:58But Rose wanted more.
00:27:00And would turn to the increasingly popular classified adverts to appease her sexual desires.
00:27:08Here you have the development of strong paraphilias.
00:27:11Rose becoming exhibitionist and Fred becoming a voyeur and getting visions of pornographic films and other kind of things.
00:27:21He was full of ideas that were often macabre.
00:27:27So what you got was this extraordinary conjunction of a highly sexualized young woman and a very manipulative man.
00:27:37Okay, so does she marry her father?
00:27:40Now is West really Bill Letts?
00:27:43It's possible. There's an element of it.
00:27:45Not complete of course. It's too glib.
00:27:48But there is an element there.
00:27:50There's an element of Fred targeting Rose and then Rose targeting Fred.
00:28:00Outside of Cromwell Street, Rose was keen to portray a normal life.
00:28:05Although her obsession with sex was known amongst the locals.
00:28:09Rose West was known as basically a slapper.
00:28:13She liked her men.
00:28:15She was known for flashing or trying to show herself off and things like that.
00:28:19She'd always like to touch you or she'd like to let you know she liked you.
00:28:25I didn't feel comfortable around her.
00:28:27I couldn't wait to get away from her.
00:28:29You just knew there was something a bit seedy about her, you know.
00:28:33My mum and dad used to run the St Peter's Social Club.
00:28:36And of course Fred and Rose West used to go there.
00:28:39Rose used to turn up to the events with the cowboy hat, the guns,
00:28:43and everything was just so hypo, you know, around her table.
00:28:47She had a temper on her and even in the club,
00:28:50she'd shout at the kids and tell them to sit down.
00:28:53She was like a sergeant major with them, you know.
00:28:55Sometimes it could be uncomfortable seeing her snap and shout at the kids.
00:28:59But they knew their place.
00:29:01When she said something, they knew and they sat there.
00:29:04They told the line.
00:29:07When Rose hit the dance floor, you know,
00:29:09she was like flirty dancing, you know, sexy dancing.
00:29:13Fred was always shy, he'd smile.
00:29:16Rose would always keep an eye on Fred, where he was going, who he was talking to.
00:29:20And she always watched him and she was the boss.
00:29:24She was probably trying to be someone she wasn't when she was on the dance floor.
00:29:29You know, that was her de-stressor kind of thing,
00:29:32trying to convince herself she was a normal person, I suppose, you know.
00:29:35But this new confidence, both inside and outside of Cromwell Street,
00:29:40was a far cry from Rose as a child,
00:29:43who struggled socially and academically.
00:29:46When Rose started school,
00:29:48her sort of inabilities with language, understanding,
00:29:52thumb-sucking and other stereotypies
00:29:55became more obvious, contrasted with all the other children.
00:29:59There's no doubt that Rose was not a particularly bright child.
00:30:02She was slow to pick up the obvious things,
00:30:08reading, writing and arithmetic.
00:30:10In these very early days,
00:30:13the way of treating children who were not showing signs of good development
00:30:17was to place them in the corner,
00:30:19place a dunce's cap on their head, make them face the wall
00:30:23and basically to single them out and say,
00:30:26don't do that, improve.
00:30:28Look, you're going to be outside of society if you don't.
00:30:32The fact that the British education system
00:30:35actually adopted the dunce's cap,
00:30:37this pointed cone placed on the head
00:30:40as the child was isolated and faced the wall,
00:30:43was a bizarre, primitive practice.
00:30:46This was kind of hand-me-down from bizarre religious beliefs
00:30:50that somehow or other the dunce's cap was a conduit for God's intelligence.
00:30:54Complete nonsense.
00:30:56And the effect on children was like secondary labelling.
00:30:59You know, you were being labelled as being stupid,
00:31:03but then you could take on that label
00:31:06and just start acting stupid with full license
00:31:09because that's the role they've given you.
00:31:12At school, Rose reverted back to what she knew,
00:31:16being a self-absorbed recluse.
00:31:18That was her way of surviving,
00:31:21an environment that she didn't understand.
00:31:23She was never allowed to play in a conventional sense with other children
00:31:27except in a school-form environment.
00:31:30The only socialisation she got was within the house.
00:31:35Rose struggled academically and was held back a year,
00:31:39where she gained confidence being the eldest child in class.
00:31:42Both her parents now had jobs,
00:31:45meaning Rose was often left in charge of her younger brothers.
00:31:49She had always taken a great interest in dolls
00:31:52and then treats her two younger brothers as the equivalent of dolls.
00:31:56She would bathe them, she would put them to bed, she would dress them.
00:32:00Those two younger brothers were Rose's playthings.
00:32:08As Rose matured, she learnt to use violence to protect her brothers.
00:32:13Rose began to identify with Bill
00:32:16and think of herself as being someone who was strong
00:32:19and could create fear in others.
00:32:20And this actually led to Rose going out and bullying other children.
00:32:26Rose reached puberty before other kids in her class
00:32:30and from being a meek, timid girl who was bullied,
00:32:34she became this big, strong girl who could knock people about
00:32:39and she did because she would protect her younger brothers
00:32:42who were, you know, skinny little chaps.
00:32:46When her brothers were attacked, Rose would go after them.
00:32:48Suddenly the bully turns around and bullies back.
00:32:52She was not going to have her brothers hurt
00:32:55and she would lump them, as they called it.
00:32:58So you've got this interesting dichotomy between sexuality at one point
00:33:04and violence, bullying, at another.
00:33:08Rose would have felt powerful from that.
00:33:11She would have felt in control herself where she'd always felt out of control.
00:33:14So now she has power. Now she's enjoying that.
00:33:17Now she's going to go out and do this.
00:33:19So this makes her quite at a dangerous stage
00:33:22for the next part of the journey where she meets Fred West.
00:33:30Rose gained confidence through sex and violence,
00:33:34passions amplified by her relationship with Fred.
00:33:37So they wanted somewhere to combine both of these desires.
00:33:40This is where Fred goes on to extend the house
00:33:44and to develop the basement.
00:33:48Fred was very proud of his cellar.
00:33:51I can remember one day going through to peg the washing out
00:33:55and Fred was out in the back garden fiddling about doing something.
00:33:59I can't recall what it was.
00:34:01He said, oh, I've repainted the cellar downstairs.
00:34:03Do you want to have a look?
00:34:05I said, what's the cellar?
00:34:07He said, it's where the children go to play.
00:34:08I said, okay, and I'm claustrophobic.
00:34:11But I thought, well, don't be rude.
00:34:14And he took me down into the cellar,
00:34:17which was a horrible, dark, dank place.
00:34:22In the lower basement area,
00:34:25he decided he was going to have a torture chamber.
00:34:32They both shared this sadistic view of the basement.
00:34:36This sadistic view of subjecting human beings
00:34:42to horrific circumstances.
00:34:47Fred was becoming a creative psychopath.
00:34:51His obsession of all things gynecological
00:34:56was drawing him into some very, very sadistic and bizarre ideas.
00:35:06Despite Rose being married and owning her own home,
00:35:10her father, Bill, was still firmly rooted in her life.
00:35:14There was still a sexual relationship between Rose and her father, Bill.
00:35:18At one point, he was living in a caravan at the bottom of Cromwell Street.
00:35:24I found Bill a bit scary.
00:35:29I think that's the easiest way of describing him.
00:35:31He kind of like was looking through me
00:35:33and trying to explain it, like sizing me up.
00:35:37All I know is he sat with his hands under the table,
00:35:40which kind of made me feel a bit unease.
00:35:43He was very sort of concentrating on me.
00:35:46He did have a look in his eyes that wasn't very nice.
00:35:50I wouldn't like to guess, to be fair, what Bill was doing under that table.
00:35:54I think Rose was always fascinated by her father.
00:35:59They couldn't stay apart.
00:36:00They were, in a sense, inextricably linked, and you couldn't break that.
00:36:06I mean, I've always found it quite extraordinary
00:36:09how Rose continued to have sex with her father into adulthood.
00:36:13Whether she got any sexual satisfaction from it, I don't know.
00:36:17And you just get into this revolting quagmire of abuse through the generations, you know.
00:36:24That sense of a father's right to have sex with his own children
00:36:28is a thread that runs through the story of Rosemary Letts, as she was, and Frederick West.
00:36:39Bill remained ever-present in Rose's life,
00:36:42and with Fred's blessing, he continued his sexual relationship with his daughter.
00:36:47But what was it about Bill's upbringing that made him become a violent and incestuous father?
00:36:53Young Bill Letts was an only child.
00:36:55His mother was a local district nurse.
00:36:58She was very revered in the community.
00:37:01His father came back from fighting in the First World War.
00:37:05When Bill came along, his father was not particularly happy about it.
00:37:10His father didn't want him and told him that he wasn't wanted, that he was a mistake,
00:37:16which was an awful thing to say to a young boy.
00:37:19Bill Letts' mother, Bertha, overcompensated for the neglect by his father, William.
00:37:25So Bill was mollycoddled to the extreme.
00:37:29My mum went to school with Bill Letts.
00:37:31His mother used to bring him to school, be there to meet him, take him home.
00:37:35His mother would always accompany him to school and brush his hair as soon as she took his cap off.
00:37:42I mean, he must have been about 11, not like a little three, four year old, you know.
00:37:48Because of Bertha's mollycoddling of her son,
00:37:51he really had very few, if any, friends at all.
00:37:55So he was very isolated.
00:37:57We see aspects of that again in Rosie's childhood.
00:38:01He was another one that he won't allow out either.
00:38:05And he was very quiet at school as well, much like his own children were.
00:38:11I think it's a perfectly fair assumption to say that Bill Letts, as a child, was intimidated a good deal.
00:38:18And I think he responded to that intimidation, bullying if you like,
00:38:22by responding with equal violence himself as soon as he became an adult.
00:38:26There were strong rumours in the community,
00:38:29parents told their children to keep away from old William Letts
00:38:33because he couldn't be trusted near children.
00:38:36So whether Bill was abused or not, we don't know, but of course there is a chance, you know.
00:38:43Bill's father, William, was known to have an extremely high sex drive.
00:38:46Something that would span generations as both Bill and Rose inherited an insatiable appetite for sex.
00:38:54Well, he certainly was a strange man. I never liked the look of him anyway.
00:38:58I think my mum called him a gigolo, whatever that might mean, I don't know.
00:39:02Rather than having a job, he seemed to flit around from woman to woman, like as a butler, but become gigolo.
00:39:10It was not only a high sex drive that Bill and Rose inherited from William.
00:39:13They would also inherit an obsession for cleaning.
00:39:16William Letts was absolutely obsessed with cleanliness, bleaching the house top to bottom,
00:39:22nothing could be out of place and Bill had to follow suit.
00:39:26And then, unfortunately, Bill did follow suit to the nth degree
00:39:31and that would carry on into his marriage.
00:39:35In 1942, Bill married Daisy.
00:39:38A year later, they moved into their new council home on Molwena Park Road in Northern Devon.
00:39:44Bill and Daisy would go on to have seven children, Rose being the fifth to arrive.
00:39:50But Bill was hiding a secret diagnosis that would cause his paranoia to intensify.
00:39:57Bill was said to have severe psychotic episodes.
00:40:01He had been diagnosed as a paranoid person.
00:40:05He had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic when he was a teenager
00:40:12and that had never been disclosed to the family and he remained untreated.
00:40:19He would think people were talking about him and he would have a go at his wife all the time.
00:40:24If she was even talking to the neighbours, he would hit her and pull her in.
00:40:27The police were called, nothing happened.
00:40:30He seemed to be very OCD as well.
00:40:34Always on it, his wife, always on it, the children.
00:40:37Keep the place clean, you know, and he would come home and shout and thrash them.
00:40:43In fear of violence from Bill, Daisy would also develop an obsession for keeping everything clean.
00:40:50The cleanliness, that was the main thing with her.
00:40:53She used to scrub, scrub, scrub.
00:40:54In the backyard, you know, she'd be out there scrubbing up with hose pipe and bleach.
00:41:01Daisy's obsession became so intense that the children were not allowed out in case they came home dirty.
00:41:08But on one occasion, Rose's older sister decided to go out to play.
00:41:13Rose's older sister is a little bit rebellious and I recall one time when we took her out for the afternoon,
00:41:20go swimming and ride the horses out there.
00:41:24I mean, we used to get filthy out there really, rolling around.
00:41:28She really got so excited, she was almost manic.
00:41:31She'd laugh and giggle and prance around.
00:41:34But this rare, fun-filled day would come at a price.
00:41:38When she got home, stinking of horses, that's when she got this hell of a beating.
00:41:43Daisy was hosing her down in the garden, she was screaming and screaming,
00:41:47stripped naked, being hosed down with cold water, obviously.
00:41:52It was awful to hear.
00:41:56And that's when my mother intervened and then she took her in.
00:42:00My mum, she really went on to me, she said,
00:42:04don't ever take her out again because you've caused that girl to have a heart
00:42:08and she gets enough of that anyway.
00:42:10Yes, Daisy did shout and hit the children as well.
00:42:14But I think she was trying very hard to keep everything tidy just so
00:42:20and bleaching everything so that he wouldn't come home
00:42:24and have one of these terrible rages where he would hit them.
00:42:27He would do things like spoil the food and tip the dustbin out all across the kitchen.
00:42:32So the woman had a very, very hard time with him.
00:42:36He bullied, intimidated and indeed, in the end, terrified.
00:42:43His wife, Daisy, that awful, worst kind of bully.
00:42:48A coward at one moment and then vicious to those who couldn't fight back.
00:42:54Bill would put on this very pleasant face to most of the neighbours.
00:43:00He was very charming, so of course people won't believe that.
00:43:03So he has this kind of friendly street angel and then he's this house devil face.
00:43:11And just like her father, Rose developed an appetite for coercive control
00:43:18when she ventured into adulthood.
00:43:21Fred and Rose would drive around Gloucestershire
00:43:25searching for girls to lure back to 25 Cromwell Street.
00:43:29They would get a babysitter in and then they would go out.
00:43:33They'd pick up Caroline Owens, who's hitchhiking home and lives in the Forest of Dean.
00:43:37And Rose is sitting there, she has a baby, she's pregnant
00:43:43and she's grooming this girl, enticing her to get into the car,
00:43:48speaking in this lovely voice and also sitting there with a baby which they both know
00:43:53is going to make any young girl feel quite sort of safe with them.
00:43:57I think both of them, they're psychopaths and they know how to charm
00:44:02so they can present so well to people.
00:44:05So of course Caroline gets in.
00:44:08The couple charm and coerce Caroline into coming to live with them as their in-house nanny.
00:44:14But it's soon clear Rose has an alternative agenda.
00:44:19And they start their sadistical games with her.
00:44:23They started to get heavy with her, I think they would barge into the bathroom
00:44:28when she was in the bathroom, she felt uncomfortable with them.
00:44:31They're both trying to invite her into their, to have sex with them.
00:44:35Rose didn't stop, she wanted to kiss her, Fred was egging him on, so she got her stuff and went.
00:44:42Caroline managed to escape, but it was short-lived.
00:44:47And then they again coaxed her, when she was hitchhiking on a later occasion,
00:44:53they got her in the car, beat her.
00:44:55Fred had punched her and quietened her so that Rose could do what she wanted with her.
00:45:01Rose scratched and brutalized her in the back of the car.
00:45:05When she got back to Cromwell Street, this time it was a brutal and torturous regime.
00:45:14She was being held there and beaten and she feared for her life.
00:45:17Fred was actually restraining her, keeping her there for Rose,
00:45:21so he said he kidnapped her for Rose.
00:45:25Fred's behavior was sadism and advising her that he was going to beat her
00:45:33and then he meekly asserted that he would have sex with her, but she mustn't tell Rose.
00:45:40Eventually, Caroline was able to escape and as a result of that,
00:45:44her parents reported the matter to the police.
00:45:48They were taken to court and Fred put his suit on, presented well,
00:45:53they thought he looked a reasonable chap and Rose was heavily pregnant
00:45:58and telling them that she was going to have some kind of therapy for her ways
00:46:06and the charges were reduced because Caroline couldn't face them in court.
00:46:10A charge of rape was preferred, but it was a plea bargain down to a sexual assault in the magistrate's court
00:46:18and they were both fined £25 and had a rap on the knuckles.
00:46:23I think their solicitor said, well, you know, they're a young couple, they won't do it again
00:46:27and extraordinarily, the magistrates bought that.
00:46:30And the interesting thing is that neither of them were embarrassed about that either,
00:46:33particularly Rose, because she was a complete narcissist, it meant nothing to her.
00:46:40It was a kind of abandonment, you know, somehow they were getting away with it.
00:46:45They were given carte blanche, so the next time they were going to kill,
00:46:50nobody is going to escape them the next time to live to tell the tale.
00:46:55With zero respect for the law, Fred and Rose continued using the same methods
00:47:00of driving around pursuing young vulnerable women, often calling on their lodger Jane to babysit for them.
00:47:07Looking after the younger ones, I formed quite a friendship with them.
00:47:12They were dear little things.
00:47:14It upsets me to think that I was looking after their children for them to be evil people.
00:47:21Using the same ruse of needing a nanny, they lured 19-year-old Linda Gough
00:47:25Using the same ruse of needing a nanny, they lured 19-year-old Linda Gough
00:47:30back to their cellar in Cromwell Street.
00:47:34They dressed her up and killed her.
00:47:38It was a horrendous murder.
00:47:41And she was buried outside by the bathroom area.
00:47:48Rose immediately went through her clothes and put her clothes on.
00:47:52She could just go and kill this girl.
00:47:55With Fred, and go and put the girl's clothes on.
00:48:00When Linda's mother came looking for her, she witnessed Rose's narcissism firsthand.
00:48:06Linda Gough's mother came to find her daughter and saw some of her clothes blowing in the wind on the line
00:48:14and Rose in her slippers and cardigan.
00:48:17And she was just, oh, I never heard of her.
00:48:19Well, of course, she had, you know, the mother knew she was lying.
00:48:23It was, in fact, her lack of empathy and her association with Fred West that led her to be a killer.
00:48:34Within months of killing Linda Gough, Fred and Rose struck again.
00:48:40This time, they abducted 15-year-old Carol Ann Cooper.
00:48:44She'd been having a night out with her boyfriend and they followed her in the car,
00:48:54picked her up when she got off the bus, took her back, and it was a horrendous murder.
00:49:04Over a frenzied period spanning less than two years, six young females had been lured to 25 Cromwell Street,
00:49:11where they were tortured, murdered, and buried beneath the family home.
00:49:17I think they were totally out of control. They became more and more so as they got away with it.
00:49:23This is fairly normal for serial killers who get a lot of pleasure from protracted torture and killing of others
00:49:33in that the next one has to be more.
00:49:36The next one has to be more.
00:49:40She was bound up with duct tape and left her eyes so that she could see what they were going to do to her.
00:49:47The more macabre nature of this torture got progressively worse with one killing following another.
00:49:55Mummified and a straw was poked through up her nose so that they could keep this young girl alive while they tortured her.
00:50:03Extreme bondage, metal tubes binding hanging people from ceiling like pieces of meat.
00:50:11More sadism, more paraphernalia, more suffering.
00:50:17Rose was known to use very large vibrators on them, you know, so huge that they did massive damage.
00:50:25It got worse and worse and worse.
00:50:27Anyone who saw any of the pictures of what happened to those girls, you know, the missing bones, the kneecaps removed,
00:50:35the hanging in the cellar, the awful bindings, it was just, it sends a shudder down my spine to this day.
00:50:45Rose was very, very cruel. She wanted to hurt women as much as she could. It was something in her.
00:50:51It was almost like killing a version of herself.
00:50:59This may have been her way of eradicating her past, getting rid of all those thoughts and vulnerabilities that she had felt from her early childhood.
00:51:11She had no power. She was oppressed, as she said. It was her way of taking away her power.
00:51:18It was her way of taking out her revenge on these young girls, and she was so cruel.
00:51:27And Rose would not have to search far for the next victim. Shirley Robinson, one of the West's lodgers at 25 Cromwell Street.
00:51:36I made a very good friend out of Shirley. We'd cook a pot noodle together and sit and talk for ages.
00:51:41Her and Rose very much looked like each other, so sometimes I'd go into the kitchen, take a quick look,
00:51:45because Shirley would very often be down in the kitchen, say, hi, Rose, I'm sorry, Shirley, it's you.
00:51:52It was not only looks that Shirley and Rose had in common.
00:51:56I didn't realise that Shirley was having a relationship with Fred. I just found out at the end that she'd got pregnant by Fred,
00:52:02so I thought it was just one of those things that happened. As her and Rose were so friendly,
00:52:06I didn't, like, put the two and two together, because obviously if Rose was having men in, what's Fred doing to other women?
00:52:14Today, Royale Robinson, whose daughter Shirley Anne, was found in the garden along with her unborn child.
00:52:21She was killed by Frederick and Rosemary West.
00:52:25I just thought, maybe she's not able to live in one room with the baby, so she's moved on and fainted somewhere else.
00:52:32Shirley's remains were buried in the garden alongside her and Fred's unborn baby.
00:52:38To be told that Shirley had left, Shirley had gone, none of it, none of this made any sense whatsoever.
00:52:44Jane had no idea she was living in the same house with two sadistic serial killers.
00:52:51Fred was just, he was a gentleman. He was very pleasant and very polite.
00:52:56He's constantly working in the house, a slap of paint here, a bit of work there, a bit of digging in the garden.
00:53:01He's always there, very early in the morning, before everybody else.
00:53:04Rose was generally not a morning person.
00:53:07She used to walk around with her cardigan and her trainer socks and skirt on,
00:53:11barking at the children, not speaking to them, barking orders at them.
00:53:14Anne-Marie was always scorned upon, you're not getting their breakfast fast enough,
00:53:17you can't give them toast without giving them a drink, you're stupid, so very demeaning to the children.
00:53:22Rose was definitely in charge in the West household, there was no denying that.
00:53:27Of all the West children, it was Rose's eldest daughter, Heather, who left a lasting impression.
00:53:34Heather, quite a switched on little girl.
00:53:37We'd sit and talk about silly little things, hair and make-up later on,
00:53:42and what do you want to do as a job, so she was just an inquisitive little body.
00:53:47But one evening, Jane was woken up by something that would change her life forever.
00:53:53Something disturbed me, and initially I couldn't quite make out what it was,
00:53:58and then I realised it was in the cellar.
00:54:00I could hear Heather screaming, stop it Daddy, stop it Daddy,
00:54:04and then it seemed to stop, and then it would happen again, and this happened for a few nights in a row.
00:54:10A specialist search team arrived at Cromwell Street with a warrant to search for Heather West.
00:54:17I put the news on and the first thing I saw was Heather, and I thought, oh my gosh.
00:54:22Heather's been killed.
00:54:25In 1992, 15 years after Jane left, one of the children reported to police they'd been raped by Fred.
00:54:33Five of the West children were taken into care whilst police investigated.
00:54:38The following year, social workers reported that the West children had claimed that Fred often joked that Heather was buried beneath the patio.
00:54:47In 1994, whilst investigating Heather's whereabouts, police obtained a search warrant for 25 Cromwell Street,
00:54:55and as Fred was led away, he confessed to Heather's murder.
00:54:59The back garden of 25 Cromwell Street. He'd never told his wife what he'd done.
00:55:04When I saw Rose at Cheltenham Police Station, she was really very, very upset,
00:55:11and it was almost a mantra that it was that flipping Fred West, you know, what had he effing been doing?
00:55:19The first time I ever heard Frederick West describing how he dismembered his daughter, Heather, and stuck her in a sack, bin bags.
00:55:30I couldn't get her in the dustbin, so I thought, I'll cut her legs off. Then he cuts her head off.
00:55:35It's unimaginable.
00:55:40Officers who found Heather's remains found signs that she was not alone.
00:55:45When this story happened, it was a huge shock to the people of Gloucester.
00:55:50The whole thing became a bit of a circus, really, as far as the press and the media interest.
00:55:55It was moving so quickly, there was so much happening, there were so many developments in terms of bodies being found.
00:56:02West had hinted that there were further bodies to be discovered.
00:56:05He led detectives down to the cellar, indicating where other victims were hidden.
00:56:10The remains found in the cellar are carried away for forensic examination.
00:56:14Despite Fred claiming all responsibility and confessing where the victims were buried, police had sufficient evidence to arrest Rose on suspicion of murder.
00:56:24When I visited Rose, she was relaxed and not kind of dumbstruck. She did seem slightly removed from it all.
00:56:33She just is blocked out, as her mother used to say. She had herself in as a child and maybe that's what she's doing.
00:56:41That probably speaks volumes about this curious dichotomy in Rose's makeup.
00:56:48You'd expect it would prompt some strong need to unload, but there was none of that.
00:56:57The Crown Prosecution Service collated enough evidence to charge Rose with 10 counts of murder.
00:57:04Frederick West, the builder accused of mass murder, just minutes away from a reunion with his wife, Rosemary, is driven into Gloucester Magistrates Court.
00:57:12We saw Fred and Rose brought up one by one into the dock, and we were quite surprised to see just a very ordinary looking, plumpish, middle-aged woman.
00:57:21She didn't appear to be upset, disturbed, angry, indignant. There was no real emotion that I can recall.
00:57:29The clear instructions were that she said she was innocent. If there was anything that happened, it was because of Fred.
00:57:38And the whole time that they sat in that court, they deliberately were not looking at each other, not talking to each other. Had they fallen out? Was this a ruse on their part?
00:57:46They probably did discuss the fact about Fred taking the blame, and she would walk away from it. She disowned him in the witness box.
00:57:54She just dropped him. End of. Freddie forever. That was over forever. She wanted no more to do with him.
00:58:02There were clear signs that she was saying, no, you've admitted it, now go and rot.
00:58:08Frederick West was found dead in his cell in Winston Green Prison. He was awaiting trial accused of murdering 12 women and girls.
00:58:20Rosemary West in public for the first time since her husband was found hanging in his cell on New Year's Day.
00:58:27Rose West was charged with 10 counts of murder. She was remanded in custody while she awaited trial.
00:58:34I looked over the top of the railings, and it was Rose West. And I thought, ooh.
00:58:41Sandra Gregory was jailed for drug trafficking and got to know Rose in HMP Durham.
00:58:47She swears a bit, and she can foam a little bit at the mouth when she gets a bit animated, but she'd say, they said that he killed himself to protect me.
00:58:56They don't know nothing. And you know what the ultimate murder is, Sandra? And I was like, no, Rose, I don't.
00:59:01Their own. He did it because that's the ultimate murder. Why was it only fucking Rose that's supposed to know what he's doing in that fucking cellar?
00:59:08It had a locked door on it, you know? I never went down in that fucking cellar. I'm up there feeding all the kids.
00:59:13And I said, oh, and how many children have you got than Rose? And she looked at me and said, well, I used to have eight.
00:59:23I was like, ooh. I didn't progress that conversation.
00:59:27In October 1995, Rose West was to stand trial for the 10 murders.
00:59:34Rose was denying involvement. Those were my instructions. So that was the story that I would have accepted.
00:59:42Therefore, professionally, you have to deal with the evidence that seems to conflict with what your client is telling you.
00:59:49I was astonished to hear that Rose Wing West was going to give evidence.
00:59:53Paul Cheston was the senior court correspondent for the Evening Standard and attended every day of the trial.
01:00:00She went into the witness box and immediately, I'm not to blame. Fred did everything. I had no idea what he was up to.
01:00:08It was a complete mystery. I was shocked and horrified to find that members of my family were being killed by my husband.
01:00:14As soon as you saw 25 Cromwell Street and saw how small it was, and as the number of bodies being found mounted, you realized Fred was not operating on his own.
01:00:24Under cross-examination, it soon became apparent that Rose was not telling the truth.
01:00:30She'd snook at herself in relation to Heather. It had to kick her out because she was a lesbian.
01:00:36And then it turns out that Rose enjoyed lesbian relationships as well. You think, well, that's totally inconsistent.
01:00:41And then they'd seen her around, they'd sent her money, spoken to her on the phone.
01:00:47Complete nonsense because Heather was buried in the garden.
01:00:51I could have sat there and said, look, Rose, you're lying through your teeth to me. You're totally false. Why don't you get with it and start admitting stuff?
01:00:59She said what was convenient to say. And that's how she dealt with her evidence at court.
01:01:04She remained very impassive throughout the entire hearing, giving very little away.
01:01:10Survivor Caroline Owens courageously spoke about the horrific ordeal she suffered before her escape.
01:01:17Miss Owens claims she was subjected to further serious sexual assaults, including being beaten with a leather belt.
01:01:25She told the court, I was scared to death.
01:01:27She didn't appear to be upset, disturbed. I think it's possible that she never really appreciated the enormity of what was going on.
01:01:35But Rose would soon show her violent side when the prosecution presented the next key witness.
01:01:42Rosemary West was in the witness box for three days and was getting progressively more tired.
01:01:47And Brian Leveson, as prosecutor, cross-examined on a whole range of subjects and to be perfectly honest,
01:01:53prosecutor cross-examined on a whole range of subjects and to build up to a climax about asking her about Charmaine.
01:02:01She was very subdued about Charmaine. She found it very difficult to revisit that.
01:02:10A neighbour from 25 Midland Road had come forward.
01:02:14She had witnessed Rose's attitude towards her first victim, eight-year-old Charmaine, 25 years earlier.
01:02:20A neighbour had come in to the house and she was startled to see Charmaine standing on a chair, stark naked, bound with her hands behind her back and Rosemary West with a rolling pin in an aggressive fashion.
01:02:35And Brian Leveson pressed and pressed and pressed and eventually she snapped and shouted at him.
01:02:40And that was the moment when the jury could see what she was.
01:02:43She was not a cuddly housewife, mother of six, but a short-tempered woman who would react with a flash of temper when things do not go her way.
01:02:58She came unstuck. She didn't present as a good witness in court.
01:03:03We perhaps had tended to want to think that Rose would be the passive person who was just putting up with it.
01:03:10The more evidence we heard made us realise that Rose was very much an active participant, far more active than we ever could have imagined.
01:03:18Rosemary West was driven to court today to hear the judge begin summing up seven weeks of evidence, the result of almost a hundred statements from witnesses.
01:03:28When the jury foreman read out the verdict of guilty, you could see Rosemary West's sway. She was not expecting this.
01:03:34When Rose was finally taken down, she was totally distraught. The crown from under her feet had disappeared and she was sobbing uncontrollably.
01:03:46She honestly thought that she was going to get away with this.
01:03:49Rosemary Pauline West, on each of the ten counts of murder, the sentence is one of life imprisonment.
01:03:56Well, she's equivocal on innocence. The prospect of Rose suddenly deciding to kick the wall down and say, this is what it's all about, this is what I've done, this is how I feel, I think the chances of that are nil.
01:04:13And as she crossed the courtyard, our camera caught the final moments, as holding a white carrier bag, she was taken inside, flanked by warders.
01:04:22Rose West will die in prison, where she maintains her innocence to this day.
01:04:31I don't know how many mornings Rose West came saying that, they're being really mean to me, and they're being really unkind to me.
01:04:41And she didn't want to come out of a cell and was considering giving up her wing cleaning job.
01:04:45And she was really kind of upset as though she was being bullied.
01:04:50She just didn't have the strength of character that I would have expected a serial killer to have had.
01:04:58She had a reality that she hadn't been able to confront since her childhood.
01:05:03When I asked her to describe her childhood, she describes a sugar sweet, candy coated, flossy, merry time.
01:05:12She presents the home life as these vigilant, overprotective parents who would do anything for their children and were always there, which was complete nonsense.
01:05:25Since childhood, Rose has preferred fantasy over reality, something that contributed to her narcissism.
01:05:33But Rose's path may have been destined to end in this disturbing way, before she was even born.
01:05:39I think where the mother is mentally ill, not engaging, and stressed, suffering from anxiety, it's all that stuff that impacts on the unborn child.
01:05:54The psychology starts in the womb.
01:05:57Daisy's deficiencies were contributing factors in Rose's development, but her narcissism was a result of the abuse inflicted by her father.
01:06:06There's no doubt that Bill Letts altered his daughter considerably.
01:06:11Rose West had no morals at any time in her life.
01:06:15She was brought up in a house of depravity and where sexual practices and customs apply to other people, they didn't apply to her.
01:06:23The abuse by Bill Letts made her ripe for her partnership with Fred West.
01:06:31There is a leap between sexual depravity and murder, and Fred provided that bridge that she willingly crossed.
01:06:44I think Rose became a serial killer because she married Fred.
01:06:48I think had she married somebody else, it might have been very different.
01:06:54But add the two together, the so-called folie a deux, then you have an absolutely lethal combination.
01:07:04She was encouraged, and then once she got a taste for it, she couldn't stop.
01:07:10People will hold their hands up in horror at the way that Rose was treated and what presumably led to her becoming the way she was by the abuse she suffered.
01:07:19You'd like to think that in this day and age that situation couldn't arise, but unfortunately from cases I've covered even recently, it does still happen.
01:07:29It shows really that social services and all the things that maybe have been learnt over the last 30 years or whatever since the West case and before then,
01:07:38are simply not, for whatever reason, being brought into practice.
01:07:43Elements of checking and finding out and preventing just still do not happen.
01:07:49I think it's partly because very often the people who do this kind of thing are extremely devious, and they find ways around it.
01:07:57Rose's contrariness continued.
01:08:01I prepared an appeal, and that application went in, and then at a late stage with that, in 2001,
01:08:07she contacted me and said, I don't want you to proceed with this, because she said, well, I've decided that I might as well spend the rest of my life in prison.
01:08:16So I said, does this mean you're admitting your guilt? And she said, no, it doesn't.
01:08:21So, again, there's that duplicity and contradiction that you just can't get round.
01:08:29Does she deserve to die in prison? If you accept she's guilty, then, yeah, there can be absolutely no doubt she deserves to die in prison.