Early one evening in February 1994, I was chopping onions for a chicken curry and singing along to the radio. The news came on, with an item about a search for human remains at a house in Gloucester. I felt a fleeting pang of sympathy for the victim before reaching into the fridge for the garlic.
The newsreader continued: ‘Police have confirmed that Frederick West, aged 52, and his 40-year-old wife Rosemary, of 25 Cromwell Street, have been arrested on suspicion of multiple murders.’
‘What?’ I gasped, as the garlic fell from my hands to the floor. As I ran to the living room, the floor seemed to tilt beneath me. My heart was thudding. I flicked on the TV and there it was: 25 Cromwell Street.
In a flash I was back to my teenage years, when I lodged in the house with my sister Deirdre and her baby son. We rented a room there in 1977 and stayed for nearly two years.
I remembered Fred West’s gormless grin, his fake limp, his silly giggle. Was he really a cold-blooded serial killer? I could not believe it, but I had to admit there was a darkness and a strangeness about Rose.
I didn’t sleep that night. Snippets of memory jostled for position in my mind. Fred pressing me against the wall. Fred climbing into my bed.
Overriding all this was Shirley. ‘Please, no,’ I whispered. ‘Not Shirley.’ The day we arrived at Cromwell Street, Fred had taken us into the living room, introduced his wife Rose, then said: ‘And this is my lover Shirley.’
Shirley was around 17, the same age as me, and was pregnant. I couldn’t believe a girl my age would go near an old man like Fred. But over the next few months, we became friends and she confirmed the baby was his.
I remembered Fred West’s (pictured) gormless grin, his fake limp and silly giggle, says Kathleen Richards
Richards pictured around the time she lived at 25 Cromwell Street with Fred and Rose West, her sister Deirdre and Fred’s lover, Shirley
I was shocked one night to see her go into the Wests’ bedroom with Rose: she was likely sleeping with both of the Wests.
Near the end of her pregnancy, in May 1978, Shirley vanished. When I hadn’t seen her for a few days I plucked up the courage to speak to Fred. I was afraid she’d gone into labour and was in hospital alone. ‘Who, Shirley?’ he asked, his brow furrowed, as though he didn’t know her too well. ‘Shirley Robinson? Oh, she moved on.’
‘Moved on?’ I repeated. ‘What do you mean?’ Fred shrugged happily. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘It was time for her to move on. She’s gone. That’s the way of things, girlie.’
He was her boyfriend and the father of her child. How did he not know where she was? In the following days, Fred was constantly in the cellar, banging, drilling, sawing. He was also digging up the back garden. Deirdre and I were typical silly teenagers, joking about buying bikinis if he was making a swimming pool.
As autumn 1978 came, Fred lunged at me one morning. I raised both hands in alarm but, to my surprise, he stood back and said: ‘I’ve got news about your friend. I thought you might like to know.’
‘Shirley?’ I gasped. ‘Yeah, that’s the one. Seems like the silly bitch went to Germany. She’s living there now.’
‘What? How far is that? And what about the baby?’
But Fred was already limping down the stairs. I racked my brain, trying to remember if Shirley had ever mentioned any relatives or friends in Germany.
She hadn’t. Yet I wanted to believe it. I needed to know she was safe and I was grateful to Fred for the update. He knew I’d been worried about her. But it was still puzzling. ‘She couldn’t even afford maternity clothes,’ I said to Deirdre. ‘How on earth would she pay for a plane ticket?’
Together, we stood at the bedroom window and looked out. Fred had filled in the hole in the garden. It wasn’t a swimming pool after all. He’d just dug a big hole and filled it in again.
Suddenly, as the horrors of 25 Cromwell Street were revealed, I knew what he’d been up to. A newsflash confirmed that the dismembered body of 18-year-old Shirley Robinson had been found buried in the back garden at Cromwell Street. Not only had he murdered Shirley, but he had buried her right there, in pieces, under our bedroom window.
We had stood there, wondering where Shirley had gone, while Fred was openly digging her grave below us, waving and chuckling as if he hadn’t a care in the world. In my nightmares I saw Shirley reaching for me, her fingertips brushing mine, until she fell away, pixelating into blackness.
I dreamed Fred was looming over me, his doughy face pressed against mine. Even in my sleep, I could smell him. That foul stench he carried I now knew was the dried blood of human remains.
Twelve women were killed by the Wests including their daughter Heather. As horror on horror was revealed, I felt a mix of survivor’s guilt and relief at getting out alive.
Though I escaped the worst of his violence when I lived in the house between 1977 and 1978, Fred would often pester me for sex and, as time passed, he became more frenzied and more sinister.
One day, after Shirley had gone, he caught me on the stairs and pinned my arms by my sides. ‘Now listen girlie,’ he said. ‘If you come and play some games with me and Rose, you and your sister can live here rent-free.’ I was not so naive as to misunderstand his meaning.
‘Well?’ he cajoled, squeezing me a little harder, one hand crawling down my back and on to my bottom. ‘How about it? No rent?’
Police confirmed that Frederick West, aged 52, and his 40-year-old wife Rosemary, of 25 Cromwell Street, have been arrested on suspicion of multiple murders
Police dig up the garden of 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, looking for the body of missing teenager Heather West in 1987
I told Deirdre. ‘Jesus. The dirty old pig,’ she said. ‘Is there nothing he won’t do?’ You might wonder why we didn’t walk out, there and then, but we had paid our rent and had nowhere else to go.
Our parents did not want us back: they had eight children still at home and the house was already overcrowded. As a child, I’d had horrible experiences with men who had sexually abused me, but I kept telling myself that Fred was a clown, essentially harmless.
In some sense, I blamed myself. Fred never seemed to target Deirdre. Maybe it was because she had a baby or maybe – like the other men – he sensed I was more vulnerable.
Soon afterwards, we were on our way to the post office when Deirdre realised she’d forgotten her baby bag. I sprinted back to our bedroom for it but, as I turned to leave, Fred loomed in the doorway.
He wore a fixed grin, as though it had been painted on. I froze. It felt like hours as we stood and stared at each other. As he reached for me, I shouted, ‘Get out of my way!’ but Fred just laughed and threw me on to the bed. He shoved his rough face into mine and it was as though he was slathering his filthy smell all over my skin.
‘Stop!’ I screamed. ‘Help me!’
‘Shut up, shut up girlie,’ he muttered as he rubbed himself against me. Next minute, I was aware someone was in the room. Deirdre’s face was white, her hands clasped tightly. She did not speak but it was enough to put Fred off.
‘I will have you,’ he said, grinning as he walked out of the room.
A few nights later, as I put my key in the lock, someone grabbed me from behind. Even though he hadn’t spoken, I knew it was Fred. That smell gave him away.
‘Come on,’ said Fred with a throaty chuckle. ‘You and me, let’s have some fun. I’ll show you what I’m made of.’ My key was still in the door and so, with one arm clutching me tightly, Fred used his other arm to open it. He shoved me inside and I landed on the carpet, shaking and crying. Then he closed the door and pulled me up. Grabbing my face, he thrust his lips on to mine, his bristly chin and sideburns scratching my skin.
It was hard to breathe with his face clamped on to mine. With one arm, he pinned my hands above my head and, with the other, he began grabbing at my body.
The more I fought, the more aroused he became. He seemed to love watching me struggle. In desperation, I bit him on the neck as hard as I could. But it didn’t stop him even for a moment. Panic coursed through me as he began tugging at the button on my jeans.
‘Help!’ I screeched, kicking out as hard as I could. A man’s voice called his name outside the door. ‘Fred?’ he shouted. ‘Fred? Are you in there?’
Instantly Fred stopped. He clapped his hand over my mouth to silence me as there was a knock, and then another, on the door.
I continued trying to kick and struggle but Fred’s hand was pressing so hard, I could barely breathe. A cold sweat was forming across my forehead. Without warning, Fred stood up.
I don’t know who was knocking on the door but he had saved me.
‘I haven’t finished with you,’ Fred said and, though he smiled, there was a malevolence in those words that turned my blood to ice.
Fred was true to his word.
Deirdre was with her boyfriend one evening and I was engrossed in the latest Jackie magazine when there was a light tap at the bedroom door. I answered it, thinking it would be one of the other lodgers wanting to borrow a tea bag.
I was taken aback to see both Fred and Rose standing in the hallway. ‘What are you up to, girlie?’ Fred asked, as Rose pushed past me and into my room. ‘What’s going on, please?’ I asked.
Fred laughed and grabbed my arm to pull me out of the doorway. Rose followed behind. ‘Let me go!’ I shrieked. But Fred was oblivious, frogmarching me down the stairs.
I felt Rose’s breath on my ear. She was right behind me. ‘Stop!’ I screamed.
Fred, still outwardly affable and smiling, clamped his free hand over my mouth and steered me into the Wests’ family room.
The curtains were drawn. Rose flicked the lamp on and shut the door. Fred gave me a friendly smile. ‘Relax!’ he laughed. ‘It’s just a game, girlie. It’s not like you were busy! We’re just going to have a bit of fun.’
Fred and Rose West were jointly convicted of ten murders – and Fred of a further two
Rose sat on the sofa and patted the space next to her. I perched on the end, too afraid to disobey. Rose sidled up to me and my blood curdled as she began stroking my hair.
‘Don’t cry,’ she simpered in a silly, little girl voice she used sometimes. ‘Don’t cry.’
Fred stood over me so that my face was level with his crotch.
‘Have you got a girlfriend?’ he asked. ‘I know you don’t have a boyfriend. Rose just wants to play with you, that’s all.’
He stepped closer, rubbing his crotch against my cheek.
‘Please,’ I choked. ‘Please stop.’
Rose took my face in her hands and turned my chin towards her. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought she was going to kiss me.
Then the doorbell rang, shrill and insistent. The Wests had two doorbells, one for Rose and one for everyone else. I discovered later that she offered her services as a prostitute and this bell signalled the arrival of a customer.
She groaned angrily and stood up. Rose went to answer the front door and, as I ran past her, I heard her introducing herself as Mandy to someone on the doorstep. I didn’t stop to question it as I sprinted up the stairs.
The last straw came when I fell ill and was unable to go with Deirdre to visit our aunt in Cheltenham. I woke to find Fred in bed with me, his sweaty hands slithering under my nightclothes. I begged him to let me go.
But Fred only giggled. ‘Now girlie,’ he said. ‘Me and Rose want you to watch a video with us. A special video, just us three. And then, girlie, we will have some fun. You get my meaning?’
His voice had a razor edge. Despite his grin, there was a warning in the way he tilted his chin. I managed to distract him by saying I needed the bathroom and would change into something nicer, then meet him and Rose downstairs.
‘Good girlie,’ Fred smiled, squeezing me closer to him.
The moment he was gone, I threw the blankets off and leapt out of bed. I inched my way out on to the landing and took the stairs slowly, stealthily, as though my life depended on it. And quite possibly, I now realise, it did.
I made it to the front door and ran, wind whipping through my pyjamas. I was not even aware I was running barefoot until I noticed people staring. My pyjamas were hand-me-downs and were too big: I had to hold them up as I stumbled through the streets.
Tears were streaming down my face as I ran to the bus station. Curled up on the concrete floor in my blue pyjamas, I grew numb with cold and shock, as I waited for Deirdre to return. At last, there she was: she put her arms around me and gave me her socks and jacket to wear. Then she led the way back to Cromwell Street, where we packed our things, leaving a bag of baby clothes for Shirley.
If she came back she would find us gone but I wanted her to know we hadn’t given up on her.
I read now that the police inquiry had started as an investigation into the disappearance of Heather West – Fred and Rosemary’s eldest daughter – in 1987 just after she’d done her GCSEs.
When police started digging in the garden of 25 Cromwell Street, they had found Heather’s remains first. There were no words for how she had suffered. Shirley’s remains, and those of her unborn baby, were found after Heather’s, with reports claiming a single femur had been found initially.
The thought of Shirley’s delicate frame, hacked into pieces, was horrific. I did not, could not, allow myself to think of what had happened to her baby. During police interviews, Fred admitted that Rose had murdered Shirley and assisted in her dismemberment, removing the foetus from her womb.
Next, police found remains of a girl later identified as Alison Chambers, a lodger who had arrived at Cromwell Street just a few weeks before we left.
I didn’t really remember her but the parallels were eerie. Deirdre told me I’d had a lucky escape but I didn’t feel lucky. I felt guilty. Why had I survived when all those girls hadn’t?
25 Cromwell Street would later become known as the Wests’ ‘House of Horrors’
The shame was like a funeral drum, beating relentlessly against the inside of my skull. It should have been you. It should have been you. It should have been you.
Deirdre thought I had been next on the list. That if we hadn’t fled that day, I would have been killed. I think what must have saved me was that our family lived nearby and my mother sometimes called at Cromwell Street when she was out shopping. If I disappeared, I would be missed. Whereas Shirley, and most of the other girls the Wests killed, had nobody.
Throughout March the Press reported that the remains of four more young women, all former lodgers, had been found.
There were more lurid headlines when Fred appeared at Gloucester magistrates’ court on eight charges of murder and was remanded in custody to the city’s prison. At the end of March, digging began at a second address, a house on Midland Road, Gloucester, where Fred and Rose had once lived.
In May 1994 the remains of Charmaine West, Fred’s stepdaughter from a previous relationship, were found under the kitchen window at the address on Midland Road. She had been just eight years old.
On New Year’s Day 1995, I heard Fred had committed suicide in his cell while on remand. That February, Rose was committed for trial on ten charges of murder.
I was called to give evidence. As I stepped into the witness box, I saw Rose directly in my eyeline. ‘Does she remember me?’ I wondered. I had doubtless changed so much and she had too.
She looked much older but her expression had not altered. She flicked her trademark sideways glance, contemptuous and superior, from under heavy eyelids. In that moment I was back at Cromwell Street, standing in the doorway of the living room, my legs quivering.
As I explained how Fred had told me he and Shirley were lovers, Rose remained completely impassive. The trial revealed that Fred and Rose had regularly indulged in sadistic sexual activity, including bondage and extreme violence. They also produced their own pornographic movies.
A shudder of recognition went through me. I recalled Fred trying to coerce me into watching films with them.
After six weeks, the jury retired to consider its verdicts. I was
certain that Rose was guilty but I worried she might somehow slither free. The couple had, after all, got away with murder for 20 years.
I was driving home on a November evening when I heard she had been convicted of all ten murders. Brimming with emotion, I had to pull over to the side of the road.
Resting my head on the steering wheel, the tears fell fast. My heart was breaking for each and every girl but especially for Shirley, my lost friend.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I wish I could have saved you.’
- Adapted from Under Their Roof by Kathleen Richards & Ann Cusack (Sphere, £22), to be published on August 28. ©Kathleen Richards 2025. To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid to 06/09/25; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
