EXCLUSIVE Chilling home video shows Fred West and his wife Rose smiling as they cycle in the countryside with their children

Daily Mail​

25-05-2025

Riding bicycles over hilly tracks, wading through rambling streams and with children excitedly running off in different directions, they look like an ordinary family enjoying a day trip to the countryside.
Yet these are the home videos of Fred and Rose West - Britain's most notorious and sadistic serial killers.
The eerie footage, seen publicly for the first time, features in Netflix 's new three-part documentary which goes behind the scenes to reveal how the depraved couple's horrific crimes were uncovered.
The extraordinary family archive appears alongside chilling police footage of the moments West began giving up the secrets of 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester.
Over a series of visits, West coldly points out where he has hidden the bodies of the vulnerable young women who were held captive, raped and tortured at the infamous address which would become known as the 'House of Horrors'.
He couldn't look more relaxed with a cigarette in hand. At times he has a smile on his face or is cracking jokes.
It would later emerge that over 20 years the couple murdered at least 12 young women including two of their own children.
Nine were dismembered and buried under the cellar and the garden patio at Cromwell Street by builder West.
West cheated justice after hanging himself while on remand on January 1 1995.
But his voice is heard from beyond the grave in a series of taped police interviews during which he slowly begins to reveal details of his horrific crimes in a chilling matter-of-fact way.
The monster at first claimed Rose knew nothing about the crimes and insisted he was solely responsible.
But the documentary - called Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story - highlights the dramatic falling out between the couple after Rose snubbed her husband when they appeared in court for the first time four months after the investigation began.
The newly uncovered police interviews show how West's tone strikingly changed as he began to believe he was being betrayed by his twisted partner in crime.
In one taped interview he said in his distinctive West Country accent: 'You know what Rose is doing now? Distancing me and her.
'See, I'm beginning to wonder, did Rose have any love towards me at all? Or was I somebody there to use all the time?
'I was an easy touch - do as I'm told and not interfere.'
Asked by a detective if there was any other person common to the 12 bodies he replied: 'Well, it's obvious there is somebody else.
'The reason I could not tell the truth is because I'm protecting somebody. I can't say it no plainer than that.'
He went on to add: 'If I'm to have any chance in this case at all, I've got to go back and tell the truth. Why should I take the rap?
'Rose broke every promise she made to me but I did none of it on my own.'
Rose too is heard - in secret recordings from bugging devices police placed in the safe house where she was taken with her two oldest children after West was first arrested while police began digging up the garden at Cromwell Street.
In one taped interview, West, speaking with his distinctive West Country accent, lamented how Rose was distancing herself from him
Rose West's voice is also heard in secret recordings made by police bugging devices while she was held in a safe house with her two oldest children during the investigation
She gives little away but at one point, after learning West was beginning to confess, she is heard saying: 'He's telling her everything. It won't make any difference. You'll never get a confession for something I haven't done.'
The voices of the evil killers stand in stark contrast to the sometimes tearful accounts of the victims' loved ones and the police officers and professionals whose lives remain haunted by the couple's crimes.
The probe began as a missing persons case in February 1994. Concerns had been raised over the whereabouts of the couple's daughter Heather.
Heather, who was born in October 1970, was the couple's first child together.
Police were called in after the couple's younger children chillingly began to reveal what had become 'a family joke'.
Detective Constable Russ Williams of Gloucester Police said: 'It was alleged by the children that if they misbehaved, they would end up under the patio like their sister Heather.'
When first interviewed by Detective Constable Hazel Savage, West laughed the claims off and urged police to 'carry on digging'.
But within 24 hours, possibly to deflect officers from discovering other remains, he contacted detectives saying: 'You better take me to the police station. I have killed Heather but you're digging in the wrong place.'
He went on to confess he had lost control then strangled his daughter with a piece of electric flex to 'make sure' she was dead.
West described how he had cut up Heather's body with a kitchen knife.
Outlining the confession his solicitor Howard Ogden said: 'A man is describing murdering and dismembering his daughter.
'It wasn't with floods of tears and distress and anxiety. It was simply a black-and-white set of facts.
'When the tape finished, all of us present in that interview just rose and went to a tiny little tea area, and we just had a group hug.
'Complete strangers, never met one another - silent group hug.'
Harrowing footage later shows West in a seemingly cheerful mood as he used his feet to indicate the spot where his daughter was buried.
Janet Leach was appointed West's 'appropriate adult' over concerns over his ability to understand the proceedings.
Describing the visit she said: 'It was really strange. It was dark. It was raining.
'He was upset about the state of his garden, more so than anything.
'He just sort of kept looking at me and winking as if it was some sort of game.'
When she asked him why he had looked at her like that, West hinted at more horrors.
Describing another part of the garden he replied mischievously: 'Didn't you see that bone sticking out? It's just by the back door.'
In his formal interviews, West continued to insist Heather was the only victim but dropped further hints to Janet, with whom he would confide throughout the investigation.
She would go on to become a key prosecution witness in Rose's trial the following year.
Tragically, the discovery of Heather's remains was only the beginning. It would later emerge Heather was killed in 1987 and was the last of the couple's known victims.
As more bones were uncovered, West admitted to two further killings.
He told how remains discovered under the garden patio belonged to Shirley Robinson, an 18-year-old lodger who was eight months pregnant with West's child when he murder her. She was last seen alive in 1978.
The third victim, who West knew only as 'Shirley's mate', was Alison Chambers, who had lived in a children's home and disappeared aged 16 in 1979.
When their remains were discovered West insisted that was the end of it, telling police: 'You can take it all apart, there ain't nothing else.'
But when police began focusing on the Cromwell Street cellar he told Janet and a legal advisor: 'There's a f****** load more.'
In a hand-written note to detectives he went on to admit to 'an approx further nine killings'.
In another video, West was taken down to the cellar - which had been used as a 'kid's den' as well as a torture chamber - after he had drawn a map for Janet marking the spots where the bodies were buried.
When asked by an officer if there were any more bodies other than those indicated, West replied: ''Yeah. Well, I mean, what's one more?'
By now, a picture was beginning to emerge of how the couple had preyed on vulnerable young girls and women in order to play out their sexual fantasies.
West met Rose in 1969 when she was just 15 and he was 27. Within a month she fell pregnant with Heather.
Rose went on to have eight children - some of whom were believed to be fathered by men she had sex with while working as a prostitute.
After the couple moved to Cromwell Street, there was a constant stream of young girls, some of whom became lodgers while working for the couple as nannies and doing household chores - as well as satisfying West's depraved lust.
A number were runaways while the couple picked up others after trawling around looking for hitchhikers.
Investigators concluded West had adapted the shabby three storey semi-detached property to fulfil 'his sexual pleasure'.
One room on the middle floor which had its own bar was described as looking like 'the reception room of a seedy hotel' - and was used by Rose when she was having sex with clients.
Professor Paul Britton, a forensic psychologist brought in to assist the investigation, told how a flight of stairs led off from the bar area to a bedroom.
Examining police footage the professor continued: 'We go from this room up a flight of stairs to a bedroom area.
'On the other side there is a hole in the wall and out of that hole there are cables coming.
'There are microphones and cameras that are run through into the four-poster bedroom, where films and listening can happen.'
As police began to try to identify victims, West admitted he would not be able to provide much help.
In one interview he said: 'I never actually ever knew their names.
'I didn't want to know their name or make up a name, whatever it was.
'The thing is all these are so mixed up in my mind now, I haven't a clue which is which.
'Yeah, I buried the people, yeah, but I mean it was done quick and a long time ago.'
Challenged by DC Savage about having an 'awful smirk on his face' during the interview, West said: 'Every girl I picked up I didn't put in the basement.'
Asked where he 'put them' he added laughingly: 'I dropped them off where they wanted to go.'
West - described by one expert as 'a cunning man living in a fantasy' said of his victims: 'Each one was their own kinky sex and that's all it was. That's why you probably find it hard, it was their thing they wanted to try, do.'
Describing why he carried out the murders he added: 'It was just this urge at the time when they upset me that I went for them - and the whole fear, and this is something that we've got to get into was, the biggest fear that was in me, was Rose finding out I was messing with other women.'
Professor Britton said: 'Frederick West seems unmoved by the fact that these people are dead. And what we see are the hallmarks of the sadistic sexual psychopath.'
After the horrors off Cromwell Street, police continued to probe missing family members.
West was questioned over the disappearance of his first wife Rena Costello who vanished in 1971 aged 26.
Footage showed how he went on to take officers to the spot where he had buried her in a field near the Herefordshire village of Much Markle where he had grown up.
He later asked officers to return to the scene so he could show them where he buried Ann McFall, a friend of Rena's who had vanished in May 1967 aged 18.
It turned out she was West's first known victim and her remains were found with those of their unborn child.
The final grim discovery were the remains of Charmaine West who disappeared aged eight in 1971.
She was Rena's daughter and her body was discovered under the kitchen foundations at Fred and Rose's former home in Midland Road, Gloucester.
Despite his protestations, investigators established she was murdered by Rose in June 1971 while Fred was in prison serving a sentence for theft of car tyres and a vehicle tax disc.
Rose too was charged with murder and the couple would not meet until they were reunited at Gloucester Magistrates Court on June 30th 1994.
It was clear to onlookers Rose wanted nothing more to do with her husband.
Describing the scene at the time a TV reporter who had covered the hearing said: 'When Fred West was escorted into the dock, he leaned forward and touched her shoulder. She didn't acknowledge this gesture.
'There appeared to be no communication between them, Rosemary steadfastly ignoring him.
'Later, when they were taken down, Fred West again tried to lean over and touch his wife's back. This time the prison officer pushed away his hand.'
Mr Ogden said in the documentary: 'He imagined that she'd be maybe blowing him a kiss and they might mooch along the bench to be closer in the dock - no.'
Rose's lawyer Leo Goatley said: 'The lines were becoming intensely drawn. Fred West's whole situation was falling apart.'
DC Williams said of West's dramatic change of tone after the encounter: 'He's starting now to see that this relationship is deteriorating to the point where it may no longer exist - 'Why am I doing this? Why am I taking all the flak?'.'
After a dramatic trial at Winchester Crown Court in October 1995, Rose was convicted of all 10 murder charges she faced and was jailed for life.
Sentencing Rose, Mr Justice Mantell told her: 'If attention is paid to what I think you will never be released.'
Rose, now 71, is serving her sentence in HM Prison New Hall, West Yorkshire. A year after her trial the house in Cromwell Street was demolished.