THAT OLD ROUTINE.
Caroline Raine was a 17-year-old English girl who had been pleased to find day work as a 'nanny' (child carer) for a family, Frederick West and his wife Rose who lived at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucestershire, England. Thus Caroline already knew West when one day in 1973 her employer, a 'nice man' she thought (and everybody agreed), pulled up in his car and offered her a lift. Caroline willingly accepted but the ride with the nice man turned out to be a ride into terror. How could the teenager know at that time that Frederick West had already murdered his first wife, Catherine, his own daughter, Charmaine, and another nanny, Anne McFall! Anne's unborn infant can be added to this toll for she was seven months pregnant when she died. Such was the nature of the 'kind employer' alongside whom Caroline sat as the car moved off.

Soon appearances gave way to reality as Caroline found herself in the hands not of your everyday father and husband but of a madman. Worse, as has happened in other cases, Frederick's wife Rose was complicit in every way in her husband's deviant behaviour.

Doubtless Frederick West had long wanted to view, and enjoy, the physical charms of the young nanny working around his house. Like most males Mr West enjoyed the sight of naked females; years later he would hang about the bathroom when his teenage daughter Heather was about to emerge, so he could whip the towel from about her body and get a good look! Thus it came about that Caroline soon found herself being stripped naked, but that was not the end of her troubles - by no means! Still naked, she was bound and gagged with tape. These activities were certainly not part of her role as a nanny! Later the tape about her mouth was removed and she was sexually assaulted. After this she was allowed to have a bath, then tied up again. For 12 hours Caroline was kept captive and during this time she was again assaulted.

The young nanny was very lucky to survive. Other young women who later fell into West's trap would not. Significantly, West told the terrified Caroline that he would keep her in his cellar - for himself and his friends to use for sex. The cellar was indeed often the centre of deviant activities. Caroline later said that West had not merely assaulted her but had actually raped her. In any event, she was lucky; West let her go, evidently thinking she would not tell anyone of what had happened. But Ms Raine did tell and Wests faced a trial. Both pleaded guilty to indecent assault but were not charged with rape. Frederick West walked from the court with a trifling $100 fine! Amazingly he received no jail sentence. West had now been set free by the questionable justice system to pursue other victims. And what he had threatened to do with Caroline Raine turned out to be a reality when other young women fell into his trap. And worse. The suggestion that Caroline might be kept in the basement as a sex-slave was no idle boast, as we shall see.

For years before this a number of young women and girls had disappeared in the area, their whereabouts unknown. Some disappearances may have had nothing to do with the Wests, but others certainly did. Indeed, when the tangled life of Fred and Rosemary West began being unravelled there was revealed an amazing saga of sexual abuse, physical assault and murder stretching back through almost a quarter of a century and involving at least twelve victims, mostly young females, as well as one unborn infant. And two of the victims were West's own children.

Two young girls had gone missing on separate occasions while waiting for buses in the same area. Mary Bastholm, 15, a waitress, was on her way to a boyfriend's home in Hardwicke on January 6, 1968, when she vanished. There was a curious aspect to this disappearance. Mary and her boyfriend had been intending to play Monopoly and Monopoly pieces were found near the bus-stop where she had been waiting. Lucy Partington, 21, a university student, left a friend's house on Boxing Day, 1973, intending to catch a bus to her home in Gretton, near Cheltenham. She never reached home.

Other missing young women included Lynda Carol Gough, 19; Alison Chambers, 16, from Swansea; Juanita Mott, 17, Carole Ann Cooper, 15, from Worcester; Therese Siegenthaler, 21, a student from Switzerland; and Shirley Hubbard, 15, from Worcester. Carole Cooper died some time after November 9, 1973. Shirley Hubbard, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, was last seen in November 1974, after leaving her work experience job at Debenhams, in Worcestershire, to catch a bus home. She never made it. And a late addition to the list was 15-year-old Mary Bastholm, who disappeared in Gloucester in 1968. She was last seen talking to Frederick West in his car a few weeks before she disappeared. She was last seen at a bus stop. In 1998 Stephen West revealed to a TV audience that his father had confessed, not long before he suicided, to murdering Mary, his 13th victim.

THE SEX-SLAVES OF CROMWELL STREET.
Some of the missing girls were offered a lift by the pleasant driver while they waited for a bus. Some were even taken in as boarders. What happened next will never be fully understood as most of the victims did not live to tell the tale. West himself committed suicide after his arrest; only Rose was in the end punished with a lengthy jail term and she has never willingly given away much information.

From such evidence as came to light it seemed that these trusting young girls were quickly turned into sex-slaves. Some might be kept in the basement, others in an upstairs bedroom - naked and tied to beds - where some were made available to numerous males who paid the Wests to abuse the captives. But the abuse did not end there. Frederick and Rose West were sadists who could inflict terribly cruel torments on their captives.

At the later trial the prosecutor asserted that five of the girls had died 'after a prolonged campaign of sexual violence.' Frederick West, he said, particularly enjoyed sexually assaulting restrained and immobilized girls. The Wests were also known to employ whips in at least some of their activities. One witness, said to be bisexual, Kathryn Halliday, had met Frederick West in 1988 and had gone to the 25 Cromwell Street house, where Mrs West removed all her clothes and the three engaged in sexual activities, which were videotaped. Mrs Halliday went often to the house as a consenting participant after that day, where she saw whips and hoods and was sometimes tied to a bed and blindfolded.

It is believed some girls were treated to a particularly nasty form of sensory deprivation. Tied hand and foot - naked, of course - to a bed, the girl would have her face heavily taped, so that eyes, nose and mouth were all completely covered. Thus she could not breathe at all were it not for the provision of two tiny tubes fixed through the tape. These ran up the nostrils of the captive, allowing her to breathe, but only with difficulty. She would be kept that way for days, cut off from the world, hungry and thirsty, and barely able to breathe sufficient air to maintain life. When her captors tired of this game she would be disposed of. One girl, Shirley Hubbard, aged just 15, was, in the estimate of investigators, kept in such a way, helplessly bound, for up to 10 days, while she was assaulted from time to time. In the words of the prosecutor, Shirley was thus kept 'wholly under control, unable to see, unable to cry out, just able to breathe. She was kept alive but helpless. That can only have been for sexual gratification so that her living body could be used or abused at will.'

But the Wests were erratic in their actions. Another girl, who suffered the same form of ill-treatment, had later been released. Not all victims of the couple's attentions were murdered. Those whose bodies were recovered were not the only ones assaulted over the years; there were a number of others, some, police believe, too scared or too embarrassed to come forward, In the early stages some were given their freedom, if the Wests thought it safe to do so. One girl, a runaway, after being assaulted at the West home and being released, went back to the house with petrol, intending to burn it down but she lost her nerve and did nothing. The prosecution had three living witnesses to bring forward.

Elizabeth Agius, a witness, told the court that Frederick West had once shown her the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street, entered via a trapdoor, and casually remarked that he might make it his 'torture room'. He tried to get the witness to have sex with him and told her he would like to tie her up and 'do all sorts of things' to her but she managed to avoid his attentions. Rosemary West worked as a prostitute, she said, and when she was having sex with men Fred watched through a hole in the wall.

Some victims were assaulted before they even reached the house - abused in the family car. The presence of Rosemary, if was suggested, made it easy for Frederick West to entice a girl to go with them. In at least one instance Mr West stopped the car at a field while his wife assaulted the young woman. This was Caroline Owens, the nanny already mentioned. When Caroline resisted Frederick punched her in the face, knocking her out. When she recovered she found her wrists being tied behind her back and a scarf gagging her. Masking tape was then wound all around her head and she was taken to the house.

At the house she was taken upstairs, and the tape pulled off, after which she was stripped naked, blindfolded and tied to a bed. At one point Rosemary West allegedly held her legs apart while her husband actually whipped the girl's vaginal area with a leather belt. Mrs West then performed oral sex on the captive and Mr West had intercourse with her, according to the prosecutor. In between bouts of abuse the West sipped tea. At one point she heard someone else moving through the house and tried to cry out for help but Mrs West pushed a pillow into her face to stop the sound. Caroline was one of the fortunate ones. She was given her freedom. She was the one who went to the police. But having had a close brush with the law the Wests were now more careful. In future once a girl served their short-term purposes - often being sexually abused and tortured on and off for perhaps jut a week - she would be disposed of. From now on any young woman who entered the West household was likely to leave it as a corpse.

THE FIRST MURDERS.
Years before this saga began Frederick West had been married to another woman - Catherine Costello, sometimes known as Rena Costello. They had two daughters, Charmaine and Anna. Catherine and Charmaine, then aged 7 or 8, had eventually simply disappeared. Anyone who asked after them was fobbed off by West and told one of two different tales - either that Catherine had run off with another man or that she had gone to live with her own family in Scotland. However, for their part the family, when later questioned by police, assured the authorities they had not seen her. In January 1972 Frederick West remarried. Eventually police charged West with the murder of his first wife and his daughter Charmaine.

Years later Anna told the court of life for her after her mother and sister disappeared. Rosemary West was now her stepmother and at the age of 8 a nightmare of continuing sexual assaults was unleashed. She recalled being taken to the cellar of the house at 25 Cromwell Street, where Fred West, her father, and Rosemary West, her stepmother, stripped her naked, then bound and gagged her. Rosemary West looked on, she alleged, while her father began his assaults. Then Mrs West joined in and when the little girl reacted she was hit by Mrs West. Anna experienced a lot of pain and wished it would end but was told it was 'for her own good'.

The abuse continued over the years. She was also physically abused, so much so that the family had to take steps to hide the bruises when the girl went to school. On one occasion a teacher noticed bruising and advised a welfare officer. Rosemary West was interviewed but nothing happened, except that after the official left Anna 'had the biggest hiding of my life' even although she had said nothing. Mrs Davis also told the court of beatings given to Charmaine, aged 8, before she disappeared. Anna's abuse continued until the age of 15, when she finally fled the home.

A former tenant of the Wests told the court of how she had heard screams and a girl's voice crying out, 'Stop it, Daddy,' and of hearing such cries on several occasions. A male friend of the Wests, who had stayed in the home, told of hearing screams which went on for between 10 and 20 minutes.

Thus it was not only strangers who fell foul of this monster but those close to him. And the pattern was to be repeated in due time. In May 1987 a teenager, Heather West, aged 16 - one of the children of Fred and Rose West - went missing. School friends and other wondered where Heather had got to but it was not for almost seven years that some official action was taken. Police, it was reported, had charged a man, Frederick West, with incest. They then began digging operations around a terrace house at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucestershire. It was the beginning of the end for the Wests' crime spree.

Heather, like so many strangers who came into contact with these two terrible people, had been sexually abused by her father for years. And physically abused, too. She often bore the marks of his beatings on her legs and had to try to hide them from school friends. She was terrified of her father and was said to have 'made every excuse' to get away from her home, indicating some sort of unpleasantness in the situation there. The towel incidents - with West trying to catch his daughter naked - were the least of his activities with his young daughter. West must have decided Heather knew too much and had experienced too much, so she had to die.

At first Rosemary West seemed not to be involved in the worst abuses but in the end her role was revealed in all its horror. At a preliminary hearing of the case against Rosemary West a tape was played to the court in which a 15-year-old girl, an alleged victim, recounted her experiences. She claimed she was raped and tortured and that while being held saw two other teenage girls, who were chained to a bed, having 'gruesome acts' carried out on them by both the Wests. She was warned that she would be killed if she spoke to anyone and told them what she had seen.

PILES OF BODIES
Police had no idea when they started digging for remains at 25 Cromwell Street that the task would be a far large one than they ever dreamt of. The remains of three young females were soon uncovered, buried in the garden at the rear of the building. They were revealed as being of the long-missing girl, along with those of Shirley Robinson, an 18-year-old lodger who had lived with the Wests, and third girl, Alison Chambers, 15. Shirley Robinson probably died some time after January 1, 1972. The bodies of the other two women were wrapped in the remains of pink blankets. They had been buried at a depth of about one metre in separate parts of the garden.

After finding the first bodies police brought in sophisticated detecting equipment and began searching further. They had to dig through layers of concrete in the garage and the cellar of the house but gradually its secrets were revealed.

Later they turned to other locations, including a field near the house, two or three caravan parks and a second house, at 25 Midland Street. They also dug at Much Marcle, where Frederick West grew up and where he lived for a time with his first wife. An allotment there was rented by West's father Walter; police dug there, and at a beauty spot about 3 km farther away, and in Letterbox Field, near the Herefordshire border.

After the first bodies were uncovered police arrested Frederick West, 52, and charged him on three counts of murder. They also questioned his second wife, Rosemary (Letts), but at first released her. Meanwhile relatives of missing young women throughout Britain besieged police for information. There were even inquiries from the Continent as it was believed a Dutch and/or German woman could be among the victims.

As police continued to dig they located more bodies and later charged West with further murders. So much digging was done that the house was in danger of collapsing and tonnes of concrete had to be poured in to shore up the structure. Eventually the site yielded up a total of nine bodies plus an unborn foetus. Four were under several cellar floors, three in the garden, one behind an upstairs wall, and one covered in concrete and hidden under a bathtub.

At least some bodies had parts severed before burial. Heads, legs and arms had been chopped off and laid in rows in the graves. Forensic scientists began immediately to study the remains, especially to determine if sexual torture had occurred. A large curved knife was found in one grave. It was thought probable that the victims had been bound and gagged before being killed and that they probably died by strangulation as some skeletons had damaged neck vertebrae. In some graves masking tape was found bearing the imprint of human faces. Eight victims had their fingers and toes cut off and some had their heads shaved.

In mid-April it was reported that West's present wife, Rosemary, 40, had been taken into custody again and that police had charged her with assisting two other men, neither of whom was her husband, between July 1974 and July 1976, in the rape of an 11-year-old girl at 25 Cromwell Street. She was also charged with causing the actual bodily harm of a 7-year-old boy. William Smith, 67, was also charged with raping the same girl, also while at 25 Cromwell Street, but when she was aged 13.

Later Mrs West was charged with complicity in the murder of nine of the young women whose bodies had been found, including Lynda Gough, Carole Cooper, Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Lucy Partington and Juanita Mott. The remains of all six were among those found at 25 Cromwell Street. Mrs West is the mother of eight children but five were at one stage in the care of Gloucester social services. Another man, Whitley George Purcell, 64, was also reportedly charged with sexual assault at the home. Later still West's brother, John, aged 51, was charged on two counts of rape.

Early in October 1995 the trial of Rosemary West began in Winchester. She pleaded not guilty and denied involvement in the murder of 10 girls aged between eight and 21 in the years between 1971 and 1987. She appeared at the court hearing wearing a gold crucifix. Criminals so often seem to have the happy knack of acquiring religion.

However, the prosecutor, Brian Leveson, asserted in the strongest terms that Mrs West had been involved equally with her husband in both procuring and assaulting the girls. The only incidents not linked to her, he said, were two very early ones that involved Frederick West alone and which were not the subject of the present charges. These involved the deaths of Frederick West's first wife, Rena, and a former child-minder, Anne McFail.

CHILDREN ABUSED
One witness said that Rosemary West once told her that when she became a pensioner she would devote her whole life to sex. A neighbour, Shirley Giles told the court that her daughter Tracey became Charmaine's best friend. On one occasion she had sent Tracey to the West's for a cup of milk and her daughter returned 'very, very distressed.' Tracey had seen Charmaine standing on a stool, her hands tied behind her back, while her mother held a wooden spoon, evidently as though she was going to hit her. Asked about this later, Rosemary told Mrs Giles that 'Charmaine had been naughty and she had to be taught a lesson.'

Evidence was given that the girls were mostly enticed to the house by Mr West, allegedly assisted by his wife, on the promise of accommodation. They targeted girls who were alone for one reason or another, sometimes runaways, offering them a roof over their heads. Once in their clutches the girl would find herself being stripped naked, gagged and bound, and rendered helpless, to be used as an object for sexual assault.

The remains of three young females were soon uncovered, buried in the garden at the rear of the building. They were revealed as being of the long-missing girl, along with those of Shirley Robinson, an 18-year-old lodger who had lived with the Wests, and third girl, Alison Chambers, 15. Shirley Robinson probably died some time after January 1, 1972. The bodies of the other two women were wrapped in the remains of pink blankets. They had been buried at a depth of about one metre in separate parts of the garden.

After finding the first bodies police brought in sophisticated detecting equipment and began searching further. They had to dig through layers of concrete in the garage and the cellar of the house but gradually its secrets were revealed.

Later they turned to other locations, including a field near the house, two or three caravan parks and a second house, at 25 Midland Street. They also dug at Much Marcle (Hereford), where Frederick West was born - not far from the murder site - on 29 September 1941. West grew up and where he lived for a time with his first wife Catherine. An allotment there was rented by West's father Walter; police dug there, and at a beauty spot about 3 km farther away, and in Letterbox Field, near the Herefordshire border.

Frederick West was a builder by trade and friends and relatives recalled assisting him in some of his building projects, while he extended the house, during which - ominously - concrete was poured. The Wests had lived in the house for over twenty years. Mrs West had two children by a previous marriage. A neighbour said that West had a video camera fixed over his bed and mirrors on the ceiling. Certainly a number of young women had boarded there from time to time and extra fittings had been used to provide additional bedrooms, including those in the basement.

In mid-April police dug up a body from a corn field at Kempley, near Much Marcle. It was believed to be the body of his missing first wife. Two more victims were later identified. One was Shirley Hubbard, the 15-year-old schoolgirl last seen in November 1974. The other was a Swiss-born woman studying and living in London, Therese Siegenthaler, 21. She was last seen before leaving on a trip to Ireland.

Early in May 1994 police digging at the couple's former home in Midland Road, Gloucester, found the remains of a young girl, believed to be those of missing daughter Charmaine, who was last seen fifteen years previously. The last body uncovered was that of Anna McFall, 22, who worked as a nanny for the Wests. She had been seven months pregnant, evidently to West, when she died and the foetus had been laid beside her in her grave. Eventually Frederick West faced 12 murder charges, including the murder of his first wife, Catherine, 27, and their 7-year-old daughter, Charmaine. Finally, Rosemary West, was charged with the murder of her daughter Heather, 16.

The court was also told that there were bones missing from every skeleton uncovered, including small bones from hands and feet and larger ones. Seven victims had lost neck bones. Early in the trial there were reports that the media were scaling down their coverage of details because of their horrific nature. A BBC program head commented: 'You will never get the full horror from the BBC' and some newspapers said they would not publish the full horrific details revealed in the hearings.

BINDING AND WHIPPING
In his confessions Mr West claimed most of the killing occurred because the victims threatened to tell his wife of their affairs. Lynda Gough, 19, had, he claimed, 'been into kinky sex and bondage' and that her death - by hanging - had been a 'bizarre accident'. Shirley Robinson was, he said, a lesbian who had sex with his daughter, Anna Marie. He also described how Caroline Owens, 17, had been bound, gagged and beaten before he had sex with her. 'To say Rose whipped the girl and that is utter lies.'

But rather than accuse Shirley Robinson of abusing Anna Marie West should have told the truth of what happened to the little girl. Charmaine's half-sister experienced her first sexual abuse at the age of 8 years when soon after Fred and Rose married she was gagged and had her wrists tied, then was taken down to the cellar where Mrs West sat on her face while Fred raped her. She was kept out of school for a few days and warned not to tell anyone of what happened or she would suffer a severe beating. Fred had a special sort of 'raping' metal frame in the cellar and many times after this Anna Marie was strapped to this and sexzually abused by Rose. Anna Marie hid signs of her abuse from those at school, often refusing to participate in sports activities for fear of bruises and iunjuries being seen.

What was experienced by the many young women who fell prey to this couple is best described as sexual torture. They were certainly put to work as sex-slaves but on a short-term basis. Few lasted more than a week or two once their enslavement began. Both Rosemary and Frederick had enormous appetites for sex in its various forms but their interest did not end with simple intercourse. Torture, especially involving the sexual organs, was an accompaniment of their daily activities. A young girl, helplessly stretched out naked and unable to defend herself was an obvious target for any sort of torment that came to mind.

The captive girls were certainly used for the short-term gratification of West's enormous appetite for sex and, probably, hired out to others, in other words used as white slaves. When they rebelled or proved difficult they were disposed of, probably after West and/or others had some fun torturing them. Mostly they were confined to a cellar beneath the house but occasionally were kept in upstairs rooms. The Wests clearly liked keeping their captives in humiliating nakedness, for none of the bodies recovered wore a shred of clothing. The girls had died as they lived - stark naked. In probably all cases the girls were kept alive for periods, usually of some days, while being used as sexual playthings. Lucie Partington, 21, was held for seven days, 'for hideous purposes,' in the words of the prosecutor.

One young woman, Juanita by name, was bound and gagged in a particularly severe fashion. A substantial gag was made up of several items. She was then bound with plastic rope like a trussed-up turkey, with loops around her arms, ankles, body and head. Ropes ran back and forth across her body vertically and horizontally. The tightly restrained young woman was then suspended by a rope from a beam in the ceiling of the cellar and left that way for hours. The Wests had an affectionate regard for rope and some of the bodies had ropes attached with loops in them, evidently used for securing and hanging the girls.

FREDERICK WEST DIES
On December 31, 1994 Frederick West was found hanging in his cell; he had committed suicide, an event that caused a major upheaval in the case. After his death it was reported that West had engaged in the sexual torture of some of his victims 'with a female accomplice'. His son, Stephen, 21, who was writing a book about his father (one of several being produced) told reporters that before he died his father had told him of a remote farmhouse to which he had taken more young girls and that the total who died was probably far greater than known. It has been suggested that it might be as high as 60. West's only surviving daughter described him as 'sick'. He sexually abused his children for years and was an avid collector and viewer of videos, said to be 'pornographic' and violent. He also made his own videos of sexual activities in the home but the nature of these was not revealed.

Also introduced into evidence were tapes in which Frederick West admitted to murdering Heather. Mrs West, however, maintained that she believed Heather had left home and in a rare outburst in the court expressed dismay that her daughter was dead. West's confession included references to the fact he had mutilated Heather after he killed her. In the tape, played to the court, he said:

At that time we used to have one of those big saws for blocks of ice, so I cut her legs off with that . . . I have lived that a million times, doing that, since then. And then I cut her head off [starts to cry] and then I put her in the bin and put the lid on . . .

There were also allegations that at least some of the young girls who came to board with the family or lived there as his children were forced into prostitution. This may explain why many died; if they rebelled and refused to co-operate they may have been killed and, before they died, tortured for added kicks. Mr West's expensive activities must have been funded from somewhere. It was also claimed that adult parties were staged upstairs in the house while the children slept downstairs. West, who was said to be virtually unable to read or write, had been writing a book about himself before he died.

Following the death of Frederick West it was announced that the Public Prosecutor was continuing with the case against Mrs West and had, in fact, added an additional charge to the crimes for which she was indicted. When the prosecution switched their attack onto Rosemary her defence claimed that only Fred himself was the sole perpetrator of the crimes. Richard Ferguson, QC, pointed out that Rosemary was only 15 when she met Fred, a child who fell under his spell. The lawyer claimed she was later abused by Fred. The material introduced into the case, that Rosemary may be a lesbian, that she had sex aids in the house, that she had sex with some of the lodgers and was probably forced into prostitution by her husband, were all irrelevant, he said.

Mrs West claimed the only assault she had been involved in was that of Caroline Owens and that now she was 'paying dearly' for this involvement. She was, she told the court, on trial for murder not indecent assault, which was the issue in the matter of Caroline Owens. But Rose West was charged over the deaths of both her stepdaughter Charmaine and her own daughter Heather. When the body of Charmaine was recovered it was found her wrists had been bound. It was alleged by the prosecutor that Mrs West hated Charmaine, the daughter of Frederick West's first wife, Catherine. Charmaine was aged eight at the time of her death, which occurred at some time between May and December 1971. She was also charged with the death of her own daughter, Heather, aged 16, who died some time between June 1987 and February 1994.

In 1995 Rosemary West was found guilty os murdering 10 young women and girls and sentenced to life imprisonment. A judge told her she would never be released. Britain has no death penalty.

Frederick West escaped paying for his evil deeds by taking his own life. Only Rosemary was made to pay for what had been done to so many young women. But their names will be forever linked as perpetrators of one of the most horrendous series of crimes ever known. One cannot contemplate fully the terror a young girl of perhaps 15 or 16 would experience when she discovered that her kindly hosts were in fact unfeeling sadists who stripped them both of their clothing and of their dignity and piled horror upon horror with forced sex and outright torture.

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