Rose West ‘controlled, secretive and full of rage' says lawyer who knew her best

Daily Mirror

20-05-2025

"VERY controlled, secretive and full of rage" — that's how Rose West has been described by the man who knows her better than most.
One of Britain's most vile serial killers, West murdered 10 young women with husband Fred at their Gloucester home of horrors.
In 1995, she was caged for life after police discovered a series of mutilated bodies buried in the garden, beneath a patio and even in a sex dungeon cellar.
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Among the victims was their 16-year-old daughter Heather, who had been subjected to horrific sexual abuse by Fred. He forced her to watch porn with him and even tried to impregnate her.
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Now her former solicitor Leo Goatley, who had a front-row seat to the twisted mind behind the crimes, has told The Sun the 71-year-old will 'go to the grave with many secrets'.
He told The Sun of the sickening things West claimed about Caroline Owens, a 17-year-old nanny who was drugged, beaten and sexually assaulted by the couple.
Leo said: 'Like Fred, in a lot of her interviews she would deflect blame from themselves to the children.
'She would say things happened with Caroline but she was up for it, she wanted it… She says she was exaggerating. She's making a fuss.
'Fred had this really warped idea that it was a father's right to take his daughter's virginity and that Heather was a lesbian. They claimed they just wanted her to have a good marriage and somehow this shocking abuse would facilitate that.'
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Interest in the case has exploded again following Netflix 's new docuseries Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story.
Their horrifying crimes came to light in 1992 when daughter Louise, then just 13, accused Fred of rape and Rose of cruelty.
That case collapsed after eldest daughter Anne Marie — abused from age eight — refused to testify, but what the children told police raised red flags.
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Officers launched a huge investigation after learning the kids were constantly threatened with being buried 'under the patio like their sister Heather', who had vanished five years earlier.
The full horror was soon uncovered. In total, the Wests killed at least 12 women and girls — their youngest victim was Rose's stepdaughter Charmaine, just eight, and the eldest was Fred's ex-wife Catherine 'Reno' Costello, 27.
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Most of their victims were teens. Some lived with them, others were nannies, while some schoolgirls were snatched off the streets.
Eight of the victims were just teenagers – some lived with Fred and Rose West, others were hired as nannies, while a few were abducted straight off the streets.
Fred never stood trial for the horror he helped unleash. He took his own life while on remand in HMP Birmingham. But his wife, Rose, did face justice – and is one of the few criminals in Britain to receive a whole life order, meaning she will die behind bars.
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Leo Goatley, who represented Rose between 1992 and 2004, says the woman he came to know over more than a decade was outwardly sociable, even joking – but harboured a dark, simmering rage beneath the surface.
'She could also be very controlled and secretive sometimes, she would fly into a rage and shriek and spit,' he explained.
'I recall one witness described her as being 'rough' during a lesbian encounter. Rose insisted she was tender and got very upset.
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'Another time, I'd be reading out a statement and asking her, 'Were you with Fred in this van when you abducted Anne Marie?'.
'She'd trill and say 'it's nothing to do with me,' even though she later admitted to it. It was a primitive human response.
'I don't dispute that, in those moments, she would have been capable of extreme violence. She was, of course, complex and there was a maternal side to her too.'
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Leo believes Rose has shut off any connection to the depravity of her past, mentally distancing herself from the crimes that shocked the nation.
He says she's 'dissociated herself' from the atrocities at Cromwell Street, locking them 'away in a room of her mind'.
Instead, Rose has created a new image for herself behind bars — casting off her monstrous past in favour of a new identity as a gentle, sewing-loving prison 'caregiver'.
'She'd much rather be the amenable, kindly old lady who likes to spend tea with a vicar's wife who visits behind bars,' Leo says.
This split in personality has helped West remain disturbingly calm and remorseless, he adds — revealing she's only shown emotion on rare occasions, including when Fred confessed to murdering their daughter Heather.
Leo Goatley's book Understanding Fred and Rose West is available now.