Latest news with #FredandRoseWestMurderInvestigation
Irish Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
'Fred West was a monster, but Rose did something even worse to us kids'
Few could be worse parents than Fred and Rose West. Their 16 year old daughter Heather was strangled, dismembered in the family bath (using a kitchen knife to avoid scratching the enamel) and buried under the patio. Fred West's eight year old stepdaughter Charmaine was found kneecapped and dissected under their previous residence. Not one, but two of West's pregnant mistresses were discovered in unofficial graves, both just a few weeks away from full term. West's ex-wife Rena was found in a nearby field, a runaway was buried under what used to be a paddling pool. Another woman was found under the bathroom floor and five more were in the cellar - where the youngest West children slept. However, those who survived life at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester didn't consider themselves much luckier. Author Howard Sounes, who helped break the West story as a Mirror reporter in 1994 and is now the leading expert on the case, recently gained access to over 100 hours of Fred West's unheard police interviews. Now, in Day One of our serialisation of his new book The Fred West Tapes: Secrets of the Fred and Rose West Murder Investigation, he shares his chilling previously-unpublished interview with West's son Barry, revealing what it was truly like growing up in Britain's House of Horrors, reports the Mirror. Barry's sisters, Mae West and Heather West, daughters of Fred and Rose West. (Image: Collect) Fred and Rose West's 10 victims (Image: Rex Features) Anna-Marie West was a mere eight years old when her father and stepmother first violated her. From then on, violation became a regular occurrence. She was bound to metal torture devices that builder Fred West crafted at work - and was told it was perfectly normal. Some, but not all, of the West children were exploited for sexual gratification not only by Fred and Rose. On occasion, a few of them were permitted to attend their parents' party - only, according to one child, to be abused by inebriated men with their parents' endorsement. Incest was ingrained in Fred's DNA, and child abuse was as commonplace as meal times at 25 Cromwell Street. But, oddly enough, it wasn't always their father who instilled the most fear amongst the West children. It was Rose. The mother and stepmother has refuted all allegations against her for 30 years. However, in November 1995, she was convicted of 10 counts of murder between 1971 and 1987. During the trial, the court heard copious evidence of her committing severe sexual and physical assaults against children. She later became only the second woman - after Myra Hindley - to be given a Whole Life Order, meaning she'll never be released. Many of her children, like her son Barry, received a life sentence of their own - never recovering from the trauma the Wests inflicted. Fred and Rose West 25 Cromwell Street. (Image: He battled with his mental health and had been using drugs. He tragically passed away two years after meeting me to recount the full horror of life inside the House of Horrors. In a heart-wrenching interview, Barry revealed: "My dad was a solid monster," but he added, "But she [Rose] was a complete psycho. That's what people don't know: My mum was, child abuse-wise, the main person. My mum was completely sick in the head. She beat me way more than my dad did, and enjoyed it, absolutely enjoyed it." When they were children, the West siblings were forced to sleep in the cellar, often locked in there at night, sometimes strapped to their beds. Rose was the jailer of her own children, wearing the keys to the cellar around her neck. The slightest provocation would trigger Rose, resulting in violent outbursts: not just hitting and slapping but stabbing and strangling her children. She also used a novelty giant wooden spoon as a weapon. "My nose is on a slant because of the amount of times she broke it," Barry confessed. "She would use [the spoon] as a baseball bat to beat us. I've got massive scars on the back of my head from the amount of times she split my head open with it. She broke my arm, all sorta stuff. She had intense enjoyment in beating the s**t out of me... " Inside 25 Cromwell Street where bodies were hidden just below where the children slept (Image: mirrorpix) TV Producer Howard Sounes covered the case for the Mirror in 1994 and is Senior Producer of Netflix's Fred & Rose: A British Horror Story. His new book, serialised in the Mirror, features a never-before-seen photo of Fred West in prison on the cover Tragically, these are Barry's earliest memories. He said: "She was just as sick as him. Her moods didn't change. She used to hit us even on Christmas Day. She used to smack you straight in the mouth." One Christmas, Barry made the mistake of not liking his mum's Brussels sprouts. "I put them in a tissue and then hid them in the back of a chair," he said. Days later Rose discovered them, rotting away. "She put them on the table, and she made me eat them," he added. "[Then] she put her hand over my mouth and made me swallow my own sick. That's the sort of s**t I had growing up. I don't remember any present opening." Life at Cromwell Street was utterly without joy. Rose dispatched her daughters to school with cropped hair, like lads, wearing boys' footwear because it was more durable. She forced her girls to wash their hair with washing-up liquid instead of proper shampoo and refused to buy deodorant, leaving them open to mockery from classmates. The West lads attended school dressed in their sisters' cast-offs, their hair allowed to grow long like girls. Several developed squints and speech problems, which can be signs of child abuse. Police bring out the grim evidence during the search of 25 Cromwell Street in 1994. This November will be 30 years since Rose West's conviction (Image: mirrorpix) Fred and Rose West (Image: PA) "When we was young, we all had speech impediments," says Barry, "I got my face punched in every day I went to school....[I was] scared to go to school, scared to go home." It wasn't just Rose awaiting him at home. His father was there too. The youngsters once pooled their money to buy him a £12 Zippo lighter for Father's Day. They even had it engraved. "He threw it across the room," Barry recalled. "That was the kind of man he was." That wasn't even the beginning of it. West spoke about sex constantly in front of the children, about wanting to take his daughters' virginity, about the family tradition of incest, even sex with animals. His declared ambition – the very notion is mad – was to see Rose mounted by a bull. "[Dad] was such a revolting man, he was vile," Barry told me. Fred wanted to deflower his daughters, and Barry claimed he was coerced into sexual situations with his mother at just "eight or nine". The children frequently had to take phone bookings for 'Mandy', their mum's pseudonym when she was working as a prostitute. Barry began being offered up to clients as an extra, as such. Barry West, believed to be aged eight. He was given a new identity when his parents were arrested and kept his adult appearance secret Rose West, aged six. (Image: According to him, one evening, Rose came downstairs in her nightdress and told Barry to follow her to her room. "She said, 'There's a man in here and I want you to do exactly what he tells you to do, no matter what'," recalled Barry. "[I] was just confused. I didn't know what she was talking about. I walk in and there was a giant man in front of me." The man raped Barry. This was just the beginning. His abuser continued to visit the house to molest him and have sex with Rose. The mum had a dedicated pair of underwear for each regular, kept in separate labelled jars. West also insisted she kept all used contraceptives in order to "artificially inseminate" their children. Barry claimed they were even made to watch homemade porn featuring their mother. It was occasionally suggested within the family that Barry might not have been West's biological child at all, but rather the result of the incestuous relationship between Rose and her father, Bill Letts. Bill had reportedly been sexually abusing Rose since childhood and, according to notes made in prison by West, was a frequent visitor to Cromwell Street. The Irish Mirror's Crime Writers Michael O'Toole and Paul Healy are writing a new weekly newsletter called Crime Ireland. Click here to sign up and get it delivered to your inbox every week West claimed one of his daughters once came downstairs complaining: "Grampy [is] going to sleep with me." According to West, Rose responded: "He is not going to eat you, he is only going to f**k you. You'll probably love it." (Rose consistently denies all wrongdoing despite her murder convictions). Alongside the violence and abuse, young women were being lured to the house where they were assaulted, killed, and often dismembered by West (in the family bathroom). All victims were discovered with fingers, toes and other body parts missing, prompting one psychologist to suggest there may have been a cannibalistic aspect to the murders. The eldest surviving child Anna-Marie was approaching nine when 19 year old Lynda Gough was murdered in 1973, marking the first of the nine Cromwell Street killings. Eight more women, some of them lodgers, vanished over the following six years. The remains of West's first wife Rena, pregnant mistress Anne McFall and stepdaughter Charmaine were interred elsewhere. Most of the children insisted they were oblivious to what was happening. However, years later, one child (who will remain unnamed) alleged that there were days when they were locked in a cupboard under the stairs amidst shouting and screaming. Upon emerging, they noticed fresh concrete had been poured in the cellar. Fred and Rose in the early days of the relationship. Rose was found guilty of 10 counts of murder, while Fred hanged himself before trial (Image: Netflix: Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story) "Why didn't we all run away?" Barry, who later grappled with severe psychological issues, questioned me. "I suppose that's the hold he had, the power. My dad was like God. You couldn't beat him. You couldn't run away. He would find you." Barry considered ending their torment by killing his father. "I tried stabbing him when I was 11 with a screwdriver. He just laughed at me," he alleged. The younger siblings did manage some retaliation against Rose, however. Just before they were taken into care during the police investigation, Barry claimed Rose attacked them with a wooden spoon and they all united to confront her. "I remember all my sisters piling on top [of her], and we all sort of stood up [to her] and she was exhausted," he alleged. "She was knackered. She hit us until [she] couldn't hit us anymore. And that's when she broke down. And I saw the weakness of her, and she was crying her eyes out." However, the children were well aware not to cross any boundaries - or break the West's code of silence. Heather, Barry's older sister, served as their warning. She disappeared at the age of 16 in 1987 after expressing a desire to leave home. The children were informed that she had moved away and severed contact. But it became a family 'joke': if you crossed Fred and Rose, you'd end up like Heather - beneath the patio, three paving stones up and nine across. Barry later revealed: "That was what was going to happen to all of us when we got old enough. If we didn't turn out like him, we was against him. And if we was against him, we would have to go in the garden – under the patio. He made us understand that." When this 'joke' reached the police, the diggers were brought in. And the Wests' decades of degradation could no longer remain hidden. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.
Daily Record
5 days ago
- Daily Record
Life was hell after I stabbed my dad Fred West with a screwdriver - but it was mum I was scared of
WARNING - DISTRESSING CONTENT: Howard Sounes, the Mirror reporter who first broke the story of Fred and Rose West in 1994, has gained access to more than 100 hours of Fred West's unheard police interviews for his new book Few could be worse parents than Fred and Rose West. Their 16 year old daughter Heather was strangled, dismembered in the family bath (using a kitchen knife to avoid scratching the enamel) and buried beneath the patio. The remains of West's eight year old stepdaughter Charmaine were found under their previous residence, her body kneecapped and dissected. Two of West's pregnant lovers were discovered in unofficial graves, both just weeks away from full term. West's former wife Rena was found in a nearby field, while a runaway was buried under what used to be a paddling pool. Another woman was found beneath the bathroom floor and five more were discovered in the cellar - where the youngest West children slept. However, those who survived life at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester didn't consider themselves much luckier. Howard Sounes, an author who first reported on the West case for the Mirror in 1994, recently gained access to over 100 hours of previously unheard police interviews with Fred West. Now, in the first instalment of our serialisation of his new book The Fred West Tapes: Secrets of the Fred and Rose West Murder Investigation, he shares his chilling, previously unpublished interview with West's son Barry, revealing the true horrors of growing up in Britain's infamous House of Horrors...., reports the Mirror. Anna-Marie West was a mere eight years old when she was first raped by her father and stepmother. From then on, rape became a horrifyingly regular occurrence. She was bound to metal torture devices that her father, builder Fred West, constructed at work - all the while being told this was normal. Some of the West children were subjected to sexual abuse not only by Fred and Rose. On one occasion, a few were permitted to attend their parents' party - only to be molested by inebriated men, seemingly with their parents' approval, according to one child's account. Incest was ingrained in Fred's DNA, and child abuse was as commonplace as meals at 25 Cromwell Street. Strangely enough, it wasn't always their father who instilled the most fear amongst the West children. It was Rose. The mother and stepmother has consistently denied all accusations against her for three decades. However, in November 1995, she was convicted on 10 counts of murder committed between 1971 and 1987. During the trial, the court was presented with ample evidence of her perpetrating severe sexual and physical assaults on children. She subsequently became only the second woman - following Myra Hindley - to receive a Whole Life Order, ensuring she will never be released. Many of her children, like her son Barry, were handed a life sentence of their own - unable to recover from the trauma inflicted by the Wests. Barry grappled with mental health issues and drug use. Tragically, he passed away two years after recounting to me the full extent of the horrors endured within the House of Horrors. It is only now that I can share the details of that interview for the first time. Barry confided in me, saying: "My dad was a solid monster," and added about his mother, "But she [Rose] was a complete psycho. That's what people don't know: My mum was, child abuse-wise, the main person. My mum was completely sick in the head. She beat me way more than my dad did, and enjoyed it, absolutely enjoyed it." When the West children were young, they endured nights locked in the cellar, sometimes even strapped to their beds. Rose took on the role of jailer to her own children, with the keys to the cellar hanging around her neck. The slightest provocation would trigger Rose's violent outbursts, which included not just hitting and slapping but also stabbing and strangling her children. She even used a novelty giant wooden spoon as a weapon. Barry recounted the physical abuse he suffered, stating: "My nose is on a slant because of the amount of times she broke it," and "She would use [the spoon] as a baseball bat to beat us. I've got massive scars on the back of my head from the amount of times she split my head open with it. She broke my arm, all sorts of stuff. She had intense enjoyment in beating the s**t out of me... " These horrific acts form Barry's earliest memories. He shared further: "She was just as sick as him. Her moods didn't change. She used to hit us even on Christmas Day. She used to smack you straight in the mouth." One Christmas, Barry recounted a particularly unpleasant experience with his mother's brussel sprouts. "I put them in a tissue and then hid them in the back of a chair," he confessed. Days later, Rose discovered the decomposing vegetables. "She put them on the table, and she made me eat them," he continued. "[Then] she put her hand over my mouth and made me swallow my own sick. That's the sort of s**t I had growing up. I don't remember any present opening." Life at Cromwell Street was devoid of happiness for the children. Rose insisted on sending her daughters to school with cropped hair, dressed in boys' shoes for their durability. She would have them wash their hair with dish soap instead of shampoo and forbade the use of deodorant, leading to mockery from their peers. The West boys were not spared; they attended school in their sisters' cast-offs, allowing their hair to grow out. Many developed squints and speech impediments, often signs of child mistreatment. "When we was young, we all had speech impediments," Barry revealed, "I got my face punched in every day I went to school....[I was] scared to go to school, scared to go home." Home was no sanctuary, with both parents presenting a threat. The children once pooled their money to buy a £12 Zippo lighter for Father's Day, even having it engraved. "He threw it across the room," Barry remembered. "That was the kind of man he was." And that was only part of their ordeal. West incessantly discussed sexual matters in the presence of his children, expressing a desire to take his daughters' virginity, boasting about the family's history of incest, and even engaging in bestiality. His deranged aspiration was to witness his daughter Rose being copulated with by a bull. "[Dad] was such a disgusting man, he was vile," Barry confided. Fred West harboured intentions to sexually initiate his daughters, and Barry alleged that he was coerced into sexual acts with his own mother at the tender age of "eight or nine". The children were often tasked with managing phone appointments for 'Mandy', the pseudonym their mother used while working as a sex worker. It wasn't long before Barry found himself being presented to clients as an additional service. Barry recounted one particular incident where Rose, dressed in her nightgown, instructed him to accompany her to her bedroom. "She said, 'There's a man in here and I want you to do exactly what he tells you to do, no matter what'," Barry remembered. "[I] was just confused. I didn't know what she was talking about. I walk in and there was a giant man in front of me." That evening marked the beginning of Barry's ordeal; he was raped by a regular visitor who continued to abuse him and engage in sexual relations with Rose. The mother maintained a peculiar system for her clientele, storing individual pairs of underwear for each regular in separately labelled jars. Moreover, West demanded that all contraceptives be retained after use, with the twisted aim of "artificially inseminating" their offspring. Barry also disclosed that they were forced to watch homemade pornographic videos featuring their mother. Within the family, there were whispers that Barry might not have been West's biological son but rather a result of the incestuous relationship between Rose and her father, Bill Letts. It was alleged that Bill had been sexually abusing Rose since her childhood, and as per notes written by West while in prison, Bill was a frequent visitor to Cromwell Street. West claimed that one of his daughters once came downstairs and complained, "Grampy [is] going to sleep with me." He recounted that Rose's response was chilling: "He is not going to eat you, he is only going to f**k you. You'll probably love it." (Rose has consistently denied any wrongdoing, even after being convicted of multiple murders). In addition to the physical violence and sexual abuse, young women were lured to the house where they were assaulted and murdered, often dismembered by West in the family bathroom. The victims were found missing fingers, toes, and other body parts, which led a psychologist to speculate on a possible cannibalistic aspect to the crimes. Anna-Marie, the eldest surviving child, was nearly nine years old when Lynda Gough, aged 19, became the first victim of the Cromwell Street murders in 1973. Over the following six years, eight more women, including some lodgers, vanished without a trace. The remains of West's first wife Rena, his pregnant lover Anne McFall, and his stepdaughter Charmaine were buried at different locations. Most of the children insisted they were oblivious to the horrors unfolding around them. However, years on, one of the children (who shall remain unnamed) disclosed that there were instances when they were confined to a cupboard under the stairs, overhearing shouting and screaming. Upon emerging, they would notice fresh concrete in the cellar. "Why didn't we all run away?" pondered Barry, who subsequently endured a prolonged struggle with mental health issues. "I suppose that's the hold he had, the power. My dad was like God. You couldn't beat him. You couldn't run away. He would find you." Barry even considered murdering his father as a means to cease their suffering. "I tried stabbing him when I was eleven with a screwdriver. He just laughed at me," he recounted. The younger siblings did manage to exact some form of retribution against Rose. Barry alleged that just before they were taken into care amid the police investigation, Rose attacked them with a wooden spoon, prompting them to collectively retaliate. "I remember all my sisters jumping on top [of her], and we all sort of stood up [to her] and she was tired," he recalled. "She was knackered. She hit us until [she] couldn't hit us anymore. And that's when she broke down. And I saw the weakness of her, and she was crying her eyes out..." Generally speaking though, the youngsters understood not to misbehave - or breach the West family's code of silence. Barry's elder sister Heather served as their cautionary tale. She disappeared at 16 in 1987 after expressing her desire to escape the household. The kids were informed she'd relocated and severed all ties. Yet it evolved into a household 'gag': cross Fred and Rose, and you'd end up like Heather - beneath the patio, three slabs up and nine along. Barry subsequently revealed: "That was what was going to happen to all of us when we got old enough. If we didn't turn out like him, we was against him. And if we was against him, we would have to go in the garden – under the patio. He made us understand that." When that 'gag' reached police ears, the excavators arrived. And the Wests' decades of depravity would remain concealed no longer....
