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Serial killer Rose West has been disciplined in prison after allegedly sexually assaulting a young female inmate.
The 72-year-old, who is serving a whole-life sentence for murdering 10 girls and women with her husband Fred, is said to have targeted a vulnerable woman in her 20s while behind bars. West was said to have groomed her over a period of weeks before the alleged attack.
The killer has since been hauled before a prison governor and stripped of the privileges she enjoyed as an ‘enhanced’ prisoner, according to sources. She has also reportedly spent long periods confined to her cell following the incident.
A source told The Sun that West, who has been jailed since 1995, remains a serious danger despite her age and appearance.
‘Rose looks like a frail pensioner, but she is still extremely dangerous – as this attack shows,’ the source said.
The insider claimed West befriended the younger inmate and exploited her vulnerability before allegedly trying to force herself on her in a cell.
Prison staff were alerted and responded quickly, with West removed from the situation and disciplined by jail bosses.
Rose West was convicted of the torture and murder of at least 10 women and girls, including her daughter Heather West and stepdaughter Charmaine West
Rose and Fred West collaborated on their heinous crimes but Fred escaped justice when he died by suicide while awaiting trial while Rose was sentenced to life imprisonment
It is unclear whether officers intervened during the incident itself or whether the alleged victim later raised the alarm.
The source added that the incident has shocked other inmates, saying: ‘The whole prison is talking about it and inmates are shocked, despite what they might have done themselves.’
West, who changed her name to Jennifer Jones by deed poll in 2020, is being held at HMP New Hall near Wakefield in West Yorkshire.
She is housed in a specialist unit designed to provide a ‘psychologically informed environment’ for female prisoners.
Women on the unit are normally allowed access to activities including gardening, yoga, knitting and film nights, and can move around landscaped outdoor areas.
However, West is understood to have lost a number of these privileges following the adjudication.
As an enhanced prisoner, she had previously been entitled to extra spending money, television and DVD access, workshop activities and increased time out of her cell – all of which have now reportedly been removed.
Cromwell Street in Gloucester which was where Fred and Rose West lived
Heather West (pictured), the eldest of Fred and Rose’s biological children, was murdered, dismembered and buried in the garden when she was 16
‘She still went before a governor for an adjudication where she was found guilty,’ the source said.
The Wests carried out a campaign of abuse and murder spanning more than two decades, with victims buried at their home in Cromwell Street, Gloucester, and other locations.
Fred killed himself in prison in 1995 while awaiting trial.
Their crimes were revisited last year in the Netflix documentary Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story.
The Daily Mail has approached the Prison Service for comment.
