Kathleen Richards knows how lucky she is to be alive. In 1979, she woke up in bed to find the serial killer Fred West on top of her. It was by no means the first time West had assaulted the 17-year-old, but it was the last. This time, she managed to escape from the room she was renting at 25 Cromwell Street, perhaps Britain’s most notorious address, where Fred and Rose West raped, tortured and murdered so many girls and young women. Fred West took his own life in January 1995 while on remand, charged with 12 murders. Rose West was convicted of 10 murders later that year and is serving a whole-life sentence.
In her own way, Richards has also been serving a life sentence. Today, she is a youthful, likable and traumatised 65-year-old. How could she not be damaged by all she experienced? Although she gave vital evidence at Rose West’s trial that helped get her convicted, she never told the police what Fred had subjected her to. Nor did she tell her nearest and dearest. She couldn’t. She didn’t know how to. Now, almost half a century later, she has written a memoir, Under Their Roof, that does so much more than chronicle her time living with the Wests. It’s a desperately sad insight into what makes someone vulnerable to abusers, and why victims are often abused multiple times by different people. But ultimately, this is a book about the triumph – however painful and even fluky – of good over evil.
