After 30 years in jail, Rose West is still “pleading total innocence” of every sickening, depraved crime she and her husband Fred committed.
Leo Goatley, 67, represented West after she and her husband were first arrested in 1994 at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, the home where they raped and killed many of their victims.
He has now urged her to “find redemption” by confessing.
West was convicted of 10 murders and is in HM Prison New Hall, in Flocton, West Yorks. Mr Goatley says she is overweight, reclusive and in poor health.
She will be 70 in November and he hopes that she will be persuaded to give the families of victims closure by revealing all that she knows about the crimes she and her husband committed.
Mr Goatley, who represented her for 12 years, particularly wants her to reveal what she knows about the disappearance of Mary Bastholm, 15, in 1968.
He told the Mirror: “There is an awful lot Rose knows that she hasn’t revealed.
“There isn’t much that Fred did that she wasn’t aware of. If her inner journey has really gone anywhere since she has been in prison there are things she should say that would help the families of her victims.
“To start with, she could clear up the Mary Bastholm disappearance.
“This blanket pleading of total ignorance of everything that happened is just daft at this point.
“Also she could very simply clear up if there are other victims we don’t even know about.”
The Wests committed at least 12 murders – even killing their daughters, Charmaine and Heather. The Wests targeted young women and girls to satisfy their depraved lust for rape, torture and mutilation.
Many of their victims’ dismembered bodies were buried in the cellar or garden of 25 Cromwell Street.
It has long been suspected that they were connected to more killings but Fred West, who was charged with 12 murders, took his own life in prison before the trial. And his wife has protested her innocence since going to jail almost 30 years ago.
Mr Goatley has written to her in prison – accusing her of knowing that her husband abducted and killed Mary Bastholm – in the hope West will unburden herself.
He believes Fred West used his wife to get Mary into his car before killing her. It would have been Rose West’s introduction into a web of evil as a teenager and Mr Goatley wonders if she could ever bring herself to admit it.
He said: “I am absolutely certain she knows an awful lot more than she has ever told us.
“She has clammed up about everything. The only concessions she ever made after she was convicted was that she admitted what her daughter Anne Marie was saying was true and that Anne Marie was abused by her own dad.
“But the rest of it she has tried to deny.”
Mr Goatley used to visit West regularly in prison but lost touch in recent years. He said: “I think she has closed herself off from the world now. I don’t think any of her family or kids are in contact with her. I think she has one friend, the wife of a church minister. I’ve heard she has put on a lot of weight and I don’t think she’s in great health.
“The way I feel is whatever process she has gone through in prison, while trying to project this image of a mellowed old lady, means if she really has become like that she would want to find some kind of redemption.”
Mr Goatley said some of the letters exchanged between the Wests had been “really religious and warped”. He said: “This idea of an eternal life and some kind of faith. God knows where that came from but it was twisted – they had a corrupted, perverted sense of tradition. It has struck me that because of that, after all these years, she might have had the opportunity to reflect. But that hasn’t happened.
“Whatever she knows, whatever is lurking within, she clearly hasn’t seen her own journey taken to a point of catharsis where she can finally tell us what she knows. I hope I am wrong but I don’t think she is capable of it.
“She is the one person alive who could clear up a lot of stuff and give some closure to a lot of families.”
He paints a complex picture of the killer. He said: “She had presented as a mother, preoccupied with the daily routine and chores. She was always knitting for them. She did have a strange pride in how they looked yet there was this other side to her that was totally wicked.
“She would be shopping with the kids one minute, then busy with her prostitution the next, before kidnapping girls and killing them.
“The Wests had their own version of normality. I often wonder if the evil side of them even recognised it. The kids knew about it, obviously, because they were on the other end of it because they were beaten by her.”
Mr Goatley said there is some truth to the idea that Rose West was “subjugated by her husband”.
But he said: “There is no doubt there was a wicked drive within her – she could not have done the things she did without one.
“Once she was fired up she participated with real evil vigour, I am quite certain about that.”
He said that one the hardest things was separating the mother from the killer.
“It is disturbing that you can meet someone who seems quite normal and who can be so reasonable in conversation and yet such wickedness could lurk within.
“It is not as though you feel you are in the presence of the Devil. I mean, I have seen her kick off at times but she was often very normal.
“She could spit fury and swear, her eyes would flicker and she would salivate and bite her lip.
“There were times when she would blow her top but she would go up the gears without ever going off the cliff.”
Descent to depravity
Sept 29, 1941: Fred West born at Much Marcle, Herefordshire
Nov 29, 1953: Rosemary Letts born in Barnstaple, Devon.
Nov 28, 1962: Fred West marries Catherine “Rena” Costello.
May 22, 1963: Charmaine West born to Rena. Father’s details not listed on birth certificate.
July 6, 1964: Anne Marie West born to Rena and Fred West.
Jan 6, 1968: Mary Bastholm, 15, last seen alive at Bristol bus stop.
Nov, 1969: Rena West leaves her husband.
Nov, 1969: Rosemary Letts, 16, moves in with Fred West.
July, 1970: Fred, Rosemary, Anne Marie and Charmaine move to 25 Midland Road in Gloucester.
Oct 17, 1970: Heather born to Rose and Fred.
June, 1971: Rose murders Charmaine while Fred West is in jail. When free, he buries her body at Midland Road property.
Jan 29, 1972: Fred West and Rose marry. The family move to 25 Cromwell Street.
June, 1987: The couple murder daughter Heather.
Feb 23, 1994: Police get warrant to search 25 Cromwell Street.
Feb 25: Fred and Rose arrested on suspicion of Heather’s murder.
Feb 26: The first body – Heather’s – is discovered in the garden.
Jan 1, 1995: Fred West found hanged in his cell.
Oct 3: Rose’s trial begins.
Nov 22: Rose gets life for 10 murders. Judge tells her it is likely that she will never be released.
