Horror at 25 Cromwell Street: The Twisted Tale of Fred and Rose West
For decades, few knew the horrors that went on inside the unassuming walls of 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester. In 1994, the shocking truth would come to light and horrify a nation
*Warning: This Article Contains Sensitive Subject Matter*
Background
On a quiet terraced street in Gloucester sat an unassuming three-story house occupied by Fred West, his wife, Rose, and their children. Few could have imagined the horrors that went on inside the red brick walls of this ordinary-looking home. The case of Fred and Rose West would become one of the most notorious crime cases in modern British history. It was a case that stunned even the most hardened police officers and left a permanent scar on British history.
Fred West
Fred West was the second of six children born to a working-class family on September 29th, 1941, in rural Herefordshire. His childhood was incredibly turbulent, filled with physical and sexual abuse, violence, and a twisted exposure to sex from a very early age, which many believed played a hand in his developing pattern of violent sexual behavior.
His teenage years were troubled and often violent. He left school around age fifteen and worked various labor jobs. By 1957, Fred and his brother, John, had begun frequenting a youth club in nearby Ledbury, where his distinct Herefordshire accent earned him the nickname of “Country Bumpkin.”
Fred was known to aggressively pester women and girls, and on one such occasion, he groped a girl on a fire escape outside the Youth Club, who punched him in the face, causing him to fall two floors and sustain a serious head injury.
However, this was not his only serious accident; when he was seventeen, Fred was in a motorcycle accident and suffered a fractured skull, a broken arm, and a broken leg; the accident left him unconscious for a week, and when he was discharged from the hospital, he had to walk with braces for several months. The motorcycle accident caused him to develop a phobia of hospitals, and he also began to burst into fits of rage.
Disturbing Origins of a Predator
In June 1961, one of Fred’s younger sisters, 13-year-old Kitty, told her mother shocking news: she was pregnant, and her brother, Fred, who had been continually raping her, was the father. Fred was arrested and is said to have freely admitted to police that he molested young girls since his early teens; he even commented, “Doesn’t everybody do it?”
Fred was tried on November 9th at Herefordshire Assizes - his mother was willing to testify in his defense; however, his sister Kitty changed her mind and refused to testify, and the case against Fred ultimately fell apart. Meanwhile, Kitty was expelled from school and forced to have an abortion. She passed away in 2006. Due to his abhorrent behavior, Fred was estranged from and effectively dissowned by much of his family.
By his early twenties, Fred, in addition to his penchant for rape and incest, had developed many other troubling patterns, such as reckless behavior, petty theft, and early sexual aggression.
In 1962, when he was 21, Fred married Catherine Costello (AKA Rena), a young Scottish woman whom he had met in Glasgow. Rena was pregnant at the time by a Pakistani bus driver. Despite this, when Charmaine was born on March 22, 1963, Fred claimed her as his own. However, their marriage was marked by violence and Fred’s frequent extramarital affairs, but in July 1964, Rena and Fred welcomed another daughter, Anna Marie.
In 1965, West is alleged to have accidentally run over and killed a young boy with his van in Glasgow. However, the boy’s parents did not believe that it was accidental, and West, fearing possible retaliation by the locals, returned to Gloucestershire with his two daughters.
His wife, Rena, joined them in early 1966. At the time, Fred was carrying on affairs with several women and girls, including a teenager named Anne McFall. In July 1967, 18-year-old McFall, who was eight months pregnant with West’s child, disappeared.
In 1971, Rena and Charmaine West also disappeared.
By his late twenties, after drifting between Gloucestershire and the West Midlands, Fred met Rose Letts.
Rose Letts
Rosemary Letts was born in Devon on November 29th, 1953, the fifth of seven children. Like Fred, her early life was also marked with volatility, sexual abuse, and exploitation. Her father, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was prone to extreme violence; their childhood was harsh; she and her siblings were never allowed to go out much, with their father sometimes making them clean the carpets with their toothbrushes.
Rose and her older sister, Patricia, were also subjected to sexual abuse by their father. Their mother, Daisy, was known to suffer from deep depression and was treated with electroconvulsive therapy when she was pregnant with Rose, and some suspect that this may have caused a prenatal injury.
At school, her performance was below average, and she was bullied for her weight and was given the nickname “Dozy Rosie” by the other children. During puberty, she would parade naked around the house, enamored by her developing body. It is also said that on numerous occasions she molested her younger brothers.
A Match Made in Hell
Rose first met Fred West when she was only 15, and he was 27. At the time, she worked in a bread shop in Cheltenham. Upon Rose’s first encounter with Fred, she was said to be repulsed by his scruffy demeanor, but she quickly became flattered by the constant attention he would give her.
Eventually, the two began a romantic relationship, much to the horror of Rose’s parents, who threatened to call social services if it continued. Rose’s parents tried repeatedly to stop her relationship with Fred, even alerting Gloucestershire social services in 1969 that their 15-year-old daughter was involved with an older man - they even claimed she might be engaging in prostitution at his caravan.
Rose was placed in a Cheltenham home for troubled teenagers, allowed out only under strict conditions, yet she continued to visit Fred whenever possible.
On her 16th birthday, while Fred was serving a short sentence for theft, Rose briefly returned to her parents, but as soon as he was released, she moved into his Cheltenham flat. Her father made one last attempt to intervene, leading to a police examination that confirmed Rose was pregnant.
She was again placed in care, with the expectation she would end the pregnancy and return home, but she chose instead to live with Fred, prompting her father to ban her from the family home. Three months later, the couple moved to 25 Midland Road in Gloucester, where Rose gave birth to their first child, Heather Ann, in October 1970.
The two were married in January 1972 at Gloucester Register Office. With Rose carrying another child, the couple moved from Midland Road to 25 Cromwell Street, a nearby address.
Shortly after giving birth to her second child on June 1st, 1972, Rose began to work as a prostitute, using one of the upstairs rooms at 25 Cromwell Street. The room was known as “Rose’s Room” and was fitted with a red light, numerous peep holes, and a baby monitor, primarily for Fred’s benefit.
25 Cromwell Street
In addition to her prostitution, Rose engaged in casual sex with both male and female lodgers at their Cromwell property, including individuals Fred encountered from his work. The Wests openly admitted to taking pleasure from any form of sex involving strong dominance, pain, and violence.