Latest news with #RosemaryWest
Daily Mirror
29-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Rose West's last days in jail - name change, vape bribes and barely able to move
Depraved serial killer Rosemary West is one of only four women in Britain to be given a whole life order. Amid new reports of her cell conditions, the Mirror takes a look at what the life of UK's most reviled woman looks like now Rosemary West is living out the rest of her days in isolation from behind bars as her health rapidly declines - a far cry from her previous 'luxury life' in jail. The serial killer, 71, was sentenced to life in prison after she raped, tortured and killed at least 12 women with her husband Fred West. They committed their crimes from their own home in Gloucester, 25 Cromwell Street, which later became known as a 'House of Horrors.' The evil couple were arrested on February 25, 1994, on suspicion of the murder of their daughter Heather, who'd been missing since 1987. The following day, the teenager's skeletal remains were recovered in their back garden. The tragic discovery was only the tip of the iceberg. Over the course of 20 years, the Wests brutally slayed at least ten vulnerable young women and girls, whom they subjected to depraved acts of torture and sadism. Fred West died by suicide on New Year's Day, 1995, leaving his wife Rose West to stand trial in October of that year. Although she protested her innocence, trying to portray Fred as the sole killer, grim witness testimonies painted a very different picture with many even viewing her as the dominant force behind the sick crimes. Rose is now being held in a special unit at HMP New Hall known as Rivendell House, where 30 prisoners each have an en-suite cell and are allocated a laptop, which they can use to order food from. She is reportedly now barely able to move, according to The Sun, and only leaves her cell when she's escorted by prison officers. Her change in routine comes after she was forced to move from her cushy cell in top-security jail Low Newton in 2019, after another notorious serial killer threatened to murder her. She had spent a decade enjoying Bake-Off competitions and providing salon services for fellow inmates, according to reports at the time. Here, we take a look at the killer's new life in jail where she will live out her dying days... 'Disabled room and vape bribes' A source told The Sun:"She's in a disabled room now because she can barely walk. She never really leaves the wing she's held on and is escorted all the time by prison officers if she goes anywhere. Sometimes she sits in the communal areas on her own. "No one talks to her because everyone knows who she is and what she did, even if she has changed her name. When I was there, she tried to make friends with the other women and gave them gifts, like vapes, but she was rejected. She likes to watch nature documentaries on the TV in her cell, especially ones about birds." Some inmates spurn her attempts at friendship, and she often eats tomato soup in her cell alone for breakfast, before spending most of her time in her cell knitting and talking to the TV, because she can barely walk. Name change failure In the hope of distancing herself from her evil crimes, West reportedly paid £36 to change her name to Jennifer Jones. It's understood she changed her name by deed poll in December last year and told friends it's her way of moving on. But the decision reportedly infuriated fellow inmates at New Hall women's jail, near Wakefield, West Yorks hire. A pal said, "Rose thinks the name will give her some anonymity, but there's a lot of anger about it. She's chosen the new surname because it's so common, and the Christian name just because she's always liked it. For her, it's more about getting rid of any association to Fred for good." Myra Hindley 'fling' Two of the most despised and feared women in Britain started having a 'love affair' in prison, according to reports. Myra Hindley, along with her boyfriend Ian Brady, was jailed in 1966 for killing five children, Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans, in what became known as the Moors Murders. She was sentenced to spend the rest of her life behind bars for her twisted crimes and was jailed in HMP Durham when she first met West in the mid-1990s. The two women are said to have quickly become close, and one fellow prisoner has insisted they were more than just friends. Prisoner relationships are allowed, but sex is against the rules because the premises are regarded as public places. The pair reportedly enjoyed a fling, with West telling her former solicitor Leo Goatley: "Yeah, Myra, she's all right, we get on, I want to see how it goes." Mr Goatley claims West was "impressed by Hindley's knowledge and ability" as the serial killer had studied with the Open University. The lawyer, who represented West for 12 years, published the book, Understanding Fred and Rose West, in which he revealed the relationship between the two women. He said: "Rose's first paramour was the Moors murderer, Myra Hindley, who happened to be on the hospital wing at HMP Durham at the same time in 1995 an early 1996." However, Mr Goatley claims their relationship didn't last long with West saying Hindley could be "very manipulative". He told the Daily Mail: "When I visited a few months later, Rose's opinion of Hindley had changed dramatically. She was saying, 'You have to watch Hindley, mind. She is very manipulative. You don't realise it, but she gets you doing stuff for her. Oh, she's clever, all right. She's flippin' dangerous, that one. She ain't going to take me for a c*** again.' And so heralded the end of the romance." 'Prison matriarch' West was reportedly enjoying a 'middle class' life behind bars in November 2017. She spent her days listening to The Archers, baking cakes and getting foot massages. Having taken a hairdressing and beauty therapy course, West started cutting her own hair in a short, feathered style, dyed dark brown at HMP Low Newton, County Durham, according to reports at the time. She also provided a hairdressing service to other prisoners, although she was only allowed to use blunt-nosed scissors under prison rules. Despite rumours West was suffering from a life-threatening illness, a prison insider said: "There's nothing wrong with her, more's the pity. But it's hardly surprising, is it? She's treated like royalty in there." West spent most of her time on F-Wing, along with other women prisoners serving life and long-term sentences, in her own en-suite cell, complete with curtains at the window, a 'fluffy rug' on the floor and a coffee machine, TV and radio. According to sources in the jail, West liked to see herself as the prison matriarch. "She is always very welcoming to new convicts and often befriends some of the harder cases coming into the prison," said a second source. "Despite her years in prison, she has always maintained her innocence and encourages others to fight their cases if they also claim they are not guilty. She sees herself as a barrack-room lawyer and will spend a lot of time helping people with legal problems." Bake-off winner The notorious killer won first prize in a prison bake-off competition with a Victorian sponge cake, it was reported in October 2018. West impressed fellow prisoners with her offering, and her sweet treat was voted the best in the contest, which was held among inmates in Low Newton Prison's F-Wing in County Durham. Despite her horrific crimes, West enjoyed baking cakes and was reportedly allowed to use knives under the supervision of staff. A source told the Daily Star she used her skills in the kitchen to win over lags, claiming: "West uses her cooking skills to win people over. "There are some very violent women on the wing, and a lot of them are very aggressive towards West because of her crimes. But she tends to defuse situations by offering other prisoners cakes and biscuits." Obesity struggle In February 2019, it was reported that West was "dangerously overweight" after ballooning to 18 stone. She was told to lose weight by doctors or face an early death, so she chose a ketogenic diet in a bid to lose excess fat, according to reports. Her unhealthy diet behind bars consisted of cake, crisps and chocolate, but she was told to ditch the sugary treats for more nutritious foods such as fish, salads and vegetables to see her health improve. Medics said West suffers from high blood pressure and risks developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes. "West has been told on a number of occasions that she is dangerously overweight," one jail source told The Daily Star. "She has opted to go on the keto diet, which promises rapid weight loss quickly if you stick strictly to the rules. She is so heavy that she is often out of breath and sometimes has to have help getting off the toilet." West could only have 20g of carbohydrates a day and was told not to consume more than 1,500 calories daily. Prison move after killer threat West was moved out of her cushy prison cell after more than a decade in July 2019 because another notorious serial killer threatened to murder her. West burst into tears as prison chiefs packed up her belongings for a secret transfer after psycho stabber Joanna Dennehy was moved to the same jail. Insiders at top-security Low Newton, where West has been held for more than 10 years, said she was gutted to lose her easy life. But jail bosses feared Dennehy, who stabbed three men to death, would carry out a similar attack on West after saying: "I'll kill that bitch." The double transfer was carried out amid high security because prison bosses did not want them in the same jail. A source said, "Rose West lived a life of luxury in there. She's got it made because she's in the lifers' unit. She doesn't even leave her cell, and they bring food to her. So she was gutted when she had to leave. She was in tears, and the prison officers just packed her things up. She was really upset. "She didn't want to go. It's been her home for more than ten years, and West is an elderly woman. Low Newton is the highest security prison for women in the country, and they had to send Dennehy there. She's one of the UK's most dangerous inmates. She said, 'Send me there and I'll f***ing kill Rose West.' Prison officials took the threat seriously. They moved West to another prison because they said it was a massive security threat." Strictly fan West is said to be a huge fan of some of the nation's biggest celebrity talent shows. The serial killer is a huge fan on both Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing on Ice, according to reports. In 2021, it was revealed that West has been watching the ITV skating contest from prison every week and getting her friends to cast votes for her. A source told The Sun: "Rose is a huge fan. Every weekend, she clears a slot in her evening to watch the latest episode - it's a big part of her prison life. She's got a friend outside prison who she chats to and who makes the call to put a vote in for Rose. If you were the dancer she was backing, it'd be enough to send a shiver down your spine." Underwear sale Last month, the Mirror reported that West's underwear was on display at the True Crime Museum in Hastings after its curator splashed an extraordinary £2,500 on a pair of the murderer's knickers. Museum curator Joel Griggs managed to get hold of the undergarments after they were discovered at HMP Bronzefield – Europe's largest women's prison and current residence of Lucy Letby – where West was incarcerated for four years until 2008. Joel shared: "A prison worker retrieved them from a laundry basket and later offered them to us for a ridiculous amount of money, which we turned down at the time. Tiny squares of material from the knickers were then offered for sale on eBay, but because the sale contravened eBay's rules and procedures, the items were taken down and the sale never proceeded. On the underwear, you can see small biro marks which the seller planned to cut around to sell off bit by bit. "When our tenth anniversary came round, I thought it would be worth contacting the prison worker, now retired, again, which I did, and that resulted in us buying them for £2,500."
The Sun
11-05-2025
- The Sun
Heart-wrenching moment I was told Fred & Rose West had murdered my sister – and the sick joke that caught them out
IT is one of Britain's most notorious serial killer cases with the murders of at least 12 women in a house of horror. And as a new Netflix documentary recounts Fred and Rosemary West's chilling killings, Fabulous speaks to victims' relatives and a cop who brought the depraved pair to justice. 12 Switching on the TV to watch the news, Dez Chambers stared in horror as footage showed grim-faced police officers emerge from a house in Gloucester carrying black bags. Inside them were human remains, excavated from a property belonging to suspected serial killers Fred and Rosemary West. Watching from her sofa in 1994, Dez, then 33, could never have imagined that her younger sister, Alison – who had disappeared in 1979, shortly before her 17th birthday – was among them. Just a few days later, however, a family member broke the devastating news. Now, more than three decades later, Dez, 64, an electrical components buyer now living in The Netherlands, recalls the moment when she was told that Alison had been found at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester. 'It hits you – and you can't believe it,' she says. 'You've been watching that on the TV and then realise one of those [black bags] could have had Alison in it. 'It's just awful knowing it happened. 'I don't understand how a human can do things like that to another.' 'Family joke' that triggered horror find Alison was one of at least 12 girls and women tortured and murdered by the Wests, whose depravity rocked the country when the truth emerged in 1994. The horrifying story of their killing spree, as well as the police investigation to uncover their crimes, and the pain of the victims' families, is now the focus of new Netflix documentary series Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story. Featuring unseen footage from Gloucestershire Police's investigation, the series shows officers' painstaking efforts to extract the full extent of the Wests' crimes. Former detective sergeant Russ Williams, who worked on the case, says: 'For many people, including myself, this was a case of: How can this happen in society? 'What would motivate somebody to murder in such horrific ways?' He adds: 'You became almost comfortably numb to what you were hearing, because it was of such magnitude it was very difficult to process.' Growing up in Swansea, Dez remembers Alison, who was two years her junior, as intelligent, pretty and artistic. The sisters, who had two other siblings, had a strict upbringing, which Alison rebelled against. 'She stayed out late and wouldn't come home when she was supposed to,' mum-of-two Dez says. 'And then the police came to the door a few times. 'So, my mother decided to put her into care.' Dez recalls visiting Alison, then in her teens, at two children's homes. She still treasures a home-made cushion with an infinity design that Alison gave her during one visit. But the pair lost contact when Alison ran away from a home in Gloucester, aged 16, after allegedly getting beaten up by other girls there. Desperate to find her sister, Dez contacted the Salvation Army for help, to no avail. Then, in early 1979, Alison made contact, phoning a pub Dez often frequented. 'She wouldn't tell me where she was, she just wanted me to know she was OK,' Dez says. 'It was a very emotional call. 'I was really upset and she was too, but then she just hung up. 'I never spoke to her again.' In May 1979, their mother received a letter from Alison explaining that she had been taken in by a 'loving family' – now known to be the Wests – and was working as a nanny. It was reassuring news, but as the years passed without any further contact, Alison's absence weighed heavily on Dez. Police believed Alison had 'gone underground' and didn't want to be found. Occasionally, one of her friends would claim they thought they'd spotted her, giving Dez hope she was OK. The digging begins It wasn't until 1992 – when the Wests' children told social workers of a 'family joke' that Fred and Rose's missing daughter Heather was 'under the patio' – that the truth emerged. Police began investigating, and in February 1994, they obtained a warrant to search the garden of 25 Cromwell Street. Officers digging up the garden found a bone. It belonged to Heather, who had been 16 when she'd disappeared in 1987, though the Wests had never reported her missing. 12 Chilling audio in the Netflix series records Fred admitting to Heather's murder, as well as that of 18-year-old lodger Shirley Robinson, who was Fred's lover and eight months pregnant with his baby. He also confessed to killing 'Shirley's mate', claiming he did not know the woman's name. The dark truth is uncovered With excavations ongoing, police carried bags of remains from the property as the world's media camped outside, in now-infamous scenes that Dez – like millions around the country – watched in disbelief. Her disbelief turned to horror when, days later, she received a call from a missing person charity explaining that Alison's details had been passed to police, and learned that her mum had been asked to give DNA samples. Confirmation that 'Shirley's mate' was, in fact, Dez's sister Alison came via a relative who'd seen it reported in the media. 'I just broke down,' Dez says. 'My daughter said to me years later that it was the only time she'd ever seen me really cry. 'After finding out, I remember lying on the settee a lot, just wanting to sleep, thinking that would make everything go away quickly.' Meanwhile, investigators were racing to extract more information from Fred West, even consulting a forensic psychologist to help get inside the killer's mind. Working on the theory that the victims they had found were buried outside because there was no space inside, officers told Fred they were planning to dig up the house and garden. Russ, 60, recalls in the series: 'Once Fred admitted to [killing] Heather, and we started to recover the evidence, he had a choice. "He could say: 'No comment,' deny everything, plead, or provide whatever defence he wanted to, but the spotlight would then fall on Rose. 'So Fred took the decision to admit to the offences.' On March 4, 1994, Fred submitted a letter admitting to 'approximately' nine further murders, including his first wife Catherine 'Rena' Costello, 27, their daughter Charmaine, eight, and Lynda Gough, 19, who had spent time at the house, as well as 'others to be identified'. 'That was one of those heart-stopping moments, as the realisation of what we were facing started to dawn on us,' Russ says. He remembers officers being summoned to a meeting and told that they would not see their families for 'a considerable time'. Over the next few weeks, police officers took Fred to Cromwell Street and fields in nearby Kempley to locate victims. They subsequently found and identified the remains of Lucy Partington, 21, Carole Ann Cooper, 15, and Therese Siegenthaler, 21, who were all thought to have accepted lifts from the Wests, before being sexually abused and murdered. The remains of Shirley Hubbard, 15, and Ann McFall, 18, a nanny during Fred's first marriage to Rena, and Juanita Mott, 18, were also discovered. 12 Juanita's younger half-sister Mary-ann Mitchell, 56, says she felt 'physically sick' after learning what had happened. She had been six years old when 'rebellious' Juanita, who had run away several times, disappeared for good from their Gloucester home in 1975. 'My mum always thought that one day she'd knock on the door with a whole tribe of kids, saying: 'I've had a good life.' I hoped for that, too,' says Mary-ann. Recalling the moment a police liaison officer confirmed Juanita was a victim of the Wests, Mary-ann, who works in credit control and lives near Ross-on-Wye, says: 'I just sat and held my mum. 'She was in absolute bits. 'It was a case of, let's just get through this day.' Having charged the Wests with multiple murders, police struggled to gather direct evidence against Rose. She denied knowledge of the crimes and Fred insisted that his wife – who was 13 years his junior and just 15 when they met – was innocent. Officers did not accept this, though. 'It was such a small house, you could not abduct, imprison, abuse, murder, dismember and bury people in the house without other people knowing about it,' Russ explains. However, Fred protected his wife repeatedly, then turned on her after she blanked him in court in 1994. Speaking in a police interview, Fred is heard saying: 'Why should I take the rap? 'Rose broke every promise she made to me. 'But I did none of it on my own.' On New Year's Day 1995, Fred West was found hanged in his cell at HMP Birmingham while awaiting trial for 12 murders. It was a real blow to investigators. 'He needed to be convicted – that would have brought further closure to the victims and their families,' says Russ. 'There was a worry that if we've lost Fred, how does that impact on all the evidence against Rose?' Rosemary West took to the stand at Winchester Crown Court in October 1995, where she denied murdering 10 women and girls. The court heard how she and Fred had cruised the streets looking for vulnerable victims and subjecting them to horrific sexual violence, before killing and dismembering them. Mary-ann attended every day of the trial. 'It was surreal,' she says. She did not engage with other victims' relatives, explaining: 'You couldn't take on anybody else's sadness, grief or anger, because you had too much of your own.' Following a seven-week trial, Rose West was convicted on all counts – a verdict Russ describes as a 'huge relief' for relatives and police – and handed a whole life order, meaning she will never be freed. Dez says her feelings towards Rose, who was in 1997 ordered by then Home Secretary Jack Straw to spend the rest of her life in prison, have changed over the years. 'For years, I just wanted to be locked in a room with her and see how tough she is with somebody who's not tied up and incapacitated,' she says. 'But now, I don't think of her at all. 'As far as I'm concerned, she doesn't exist.' 12 The case inevitably had a huge impact on all involved. For Russ, the fact that the Wests' crimes went undetected for 20 years highlighted 'how poor society was at looking after each other,' and prompted him to move his policing career towards child protection. Now semi-retired, he runs a number of community groups in Gloucester. Mary-ann describes how she still has 'breakdowns' over Juanita's death. 'I'm a wreck, really – but I'm a hard wreck,' she says. 'I've worked hard to get this far.' As for Dez, speaking about Alison in the Netflix series has proven cathartic. Producers provided a psychologist, who helped her realise that she felt survivor's guilt because was unable to save her sister all those years ago. 'For years, I put everything in a little box in the back of my head and just carried on,' she says. 'But now, I would like to speak out for Alison, because she's got friends, she's got family – she was a person. 'She was not just a victim of the Wests. 'It's a sort of closure. 'There's been anger, there's been sadness, there's been a lot of emotions in the last year.' As the series hits screens, she hopes Alison will be remembered as 'fun-loving and intelligent, someone who was loved. 'She's always there. . .' Dez adds. 'She's always in my heart.' Watch Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story, on Netflix, from Wednesday. 12
