How the chance to catch Fred and Rose West was MISSED when social workers overlooked a chilling detail

Daily Mail​

15-05-2025

They're known among the most horrific serial killers in the UK, with the pair taking the lives of 12 women and girls between them in their 'house of horrors'.
While the crimes of Fred and Rose West of 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, have since come to light, an enquiry has found that social workers missed one key detail that could have led to their arrest two years earlier.
It is thought the earliest of Fred's sickening offences started in his younger years when he is thought to have sexually abused his younger sister. But when he met Rose, the pair fed off each other's depraved desires and began a campaign of torture, sexual violence and murder spanning 14 years.
Police finally brought Fred and Rose's killing spree to an end by February 1994 when they turned up at Cromwell Street with a search warrant. They were later convicted of the combined murders of 12 women at their home in Gloucester between 1967 and 1987, including their daughter Heather, 16.
However, police might have discovered Heather's bones two years earlier had they paid attention to a comment made by one of the West children when being interviewed in August 1992, according to the Cromwell Inquiry.
At the time, police and social services had removed the children from their home due to child protection concerns and moved them temporarily to Cowley Manor in Cheltenham.
Following the move, social services staff and police interviewed the children, which is when one referred to a family joke of 'Heather being under the patio'.
It wasn't until police discovered Heather's bones under the concrete that the true meaning of the sinister 'joke' came to light.
The interviews conducted by police and social services took some time, with one lasting one day and a half.
During the lengthy interview, a West child made a fleeting remark about the family 'joke'. However, the police officer did not remember the remark and instead focused on their immediate protection concerns.
At the time, Heather's whereabouts were only of interest because she could have provided further information on her sibling's safety for the investigation, meaning police did not have concerns about her wellbeing.
From then, there was no further mentions of Heather until one year later, in the early summer of 1993, when social workers started to notice the children's comments on the 'joke' and their claims that a patio was laid when Heather went missing.
Because the West children made the comments infrequently, staff were initially conflicted on whether to take them literally.
However, by August of that year and after further comments, staff became certain that the police should be informed, and so a social worker and County Council legal executive reached out.
Police tried to locate Heather, but by early 1994, officers were still unable to find her.
Therefore, police decided that witnesses to the children's comments regarding Heather should make formal statements.
Together with previous police enquiries, the statements provided the Gloucester Magistrates with sufficient evidence to issue a search warrant, allowing officers to search the West family home for evidence of Heather's location.
On February 24, Detective Chief Inspector Terry Moore and Detective Inspector Tony James visited the West home and told Rose that her rear garden was to be searched in connection with the disappearance of Heather.
That evening, Fred came home from work after the police officers had left and went to the police station voluntarily, which is where he told officers that he had seen Heather recently in Birmingham.
The next day, Fred admitted to police in his home that Heather was in the garden but that they were looking in the wrong place.
Police arrested Fred, who admitted to killing Heather but later retracted his statements, and Rose, who did not admit to the crime.
On February 26, police found remains of Heather's body in the garden, as well as the remains of a second body.
Fred appeared at Gloucester Magistrates' Court two days later, where he was charged with the murder of his daughter.
On May 26, Rose was charged with Heather's murder between May 28, 1987, and February 27, 1994. She replied, 'I'm innocent'.
Heather, born on October 17, 1970, was the first of Fred and Rose West's victims discovered at 25 Cromwell Street and is widely thought to be her parents' final murder victim.
She was the couple's eldest daughter and was sexually abused by her parents throughout her life.
Heather complained to friends about the abuse, and her parents killed her to keep her quiet.
The teenager had only recently finished her GCSE exams before she vanished.
The Cromwell Street victims — some teenagers; all female - were lodgers, nannies, students, hitch-hikers, runaways. They were subjected to brutal sexual assaults by Fred, and sometimes Rose as well. Some were mutilated; many were decapitated.
Rose and Fred had eight children during their marriage. None of them had an inkling that their home held such gory secrets until their parents were arrested and charged after the bodies had been exhumed.
Fred, it also came to light, had committed at least two further murders alone, while Rose was responsible for killing Fred's stepdaughter Charmaine from his first marriage to Rena, who was also one of Fred's early victims.
Fred admitted to this monstrous catalogue of crimes, claiming he'd acted alone. He committed suicide on January 1, 1995, in his cell at Birmingham Prison, where he was being held on remand.
Rose has consistently professed her innocence, but the jury at her trial did not believe her. Convicted of ten murders, she was sentenced to life imprisonment with a later order from the Home Secretary that she should never be released.