ABSTRACT

The media dubbed 25 Cromwell Street the ‘house of horrors’. Now demolished and replaced by a garden, number 25 was a modest, semi-detached Victorian villa, typical of the kind of home found in respectable, middle class, suburban streets all over Britain. The rear garden backed onto college grounds; there was a well; a DIY patio; wrought iron gates; cellars and a range of rooms on three floors. ‘Gulls from Gloucester docks’ (Sounes 1995) perched on the roof. It was home to Fred and Rose West, their children and many lodgers for more than twenty years. On Saturday 26 February 1994 police began to search the property. By the end of the following fortnight ‘The bones of nine young women had been discovered at 25 Cromwell St. Some had clearly been buried for many years, and apart from three the police had no idea of the victims’ identities’ (ibid.: 257). A tenth body was found at a previous address. She was Charmaine, Fred West’s eldest daughter by his previous marriage to Rena. The bodies of Rena and Anna Mcphail (a babysitter who was heavily pregnant by Fred at the time she died) were found in a field. As police continued to search for more bodies; the media circus took over Gloucester.