Latest / History Dark / Raising A Serial Killer_ Fred and Rose West _ Murderers and their Mothers

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Raising A Serial Killer_ Fred and Rose West _ Murderers and their Mothers · History Dark

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: They are some of the world's most notorious serial killers.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: He was like a god and he had a corpse
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: as his plaything.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: But were these psychopaths born evil or did their mothers
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: make them into monsters?
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: A mother may actually dote on a child too much.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I'm Donald McIntyre and I'm on a quest to explore
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: how some of history's most horrific murderers were molded by
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: their dysfunctional relationships with their mothers.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: When it comes to people who are pathological, psychopathic, the
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: influence of the mother is absolutely dominant.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I'll be piecing together events in their childhoods and talking
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: to criminologists and psychologists to try to understand what motivated
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: their monstrous crimes.
• 0:45
  Speaker 5: We've never come across a serial killer who killed that
• 0:47
  Speaker 5: many people.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: In this programme, Fred and Rosemary West. Between them, the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: West raped, tortured, murdered and dismembered 12 women, including two
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of their own daughters.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: The combination of the two of them together made the
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: most horrific killing machine this country has ever seen.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: How did their own twisted relationships with their mothers inform
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: their killing spree? On this very street, Fred West and
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: his second wife, Rosemary, murdered, tortured and raped numerous young women.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: One of the most shocking cases of serial killing in
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: British history.
• 1:54
  Speaker 6: A specialist search team arrived at Cromwell Street with a
• 1:57
  Speaker 6: warrant to search for Heather West. Officers who found Heather's
• 2:01
  Speaker 6: remains within hours also found signs that she was not alone.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Nine victims were initially found here at where 25 Cromwell
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Street once stood. evidence of a sex and murder spree
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: that had gone undetected for over 20 years.
• 2:17
  Speaker 7: 30 years as a journalist, I have never witnessed anything
• 2:26
  Speaker 7: like it. And I hope for the benefit of people
• 2:30
  Speaker 7: out there that I won't have to witness it again,
• 2:33
  Speaker 7: because it's just truly horrific.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: The remains found in the garden and under the cement
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: that Fred himself had laid revealed evidence of appalling scenes
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: of torture.
• 2:46
  Speaker 8: Seeing something like a masked skull with tubes coming out
• 2:52
  Speaker 8: of the nose to enable breathing brings home the reality
• 2:57
  Speaker 8: of that with which you are dealing.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: We have no idea the extent of the horror that
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: went on in that cellar. We can only guess, but
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: we do know it was often protracted over days, the
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: most horrific circumstances.
• 3:14
  Speaker 8: If you were trussed up, hanging from a beam, then
• 3:20
  Speaker 8: you might very well ask to die.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: The horrific activities at 25 Cromwell Street is now the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: stuff of urban legend, home to two of Britain's worst
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: serial killers. The question still remains, why did Fred and
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Rosemary West embark on their path of depravity? Where did
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: it all begin? And what events turned them into the
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: sadistic torturers, killers and rapists that they became? Fred West
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: was born on September 29th, 1941, here in Muchmarkle, Herefordshire,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the second of six children to a family of farm labourers.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: If you think of the West's life as a family,
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: they lived in a tiny cottage. They used to keep
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: a pet pig, which they would slaughter in the kitchen.
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: It was very dirty. It was effectively a hovel.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: The nature of the landscape, the nature of the day-to-day
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: activities was absolutely brutal. It was almost feral. In Fred's case,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: it meant day-to-day contact with death, calling of rabbits, shooting
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: of rats by his mother, which he admired.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It was a household in which Fred's mother, Daisy, was
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: very much the dominant force.
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: Very speedily, Daisy, the young Daisy West, before she took
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: the age of 20... became the matriarch. She ran the family.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: She quickly gained weight from being a slipper for girls.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: She became a rather fierce, plump, plain, always wore a
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: very thick leather belt, which she set about her children
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: with relentlessly. And she would always be the one responsible
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: for punishment, usually with her belt, often with the buckle end.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Fred's father, Walter West, was also a violent man who
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: may well have been a murderer himself.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: Walter West, at the age of 23, marries a spinster,
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: at least 22 years older than he was, who survives
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: for only two years. She dies under very extraordinary circumstances,
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: according to West later, from a bee sting.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: I wonder, and in fact I'm absolutely convinced in my
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: own mind, Walter West killed his first wife for the
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: pleasure of it.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Walter West enjoyed violent sex and liked to force himself
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: on young women in the fields while Fred watched on.
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: Walter West gave his son a series of legacies, one
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: of which was clearly about sex. Take whatever it is
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: whenever you want to because there's an opportunity and it's
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: mad not to.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Sex was a part of everyday life for Fred, including
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: even bestiality, which his father taught him to enjoy from
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: an early age.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: Walter wasn't ashamed of admitting to his son that he'd
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: had sex with sheep, or indeed the pet pig, at
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: various points, in the parlour. And his son thought, well,
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: if my dad does it, why? I don't see why
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: I shouldn't.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Walter West's sexual perversity was matched by only that of
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: his wife, Daisy. her twisted form of maternal love that
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: she gave the young Fred would take him down a
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: dark path.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: Daisy West, his mother, took him to bed when he
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: was not quite 13, when he'd just demonstrated the first
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: signs of adolescence, his first erections. And he was later
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: taken to court for sex with his sister, encouraged by
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: his mother, there's no question about that. Now, that is...
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: an abnormal relationship.
• 7:21
  Speaker 7: He might have regarded that as nothing unusual in the
• 7:25
  Speaker 7: small house which they grew up in, in a much
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: more remarkable area, but it would have had an effect
• 7:30
  Speaker 7: on him and what he felt was acceptable behavior with others.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: She was the strongest, most physical force in that dysfunctional family.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: Daisy was the person who said, right, I'm going to
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: initiate my boys into sex. I'm going to encourage my
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: boys to have sex with their sisters. I want my
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: boys to be different from anybody else's. I believe she thought,
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: I want to create my own legend.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: So how did Fred West's horrific childhood inform his evolution
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: into a mass murderer? Liz, it seems to me that
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: everything about his childhood was perverse, but everything about his
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: childhood he thought was normal.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 8:13
  Speaker 9: And what he's learning in these early days are violent scripts.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: And abusive scripts.
• 8:17
  Speaker 9: They're particular ways of behaving in certain situations. He's learning
• 8:21
  Speaker 9: what he thinks an appropriate response is to any given
• 8:24
  Speaker 9: situation from these incredibly dysfunctional values and norms that are
• 8:29
  Speaker 9: displayed within his family. And I think if we look
• 8:32
  Speaker 9: at his relationship with his mother, he would have considered
• 8:35
  Speaker 9: that relationship normal. That was one that completely crossed the boundaries.
• 8:39
  Speaker 9: you know, back and forth several times between what we
• 8:41
  Speaker 9: consider to be normal for a son and his mother.
• 8:45
  Speaker 9: And it goes against, you know, all of the ideas
• 8:47
  Speaker 9: that we have about mothers.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: They're there to nurture children. They're there to protect them.
• 8:52
  Speaker 9: Mothers, you know, want to prevent their children from engaging
• 8:55
  Speaker 9: in sexual activity for as long as possible. They're certainly
• 8:57
  Speaker 9: not going to be the ones to introduce them to it.
• 8:59
  Speaker 9: But unfortunately, in this case, that's exactly what happened.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: It was another 50 years before actually psychologists and psychiatrists
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: recognised that actually women you know, were and could be
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: sexual abusers.
• 9:12
  Speaker 9: Because up until that point, we'd just seen women as
• 9:15
  Speaker 9: the nurturers. We'd seen women as the protectors. They were
• 9:18
  Speaker 9: people you could, you know, entrust children to and they'd
• 9:21
  Speaker 9: care for them.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: What sets him along the path that he feels he
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: should perpetrate it? Because people who have been suffered victims
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: of child sexual abuse, they, you know, not necessarily go
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: on to perpetrate. So why did he suddenly become a
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: victim and perpetrator?
• 9:37
  Speaker 9: Most children who experience this kind of thing go on
• 9:40
  Speaker 9: to harm themselves.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: They don't go on to harm other people. But it's
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: when we put it in the.
• 9:44
  Speaker 9: Context of the social environment, when we look at the
• 9:48
  Speaker 9: other factors, when we look at the introduction of rosemary
• 9:51
  Speaker 9: later on, it all comes together to create an incredibly
• 9:54
  Speaker 9: toxic mix.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Coming up, who was Rose West and what was her
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: deadly attraction to Fred?
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: Her mother failed partly because of her own mental difficulties
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: to protect Rose from the interests of her husband, Bill Letts,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: who certainly had sex with Rose from a very early age.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: Fred and Rosemary West were two of the most sadistic
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: serial killers Britain has ever produced. They were both the
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: product of violent, dysfunctional families, and both were broken by
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: their mothers in different ways. Rosemary Pauline Letts, 12 years
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: Fred's junior, was born on November 29th, 1953 in Northam,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: a small Devon town in the southwest of England. Her parents,
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: Bill and Daisy, were apparently happy but behind the.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Facade lay a darker truth. Bill Letts was a paranoid schizophrenic.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Prone to violent mood swings, he subjected his family to
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: a reign of terror.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: William Letts was an absolute monster. If you thought West
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: was bad, you should have known Letts. And what he
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: contrived to do to his daughter Rose was unforgivable.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Lett's physical violence and unpredictability drove his young wife into
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a severe depression. Pregnant with Rose, her fifth child, she
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: was referred to a local psychiatric hospital, where she was
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: given a course of electroconvulsive therapy.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: At this day and age, the level of voltage would
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: have been quite high, and it is almost certain that
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: this would have done some damage to Rose in vitro.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: As Rose lay in her mother's womb, Daisy had electric
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: shocks blasted into her brain. The last treatment apparently just
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: days before Rose was born.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: This was probably why Rose earned the name Dozie Rosie
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: later and exhibited kind of rocking behavior, the kind of
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: behaviors that we would associate with neurological damage. This would
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: mean that the more sophisticated elements of brain development, which
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: are much later on in the gestation period, would be
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: the ones that were interrupted. And this would probably include
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: the inhibitory parts of the brain at the front, which
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: would mean that she would not quite suffer the same
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: level of revulsion that we have at heinous acts.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: As his depressed wife withdrew from the marriage, Billette turned
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to his pubescent daughter to satisfy his sexual needs.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Her mother failed partly because of her own mental difficulties
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: to protect Rose from the interests of her husband, Bill Letts,
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: who certainly had sex with Rose from a very early age,
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: almost as soon as she was capable of having any
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: kind of sexual relationship.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: This strange mother hands-off, father hands-on, very much, the effect
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: on Rose was one of She would learn that she
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: could get what she wanted by being sexual with people,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: by enticing them, that she could get what she wanted
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: out of life.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: As well as the twisted lessons she was learning about sex,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the absence of her mother left Rose with unfulfilled emotional needs,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: which would only be satisfied when she met Fred.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: Rose is fulfilling the void left by her mother, by
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: her relationship to Frederick West. I don't think you can
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: explain the closeness of the Wests, Fred and Rose, without
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: the absence of Rose's mother. I don't think you can
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: do it quite. If there'd been another different figure, different
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: mother figure, that might never have happened.
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: The lessons that Rose learned from her own mother, who
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: should be there to protect her and look after her,
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: are essentially that you do what men tell you to do,
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: your body is not your own, it is your man's body,
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: and you will comply. And those are very damaging, dangerous
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: messages for any parent to give to a child. But unfortunately,
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: that's what Rose walked away from her parents with.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: How did this toxic combination of brain damage, maternal neglect,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: and incest shape the young Rose West? So her father
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: is using her as a replacement wife.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: She's using his daughter for sex.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: You know, Daisy's kind of out of the picture, depressed.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And now he's turned his affections, controlling affections, onto Rosemary.
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: He has.
• 14:44
  Speaker 9: He's very much singled her out and targeted.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Her as the special one.
• 14:48
  Speaker 9: So she would have seen that as some kind of reward,
• 14:51
  Speaker 9: some kind of positive thing. And the interesting thing also
• 14:54
  Speaker 9: about this is that it was incredibly hidden. So whilst
• 14:57
  Speaker 9: Fred West's family were quite open with each other about
• 15:01
  Speaker 9: what was going on, this was much more kind of
• 15:03
  Speaker 9: closed off.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: What impact do you think the ECT had on... on
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: her in the womb.
• 15:10
  Speaker 9: Rosemary's mother had electroconvulsive therapy for her depression and that
• 15:16
  Speaker 9: must have had some kind of impact, the degree of impact,
• 15:18
  Speaker 9: we're not too sure, but we do know that Rosemary
• 15:21
  Speaker 9: did display some rather disturbing behaviours as a young baby.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: So she would rock.
• 15:26
  Speaker 9: Around in her cot, she would bang her own head.
• 15:29
  Speaker 9: So there was something that had happened in those very,
• 15:32
  Speaker 9: very early days, which had had an impact on her behaviour.
• 15:35
  Speaker 9: But how important that would be in years to come,
• 15:38
  Speaker 9: it's very difficult to say.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: There was certainly a hint of impairment or brain damage,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: as we would call it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 9: Yeah, and when we look at the brains of people
• 15:47
  Speaker 9: who go on to commit murder, there is the suggestion
• 15:50
  Speaker 9: that they look slightly different to people who don't engage
• 15:54
  Speaker 9: in violent acts. So the part of the brain that
• 15:57
  Speaker 9: we often talk about here is the prefrontal cortex. So
• 16:00
  Speaker 9: This is the part of the brain that controls the emotions, essentially,
• 16:05
  Speaker 9: the difference between right and wrong. It helps us suppress
• 16:08
  Speaker 9: urges that we might have. And in people who've committed murder,
• 16:13
  Speaker 9: these areas of the brain tend to be less active.
• 16:16
  Speaker 9: So it could be suggested that this electroconvulsive therapy did
• 16:21
  Speaker 9: have an impact upon Rose's brain as she was developing
• 16:24
  Speaker 9: as a foetus.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: 150 miles away in much Markle, Fred West had also
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: experienced an abusive childhood at the hands of his mother
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Daisy and father Walter. Aged 17, he too was to
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: suffer brain damage as the result of a motorcycle accident.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Following Fred's motorcycle crash, the brakes were taken off his
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: behavior entirely. The morality was removed. This was absolutely noticeable
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: by other people. He quite simply could look at something
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: which is garish and horrific and feel absolutely nothing.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: There are some people who suggest that West's injury and
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: what they assert was a metal plate placed in his
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: head accounted for his later behaviour as a sexual predator
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: and a serial killer. I've never believed it. I'm not
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: even sure that he actually had a metal plate in
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: his head. I believe he would have become a predator
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: and a killer regardless of the accident.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: West was already known to the police as a petty criminal.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Now age 20, he was prosecuted for incest. He'd impregnated
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: his 13-year-old sister. But as always, his mother rushed to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: the defence of her blue-eyed boy.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: There is no doubt in my mind that his mother
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Daisy's attitude to he could do what he liked, take
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: what he want, made Fred Field invincible, that he was effectively.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Free to do whatever he chose, whenever he chose to
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: do it. If Fred had a bad time at school,
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: for example, misbehavior, Daisy would march down to the local
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: primary school and berate the teacher for, no, you can't
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: treat my son like that.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: That's Fred.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: He's a very perfect boy. And she was still doing that.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: When Fred was charged and then went to trial on
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: the incest, Daisy turned up to give evidence on his behalf, saying,
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: My son would never dream of doing such a thing,
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: even though, of course, she knew perfectly well that she'd
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: been encouraging him.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: In mitigation, West relied upon the side effects of the
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: motorcycle accident as part of his defence. But in the event,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: his sister refused to testify against him and he walked
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: free from court. So how much of a role did
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: brain damage play in turning Fred West into a psychopath?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about environment and learned behaviours, but
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: there are genuine physical injuries, incidents which happen to Fred,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: which may explain part of his behaviour.
• 19:09
  Speaker 9: Well, when Fred was 17, he was involved in a
• 19:11
  Speaker 9: motorcycle accident where he had.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: A significant head injury.
• 19:15
  Speaker 9: It was reported by his family that after the accident,
• 19:18
  Speaker 9: after he'd recovered, he would fly into sudden fits of rage,
• 19:23
  Speaker 9: that there was an essential change in his personality. And
• 19:26
  Speaker 9: we've seen this in other cases as well. So it's
• 19:29
  Speaker 9: not something that.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: We can discount.
• 19:31
  Speaker 9: We can definitely see this as potentially part of the
• 19:34
  Speaker 9: puzzle that made Fred West.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: So if we're looking at, albeit with her impairment, you
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: had Rosemary being chosen as the golden child by the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: dysfunctional and controlling father, William. And then you had Fred,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of course, being controlled... being appointed the chosen child by
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: his own mother. So we can see these parallels and
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: see how both these kind of people kind of were
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: going along the same trajectory and how perhaps when they
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: would meet, terrible things would happen.
• 20:03
  Speaker 9: Yeah, and when you compare their mothers... In Fred's mother,
• 20:07
  Speaker 9: you've got somebody who is very actively abusing him. If
• 20:11
  Speaker 9: you look at Rosemary's mother, she's also, you know, complicit
• 20:15
  Speaker 9: in the abuse, but through being passive.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: There's also lessons learned from her mother, from her mother Daisy,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: was that this is how you please men, is through sex,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: and that doesn't answer to a lot of the problems.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And so at a very early age, she was very sexualised.
• 20:29
  Speaker 9: Yes, and it started incredibly early on. So if you
• 20:32
  Speaker 9: think of normal psychosexual development, This was completely abnormal. So
• 20:38
  Speaker 9: she's having sex with her father. She's being abused by
• 20:41
  Speaker 9: her father. And this is something that she's taking to
• 20:44
  Speaker 9: be normal.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: But as we know, it's completely abnormal.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: It seems to me both mothers were central to their
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: creation of these murderers. One was passive and one was
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: very proactive and took away Fred's virginity. But both sent
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: out the same message. That is, your sex is a weapon.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: It's a means to control people. Coming up, we explore
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the murderous motivations that sent Fred and Rosemary on the dark.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Path of destruction.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: When they came together, the two were a greater together
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: than they were separately. They were more powerful, more predatory,
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: more sexual.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Serial sex killers Fred and Rosemary West were practically programmed
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: by their mothers to embark on their murderous careers. the
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: dysfunctional relationship the pair had with their own parents while
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: they were growing up would have deadly consequences. It's 1968. Rose,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: now 15 years old, has moved out of the family
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: home to live with her father, Bill, continuing their incestuous affair. Fred,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: now 26, is married to prostitute Rina Costello and has
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a string of women on the side. He has already
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: committed at least one murder using the skills he'd learned
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: working in an abattoir to dismember and bury the bodies.
• 22:09
  Speaker 7: Fred had started killing before he met Rose. Murdered his girlfriend,
• 22:16
  Speaker 7: Annie McFall. Fred's first murder really was a murder of convenience.
• 22:21
  Speaker 7: So he had broken the taboo.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Part of what made Fred so deadly... was that on
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the surface, there was nothing threatening about him.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Fred was very likable.
• 22:35
  Speaker 8: He was also quite a charmer with the ladies. He
• 22:39
  Speaker 8: had what I would refer to as gypsy good looks,
• 22:43
  Speaker 8: and he certainly had the gift of the gab.
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: He was that little sing-song voice. He just had that
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: little twinkly face and that... I am describing a monster here,
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: but to look at him, you wouldn't have thought he
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: was a monster. You would have thought, what an intriguing
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: little man. Rather funny. But nevertheless, oh, utterly unthreatening.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Fred would trawl these country roads looking for women to
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: charm and entice into his van. Few escaped unharmed and
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: several ended up dead. It was also on his travels
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: where he would meet Rosemary Letts, waiting at a bus stop.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: We believe that Fred and Rose met at a bus
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: stop where Fred stopped to give her a lift, probably
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: as a predator, wondering what he'd get out of Rose.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: There was a kind of instant attraction.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: He saw her in many ways as the perfect woman.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: She was sexy and sexualised.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: But also there'd be elements in Rose that would reflect
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: Fred's relationship with his mother. Rose would also be a
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: strong and strident person who would kind of get close
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: to Fred who would kind of try to control him
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: and provide him with a challenge and Fred did seek that.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: The sexual abuse that Rose suffered from her father and
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: the sexual initiation that Fred got from his mother meant
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: that they were both highly sexualised from a very young age.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: When they came together as partners it's absolutely certain in
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: my mind that that became what's known as folie a deux,
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: that the two were a greater together than they were separately.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: They were more powerful, more predatory, more sexual.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Initially, Billette violently objected to Fred, even reporting him to
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the police for having sex with Rose, his underage daughter.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: But he soon realised that Fred was a man in
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: his own image, and the two men even went into
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: business together.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: Once Fred and Rose were together, Bill Letts was a
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: regular visitor. Not simply to have sex with her, which
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: he continued to do, but also because Fred saw in
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: Bill Letts someone who could be his, how can I
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: put it politely, his assistant, a partner in crime, a co-conspirator.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: And so it became this ménage à trois.
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: He would have got some power, some feelings of reward...
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: out of making Fred share his wife with him, and
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: that would have been a very big motivation for Rose's father.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: Possibly the only reason he would consider having Fred as
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: a son-in-law was that he still had a share of
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: his daughter, and that's an incredibly disturbed way to look
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: at human relationships.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: In 1970, Fred was jailed for theft, leaving Rose, now 17,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: in charge of his two children. For the first time,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: the couple would now conspire to murder.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: Rose is a young woman, but she's looking after Charmaine,
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: Fred's first child, almost eight, and Anna-Marie, a baby, in
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: the flat in Midland Road. Fred is in jail, and
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: I think they decided that Charmaine was too much of
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: a handful, and it was agreed that Charmaine should be
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: killed and indeed buried beneath the coal hole in Midland Road.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: There is little or no doubt in my mind that
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: Charmaine represented the genesis of the killing spree that it was,
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: the spark that ignited the later killings.
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: Charmaine was a link to Fred's past with another woman
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: and we know that Rose was capable of great jealousy
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: and she didn't want the past to infecting their life,
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: impinging on what her and Fred wanted to do. So
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: the murder of Charmaine would be a very convenient way
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: of rounding off and cauterizing the past and separating that
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: from what they were then going to go on and do.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: By murdering Charmaine, the couple had crossed a threshold from
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: which there would be no return. Now, there are many
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: sexual predators who abuse but who don't kill. What turned
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: these two into killers?
• 27:23
  Speaker 9: Well, I think it was a complete lack of any boundaries,
• 27:25
  Speaker 9: any behavioral boundaries, any sense of morals, any sense of
• 27:30
  Speaker 9: what's right or wrong. And there was no check on
• 27:33
  Speaker 9: their behavior. So I think the interesting question is really
• 27:37
  Speaker 9: not why did they do it, but what was there
• 27:39
  Speaker 9: to stop them?
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: In many ways, not only were they both themselves groomed
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to be sexual victims, but they end up grooming each other.
• 27:47
  Speaker 9: They go from a situation where they are both victims,
• 27:52
  Speaker 9: to an extent, in the early days, to a situation
• 27:56
  Speaker 9: where they both come together. These were two people who,
• 27:59
  Speaker 9: over many years, have been exposed to violence and have
• 28:01
  Speaker 9: perpetrated violence. So for them, murder is just the next
• 28:05
  Speaker 9: stage on their violent journey. It's not something that would
• 28:08
  Speaker 9: have particularly been shocking or disturbing for them in the
• 28:11
  Speaker 9: same way that it would be for anyone else.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: In January 1972, with Fred now out of prison, the
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: couple were married at Gloucester Registry Office. They moved into
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: a larger house, 25 Cromwell Street, where Fred continued to
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: groom his young wife into the woman of his dreams.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: Fred effectively pimped Rose to a number of people locally.
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: He would often offer a neighbour, would you like to
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: make love to Rose? perfectly all right, you know, might
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: be 20 quid.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Their lodgers were also invited to have sex with Rose
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: while Fred watched on, peering through holes he'd drilled into
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the wall to indulge his voyeuristic fantasies.
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: Sex and sexuality and nudity was everywhere in the West House.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: People would walk around naked, there would be pornographic videos
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: and men constantly going to the bedroom to have sex
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: with Rose.
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: Her sexuality was brought to bloom, blossomed under Fred's tutelage,
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: but it had already been established by her relationship with
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: her father and also by the lack, really, of a
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: relationship with her mother.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Increasingly, the West fantasised about rape and torture. Fred soundproofed
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the Cromwell Street Cellar and converted it into a fully-blown
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: bondage chamber equipped with vibrators, duct tape and a variety
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: of metal instruments.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Instruments.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: The couple now went on the hunt for vulnerable young women.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: Fred and Rose would pick up victims by driving along
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: and basically kind of coming up against people. They looked
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: for victims who were in the category of what we
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: might call less than dead, kind of prostitutes, people on
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: the run, the homeless, people who would not be noticed
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: for a great deal of time if they went missing.
• 30:16
  Speaker 7: And girls would get into the car because there was
• 30:21
  Speaker 7: a woman sitting in the passenger seat and what appeared
• 30:26
  Speaker 7: to be a comforting figure, nothing sinister. seemed to be
• 30:31
  Speaker 7: there to put them off getting in the car.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: Basically, the combination of the two of them together with
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: the affirmative backgrounds they had that it was okay to rape,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: it was okay to harm others, this made the two
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: of them the most horrific killing machine this country has
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: ever seen.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Over the next decade, Eight young women were abducted, imprisoned
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: in the cellar and subjected to unimaginably hideous forms of torture.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: Both Fred and Rose derived an enormous sense of power
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: from the action of abduction and killing. It gave them
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: complete control, which is what they sought. Then it became
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: a matter of, let's have fun with them, let's have
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: fun with the victims, let's make them play things.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: This is a couple who would go into not just
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: killing victims, but torturing them. What actually went on in
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: that cellar, we are not absolutely certain of, but we
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: do know that we're talking about torture protracted over many,
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: many days, people dying under the most horrific circumstances.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: To begin with, Fred was the dominant partner, but how
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: did this murderous dynamic between the couple now evolve? It
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: was nearly a competitiveness from my readings, you know, where
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: one would push one to the other, will you have
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: sex with this person? And she would nearly be dared
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: to say no, she didn't say no, and it elevated
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: to the next level. And then on it went, this
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: kind of terrible trajectory towards murder and torture. We often.
• 32:20
  Speaker 9: like to look at these killer couples and say that
• 32:23
  Speaker 9: the man was leading the woman. But I think it
• 32:25
  Speaker 9: was very much a level playing field with these two.
• 32:27
  Speaker 9: And neither one is the victim or the perpetrator.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: In their relationship. They're grooming each other.
• 32:32
  Speaker 9: They're becoming the ultimate killing machine.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: It's clear that he put her through several different initiation processes,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: a kind of test. How far would you go? And
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: eventually she proved she could go as far, if not
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: even further, than he would.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 32:46
  Speaker 9: It is very interesting how the power dynamic between these
• 32:49
  Speaker 9: two changes and almost kind of flips from their meeting
• 32:54
  Speaker 9: in the beginning to their final murders.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: So in many ways, she started out being an apprentice
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: to his deviant, but very soon they became equals. And
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: then in other stages, extraordinarily, she kind of took the
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: lead role. She became what one could claim the master
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: of The West didn't confine their attentions to just vulnerable
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: young women. Their eight children were also sexually abused from
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: an early age. It was a family ritual in which
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Rose played at least an equal part from the outset.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: Frederick West's continual habit throughout his life, starting with his
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: own children, but then going on to the women and
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: girls he abducted, was, quotes, to break in my daughter's.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: Anna Marie West suffered dreadfully at Fred's hands and still
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: to this day carries the scars, was broken in by
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: Fred and Rose in the same way. In other words,
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: we were made to have sex at about the age
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: of ten with her father. It was, that was the norm,
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: that was the dysfunctional reality for the Wests and one
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: which West never forgot. And Rose, his wife, immediately joined her.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: By 1987, the West's eldest daughter, Heather, was resisting their
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: advances and starting to rebel.
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: Most people would think simply the idea of not only killing,
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: but then dismembering your 16-year-old daughter and then burying her
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: in the garden of your house in Cromwell Street and
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: then making a family joke of it, all of which happened,
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: would be inconceivable. But to Fred, it was simply a
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: practical matter. There was a danger, he thought... I'm convinced
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: that Heather was going to go to the police and
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: tell her then what had been happening in the house.
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: He thought, I've got no alternative here, I'll just kill her.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: And then, of course, I've got to conceal the body,
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: so we'll conceal the body the way I've concealed the
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: other bodies. In other words, I'll bury her under the house.
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: So you put her under the patio.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Fred then buried his own daughter, and the younger children
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: were threatened with the same fate if they ever said
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: a word. Once again, the Wests had got away with it.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: But five years later, a chance encounter would be their undoing.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: By complete coincidence, some of the younger West children are
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: playing in Cromwell Street, and a bobby, believe it or not,
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: actually on a bicycle, stops, and they're asking him, and
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: they ask him, what would you do if one of
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: your brothers or one of your sisters had been you know,
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: abused by your father, which ignites an interest in the
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: possibility that the Wests may have been abusing their children.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: During the police interviews, the children say, well, we know
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: where Heather is. She's two down and three across in
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: the garden patio. And the police go, and the children
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: think it's perfectly normal. What do you mean? Because they're
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: often told, Fred used to say to them at mealtimes,
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: you don't watch out, you're going to end up like Heather.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: two down and three across. And that was how the
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: whole world, this extraordinary world they created, began to unravel.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Coming up, the first time the world glimpsed the unspeakable
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: horrors of the Cromwell Street Cellar.
• 36:31
  Speaker 8: If you were trussed up, hanging from a beam, you
• 36:38
  Speaker 8: were having knuckles hacked off, then you might very well
• 36:44
  Speaker 8: ask to die.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: In February 1994, the police recovered a thigh bone from
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: under the rear patio of 25 Cromwell Street. After a
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: killing spree that had gone undetected for two decades, the
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Wests would finally face justice. After the arrest of the
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: couple on suspicion of the murder of their daughter, Heather...
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Fred was keen to take the blame in an effort
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: to protect his wife, Rose. The police had no idea
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: that any other victims were involved.
• 37:20
  Speaker 8: Fred wasn't remotely concerned with regards to the issue of
• 37:24
  Speaker 8: the arrest. In fact, my recollection is that he phased
• 37:30
  Speaker 8: me somewhat because having given him the time-honoured lawyer's advice of.
• 37:37
  Speaker 8: It'll be all right, don't worry about it, just wait
• 37:40
  Speaker 8: till I get there, his response was something along the lines.
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: Of, oh, well, I've told him I've done it already.
• 37:45
  Speaker 7: This afternoon, Mr West was charged with two more, both women,
• 37:49
  Speaker 7: both so far unnamed by the police.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: As more bodies were discovered in the garden, Fred now
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: confessed not only to Heather's murder, but to 11 more
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: killings going back to the 1960s.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: West was charming, his two police interrogators, with the kind
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: of grooming skills that he'd obviously used on his victims.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: And then when he changes and finally starts to admit
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: the crimes, he does it in the most sing-song, happy
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: little voice.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, I'm afraid I just... I.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: Think I used the ice axe.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: No, maybe I didn't. Maybe I used a saw.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: But you see, I had to get her arms and
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: legs off so I could get her into the dustbin,
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: and then I had to cut her head off.
• 38:38
  Speaker 8: It's the bizarre aspects that he seeks to convince us
• 38:44
  Speaker 8: all is normal, which is the most chilling. So, for example,
• 38:49
  Speaker 8: he said, mind you, he said, I did close her eyes. Well,
• 38:58
  Speaker 8: it wouldn't be right, would it? You couldn't have your
• 39:00
  Speaker 8: daughter looking at you, could you, while you were doing that?
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: By taking full responsibility for the murders... Fred hoped to
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: protect Rose, but her response wasn't quite what he was expecting.
• 39:12
  Speaker 8: There was a very telling moment in court. It was
• 39:18
  Speaker 8: the first time that they were both in court together.
• 39:22
  Speaker 8: He thought that she was going to fling her arms
• 39:25
  Speaker 8: around him and snog him to show her affection. in
• 39:30
  Speaker 8: fact she moved away from him on the bench looked
• 39:36
  Speaker 8: away from him no communication whatsoever and I think that
• 39:41
  Speaker 8: came as something of a shock to Fred The.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Evil spell that had bound the couple together for over
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: a quarter of a century was now broken. On January 1st, 1995,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Fred West was found hanged in a cell at Winston
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Green Prison.
• 40:03
  Speaker 6: Stephen said he believed that his father deliberately chose New
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: Year's Day as the day to kill himself because he
• 40:08
  Speaker 6: loved publicity.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: MUSIC PLAYS.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: He'd scrawled Freddie the mass murderer from Gloucester on the
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: wall and left a suicide note.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Addressed to Rose.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: He signs off with, on a suicide note, all my
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: love forever and ever to Rose. Now, was this suicide
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: an act of kind of love or was it an
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: act of control?
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I think the timing of it is particularly interesting. So
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: there was.
• 40:38
  Speaker 9: a court appearance where Rose didn't basically meet his eyes.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: She turned away from him.
• 40:43
  Speaker 9: And I think that, for him, was a real moment
• 40:46
  Speaker 9: of rejection. And it's one that I don't think that
• 40:49
  Speaker 9: he could cope with.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: More than anything, I think it was his final act
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: of power and control.
• 40:55
  Speaker 9: And I think he's at the point now where he's
• 40:57
  Speaker 9: realising that all of the female figures in his life,
• 41:00
  Speaker 9: which he's used as anchors, essentially, for this abnormal kind
• 41:05
  Speaker 9: of reality that he's had around him, They've all gone now.
• 41:09
  Speaker 9: So his mother was out of the picture.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Rose is now out of the picture. He's now in prison.
• 41:14
  Speaker 9: He's going to be in prison for the rest of
• 41:16
  Speaker 9: his life with very few women around him that he's
• 41:19
  Speaker 9: able to influence.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: So I think it is the end of Fred Wessner.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: When he scrolls Freddy the mass murderer on his prison wall,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: that's an act of defiance.
• 41:28
  Speaker 9: He's leaving a mark there, isn't he? Saying, this is
• 41:31
  Speaker 9: who I am, this is where I'm from, remember me.
• 41:34
  Speaker 9: So he's more than aware of his status as a murderer,
• 41:39
  Speaker 9: as a celebrity.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Who is relishing in his moment in the spotlight. I mean,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: how psychopathic.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Can you get? Absolutely.
• 41:46
  Speaker 9: And he is the ultimate anti-hero, isn't he, in his eyes?
• 41:50
  Speaker 9: I've done these terrible things, but look, I've done lots
• 41:53
  Speaker 9: of these terrible things, so notice me and know that
• 41:56
  Speaker 9: I'm here.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: As the trial began, Rose maintained her innocence, claiming she
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: too was one of Fred's victims. Her stepdaughter, Anne-Marie, would
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: be a key witness for the prosecution, telling the jury
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: how Rose had raped her with a vibrator when she
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: was just eight years old.
• 42:16
  Speaker 7: Within a few hours of the... trial starting, it was
• 42:21
  Speaker 7: a shocked court. It was a shocked court.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: There is a poignant moment in Rose's trial in which
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: the image of Charmaine is shown to the jury. This
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: tiny skull, this young, young person, and it was almost
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: impossible to bear. How could they possibly kill this utterly
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: innocent eight-year-old? She was a deeply wicked woman and she
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: wasn't being submissive. I do not buy anyone who's watched Rose,
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: anybody who saw her trial, cannot for one second convince
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: me that that was a submissive woman who simply did
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: whatever Fred told her and didn't know what was happening
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: in the house.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: After countless police interviews and extensive excavations at the Cromwell
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Street address and at two other sites where bodies were buried,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: justice was finally served on the lone survivor. Rose West
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: was convicted on 10 counts of murder and sentenced to
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: life in prison without the possibility of release.
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: 300 miles from Winchester, Rosemary West arrives at the prison
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: which will be home for a lifetime. Durham, where she
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: was held on remand, is one of only two high-security
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: prisons with the facilities to house.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: Her.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: The West were two of the most horrific serial killers ever.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: But were their mothers ultimately responsible for their sickening crimes?
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: This was a unique couple. These were unique circumstances. But undoubtedly,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: they would not have committed the crimes they did unless
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: their mothers and their family environment had been as abusive
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: and destructive as they were.
• 44:05
  Speaker 9: No, I think that was a really, really important part
• 44:08
  Speaker 9: of the puzzle of Fred and Rosemary West was this
• 44:10
  Speaker 9: incredibly dysfunctional, abusive childhood experience. in which violence was normal
• 44:16
  Speaker 9: and it was allowed to escalate without any consequences. So
• 44:19
  Speaker 9: I think the questions that we need to be asking
• 44:21
  Speaker 9: now is, are the children out there experiencing similar situations
• 44:26
  Speaker 9: to those that the Fred and Rosemary West did? And
• 44:28
  Speaker 9: if so, what's being done about it?
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: You know, can we look into the future and say
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the likelihood of this happening again is pretty rare?
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: You'd like to be able to say, yeah, this is rare.
• 44:38
  Speaker 9: But when we're looking at these specific families, so Rose
• 44:42
  Speaker 9: was abused by her father, Fred was abused by his
• 44:45
  Speaker 9: mother and his father. So you've got this cycle of abuse.
• 44:48
  Speaker 9: And unfortunately, it's come out in subsequent generations. So Fred's son, Stephen,
• 44:53
  Speaker 9: has been convicted of sexual offences. So it's very difficult
• 44:57
  Speaker 9: to break this kind of cycle.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Rose West has now served more than 20 years in
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: prison and will remain there until she dies. She has
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: yet to show a scintilla of remorse for her wicked crimes.
• 45:27
  Speaker 7: Thank you.