Authors: Paul Britton
‘I’m glad you brought the report with you,’ he said, on a later visit, ‘because if you hadn’t, I had given instructions to Terry here to put you in handcuffs and take you down to the cells until it came.’ He grinned broadly and introduced me to Terry Moore, a detective chief inspector and Bennett’s deputy.
The ageing lift clanked and shuddered up two floors and Moore saw the look on my face. ‘Don’t worry. Sometimes it gets you there and sometimes it doesn’t.’
The SIO’s office was adjacent to the incident room which had a familiar buzz of ringing phones and flicking keyboards. Yet here there was a totally different atmosphere to those I’d sensed before. In a typical murder investigation all of the energy is focused on catching someone. It’s almost as if there is an empty picture frame on the wall and everything is directed to filling in the missing face. In this case, there was already a picture - Frederick West was sitting downstairs in a spartan interview room, sipping cups of tea and eating chocolate biscuits.
‘Well, Paul, it’s good to see you again,’ said Bennett leaning back in his chair. ‘I’m sorry it has to be in these circumstances. You must have formed an awful view of Gloucestershire - every time you come down here there’s been another terrible crime. Don’t hold it against us.’
Half-closing his eyes, he began the briefing. ‘In the rear garden of twenty-five Cromwell Street - a house not far from here - we have recovered the remains of three people. The property is owned by Mr Frederick West, aged fifty-two, and his wife Rosemary, aged forty. We believe that the bodies are those of young women and one of them is the couple’s eldest daughter Heather Ann West who was last seen alive in May 1987.’
‘We have a most unusual situation,’ said Bennett, ‘we have someone who comes across as a cheerful, charming and straightforward working man. Most people have a friendly word for him. He and his wife have lived at the address for more than twenty-two years. They are, by most accounts, outwardly friendly and good neighbours. At the same time, we have three bodies - none of them positively identified by the Home Office pathologist. Much of what I tell you is provisional but I can reveal that the bodies were not left in a way that we’d normally expect.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘They were dismembered and decapitated.’
An alarm bell sounded in my head.
Motioning to several thick files on his desk, Bennett began running through a brief history of the family, prompted occasionally by Moore. Frederick Walter Stephen West had been born on 29 September, 1941, the eldest son of a farm labourer and wagoner from Much Marcle, near Ledbury, on the Herefordshire-Gloucestershire border. There were seven children in the family, four boys and three girls.
Young Fred grew up in Much Marcle and after leaving school did various jobs including labouring and lorry-driving. On 7 November, 1962, he married Catherine ‘Rena’ Costello, an eighteen-year-old waitress who worked at a cafe in Ledbury. They had two daughters, Charmaine, born in 1963 and Anne Marie, born a year later.
The family spent some time living in Rena’s native Glasgow where West worked as an ice-cream vendor; and then returned to live at a caravan site in Bishop’s Cleeve, Cheltenham, twelve miles from Gloucester.
The files suggested that the marriage had been quite turbulent and several times during the mid-sixties the children were placed in care and then taken out again several weeks later. In January 1969, Fred told friends that Rena had left him and run away with an engineer to Scotland.
That same year West took up with Rosemary Pauline Letts, a fifteen-year-old girl, who lived in Bishop’s Cleeve. Her parents were concerned by the twelve-year age gap and contacted social services who agreed to take Rosemary into care, but once she had reached her sixteenth birthday the authorities were powerless to intervene.
Rosemary moved into the caravan with West and his two daughters and soon fell pregnant. She gave birth to Heather on 17 October, 1970, at Gloucester City maternity hospital. The couple married fifteen months later, having moved to a terraced house at 25 Midland Street, Gloucester, and soon afterwards transferred to 25 Cromwell Street. Mae June was born in June 1972 and Stephen arrived a year later. Five more children followed, three of them of mixed race.
Meanwhile, Fred worked at a variety of jobs as a builder and tradesman. He had a criminal record and had made eleven court appearances, mainly for petty theft, receiving stolen goods and motoring offences. In 1970 he was sentenced to three months in jail when the court lost patience with him.
So far nothing in the accounts had suggested a dangerous pathology. Yet it surprised me that the police seemed to have such a deep knowledge of a man who had only minor convictions.
‘There are several embarrassing aspects to this inquiry,’ said Bennett, clearing his throat.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, for one thing, Heather was only sixteen when she disappeared. Several people raised questions but Fred explained that she’d gone off with a friend. Essentially, that was the end of the matter.’
I knew there had to be more than this.
Bennett explained that the police had been interested in the family for some time. Their school-age children had been in care for more than a year after a series of allegations of indecent assault. Mr West was accused of having sexual intercourse with one or more of his daughters, while being encouraged and assisted by Rose.
‘She’d supervise the penetration,’ said Moore, ‘telling him the girl was ready.’
Bennett said, ‘Apparently, it was all part of furthering Fred’s various genetic theories.’
‘Genetic theories?’
‘Don’t ask me - I can’t explain,’ said Bennett, going on to describe how the couple had been due to stand trial twelve months earlier in connection with the allegations but at the eleventh hour, as the court was waiting, the principal witness backed out of giving evidence. ‘We didn’t have it nailed down tightly enough and the Crown had to withdraw.’
Over the subsequent months, the police stayed in touch with the children who had been taken into residential care and eventually were to hear stories about Heather being buried under the patio. They attempted to trace her whereabouts but failed.
As I jotted down the chronology, I noticed several time-lags between when information had been received and action taken. Is that what concerned Bennett? I wondered. Then again, police couldn’t just dig up a garden on the say-so of a child. There had to be something more to cause Bennett, the most relaxed of men, to be so circumspect.
He slid a folder across the table which contained a bundle of statements and charge sheets. The first five pages were a statement provided by Caroline Owens, a local woman who at the age of seventeen had spent a short time working for the Wests as a nanny. With the agreement of her parents she had moved into 25 Cromwell Street to look after Anna, Heather and the new-born baby, Mae June.
Caroline began to feel uncomfortable in the house, particularly when her new employers began taking an unhealthy interest in her, making suggestive comments and talking about her genitals. Frederick West had claimed that he knew of operations that could increase a woman’s sexual pleasure. Eventually, Caroline went for a drink with a former nanny who asked her whether Mrs West had tried to seduce her yet. Shocked, Caroline decided to resign.
Several months later, on 6 December, 1972, at 11.00 p.m., her boyfriend left her opposite a pub on the outskirts of Tewkesbury and she started to hitchhike home to Cinderford, twelve miles from Gloucester. A grey Ford Popular pulled up and she recognized Mr and Mrs West. They offered her a lift and, despite feeling uneasy, Caroline accepted because it was cold and late.
Rosemary lifted the front passenger seat so Caroline could climb into the back and then joined her and Fred drove off, through Gloucester and along the road to Cinderford. According to Caroline’s statement, Fred asked her if she had sex with her boyfriend and what they did together. Then Rosemary began touching her breasts through her clothes and trying to put her hand between her legs. She began yelling but Rosemary laughed and taunted her, while Fred asked, ‘What’s she feel like?’
As Caroline continued fighting, he stopped the car, reached over the seat and punched her until she blacked out. When she regained consciousness, her hands had been tied behind her back and broad sticking plaster wrapped around her head until it covered her mouth, nose and ears, forming a kind of mask.
Caroline was driven back to Cromwell Street and carried inside to the front bedroom on the first floor. Fred made a cup of tea and then used a double-bladed knife to cut the tape from her face. The blade sliced her skin below her left ear and she lost large chunks of her hair when the mask was pulled away.
Her clothes were removed and she was told not to struggle or she’d be hurt. Gagged and blindfolded, she was made to lie on a low bed or mattress and her legs were forced apart. The couple began exploring her vagina and discussing the size of her vaginal lips and whether these would interfere with her sexual pleasure. Fred said he knew how to improve them surgically.
Rosemary took hold of Caroline’s heels and raised her legs, spreading them apart. Fred then began striking her vulva with a two-inch-wide leather belt with a heavy buckle. Afterwards, the blindfold was removed and Rosemary, now naked, started kissing the teenager and having oral sex with her while Fred undressed and had intercourse with his wife from the rear. When Rosemary went to the bathroom, Fred told Caroline that he planned to keep her in the cellar so his friends could use her. When they’d finished she’d be killed and her body buried under the paving stones of Gloucester where there were hundreds of girls that the police would never find.
Having been left bound and gagged overnight while they slept, Caroline recalled how early in the morning someone had knocked on the door and she had tried to make a noise to attract attention. Rosemary forced a pillow over her face, smothering her until she no longer struggled. When the visitor left, Rosemary went upstairs to check on the children and Fred climbed onto Caroline and raped her for several minutes without ejaculating.
According to Caroline, he then pleaded with her not to tell his wife because she’d be angry at him. He said the abduction had been for Rosemary’s pleasure because when she was pregnant her lesbian urges became stronger and she particularly wanted Caroline.
When Rosemary returned, she made Caroline take a bath and brought her back into the bedroom. They made her promise that if they let her go she would come back and live with them. Alternatively, they would find and kill her. When Caroline agreed, they told her to help dress the younger children and then she accompanied Rose to the local launderette. It was here, surrounded by people, that Caroline slipped away.
Severely traumatized, she went to a friend’s house instead of going straight to the police. She couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother and stepfather at first, but eventually the police were called and photographs were taken of the rope burns on her wrists, weals on her legs and the cuts and bruises on her face.
Finishing the statement, I leafed through the folder searching for the outcome to the case. Bennett and Moore sat silently, as if waiting for my reaction. The alarm bells inside my head were almost deafening.
Mr and Mrs West had been arrested and interviewed but had denied everything. Eventually, they agreed to plead guilty to charges of indecent assault and actual bodily harm if Caroline dropped the rape charge. By doing so, she would avoid having to give evidence in open court about her ordeal.
Unbelievably, the case had ended as a relatively minor matter before Gloucester Magistrates on January 12, 1973. Fred and Rosemary pleaded guilty to the lesser charges and were each fined Ł25 on each count. Rosemary revealed she was pregnant and said of the attack, ‘I don’t know why I did it, it just happened.’
Bennett could see the look of disbelief on my face.
‘Don’t ask me to explain,’ he said. ‘I doubt if anyone can.’
On a floor below, Mr West was still being held for interview. A short man, with dark curly hair and rock and roll sideburns, he wore a blue cardigan, open-neck shirt, t-shirt and grey trousers. They were the same clothes he had been wearing when an unmarked police car drove him away from Cromwell Street the previous Friday morning. He was proving a difficult subject to interrogate and Bennett wanted me to advise the interview teams and discuss possible strategies to unlock the truth.
When first arrested he had insisted that the police would find nothing in their search. When it was made clear to him that officers were digging up the patio - and it was obvious his lie would be exposed - he finally admitted, ‘No, she’s [Heather] not under the patio, she’s in the garden.’ Shortly afterwards he was taken back to the house where he pointed out the locations of two more bodies in the garden.
Their deaths, he said, were accidental and unfortunate. He had argued with Heather who was behaving unreasonably so in a fatherly way he tried to disabuse her and suddenly found that she’d died on him. Because Rosemary would be upset about this, he took Heather to the upstairs bathroom and dismembered her. He kept the pieces in the cellar and later buried her in the garden.
The other deaths were equally unfortunate. Shirley Robinson, an eighteen-year-old lodger at the house, had been pregnant with Fred’s child and was causing problems. When he tried to disabuse her, he found himself with another dead woman on his hands. The third girl was apparently a friend of Shirley’s who came looking for her and he didn’t really have a choice but to kill her.
Moore said, ‘Yeah, he’s one unlucky son of a bitch, is our Fred. Women just kept dying on him left, right and centre so he figures he’ll cut up the bodies and bury them rather than tell anyone.’
Glancing through the interview transcripts, I saw that Moore had pretty much summed it up. West continually tried to minimize his responsibility. That didn’t surprise me; it’s quite common for killers to diminish their role rather than completely acknowledge their crimes.