Fred & Rose Read online

  Fred also boasted to Crick about his proficiency as an abortionist, and showed him pornographic pictures he had taken with a black-and-white Polaroid camera, claiming they were of women he had operated on. He wanted his friend to find him more girls who had ‘got in trouble’, but Crick was so alarmed by the photographs that he called the police. Fred was questioned, but the photographs were not illegal, and no charges were brought.

  Fred told Rose that his wife had left him with two small children to look after, and that he could barely manage. When Rose heard this she became very interested in Fred, for Rose had a fascination with young children. ‘She was always playing with them,’ says her mother, Daisy. It was the attraction of Charmaine and Anna Marie that persuaded Rose to visit Fred’s caravan.

  Conditions at the caravan could not have been more different to the almost clinical environment in which Rose had been brought up. Her parents’ house at Tobyfield Road was scrubbed daily, because any dirt or disorder enraged her father. Fred’s home, by contrast, was so filthy it took her breath away. Apart from the shabbiness of the place, the caravan smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, sweat and unwashed dishes, and the floor was strewn with dirty clothes, children’s toys, work tools and an accumulation of dust balls and dried mud. It was particularly chaotic as Fred had been living as a bachelor for the past few months since he and Rena had split up.

  In the weeks that followed, Rose became a frequent visitor to the caravan, a playmate for the two girls. Fred was relieved to have found somebody who enjoyed looking after his children, and he also found Rose sexually exciting.

  Rose discovered that Anna Marie and Charmaine were quite different in temperament, as well as looks. Charmaine was now six, just ten years Rose’s junior. She was strikingly pretty, with Asian colouring, a very intelligent and lively child who loved bright colours, especially reds and greens. Despite the years of neglect and punishment, her spirit had not been broken.

  Her half-sister, Anna Marie, who was five, had a pale complexion and the blue eyes, broad nose and wiry dark-brown hair that were characteristic of the West family. She was treated much more kindly than Charmaine and was a quiet child inclined to do as she was told.

  Fred’s relationship with the children was contradictory. On one hand, he had a very strong image of himself as a father and a provider. He always referred to himself as ‘Dad’ and truly believed that he loved the children, often sitting Anna Marie on his knee, ruffling her bushy hair and saying she was ‘Dad’s girl’. Rose enthusiastically joined in, turning the business of caring for the children into a kind of game. They took the girls out into the fields to collect wild flowers, just as Fred had done as a child, and Fred spoke to Rose about wanting to have more children. He lay in the long meadow grass and told Anna Marie stories about when she was a baby in Scotland. Fred said he had made her a crib out of a wooden box and put her under the counter of his ice cream van as he drove around the streets of Glasgow. He said that he and Anna Marie were a ‘team’ and she was his ‘big girl’. Anna Marie naturally basked in the attention. ‘I idolised my dad,’ she says, even telling her father she wanted to marry him when she grew up.

  At the same time, Fred was capable of extreme cruelty, beating Charmaine for no reason. He generally neglected the children, did not take any part in their daily care, and, if there were no women around to look after the girls, thought nothing of bundling them into the car and driving them to Gloucester social services.

  The fact that Charmaine and Anna Marie were taken into temporary foster care meant that they should, even at this early stage, have been identified by the authorities as vulnerable children. Two important new documents, the Children Act of 1958 and the Children and Young Persons Act of 1963, had been published by this time. They were largely concerned with improving and developing protection for fostered or adopted children, and Charmaine could have qualified for special attention under both these categories.

  Fred’s family should have been known to Gloucestershire Children’s Department as a ‘problem family’, and might be expected to have had a ‘family card’, upon which was recorded confidential information. This in turn should have led to health visitors making random checks on the family to make sure the children were well. The ‘At Risk’ register had also been in operation since 1967, and Gloucestershire County Council employed full-time Children’s Officers to examine families like the Wests.

  Yet it seems that Fred was not scrutinised carefully enough. In one of its internal reports on the background to the later murder case, Gloucestershire County Council admits that checks on children in the area during the 1960s were rudimentary. In one passage of the 35-page document, the council says, ‘Incredible as it may seem today, child abuse cases were unlikely to be recognised. Child care agencies and legal agencies concentrated on child neglect and delinquency, and were reluctant to believe that parents would deliberately harm their children.’

  When Fred first met Rose, he was increasingly in trouble with the police. In June he had been fined £22 by Cheltenham magistrates for motoring offences, including stealing a tax disc to use on his van. He attempted to excuse his misdemeanours by telling the court a fabricated hard-luck story: he said he had been left with debts of £2,000 after his ‘business’ in Scotland failed, adding that he had been paying his creditors off in instalments, but still owed £300.

  Fred knew that Rose’s mother would become suspicious if she did not receive her housekeeping, so he gave Rose a few shillings a week to give to her mother. In this way, the pretence of Rose being at work was kept up for some time – the first of many secrets that Fred and Rose shared.

  One day Rose astonished her parents by bringing Fred home. She had never had a boyfriend before – even of her own age – and yet, suddenly, here was a fully grown man standing beside their daughter in the living room of 96 Tobyfield Road. Daisy, who had heard gossip in the village that Rose was not going to work at all, began to think that something was seriously amiss. ‘Immediately we thought he was an older man,’ says Daisy. ‘He was twenty-seven, but he did not look young for his age.’

  It was Fred’s habit to be silent and moody in company, but on this day he was quite animated, telling a string of boastful stories in an excited, gabbling speech that was at times almost surreal. The theme of his conversation was how successful he was and the possessions he owned. He again told the lie that he had only just returned from Scotland, where he said he owned property including a number of mobile homes, a fleet of ice cream vans, a house and a hotel. But it was plain to Bill and Daisy that he ‘obviously didn’t have anything’.

  Daisy noticed an ugly scar on the bridge of Fred’s nose – one of the injuries he had sustained when he crashed his motorcycle into Pat Manns as a teenager. But, instead of simply telling Daisy the truth, Fred launched into a weird story. ‘He babbled on that, in Scotland, some woman had chased him and that he fell down a manhole, and this woman smashed him across the face with a chain,’ says Daisy, who took the story to mean that Fred was on the run from another woman.

  Rose listened in silence to Fred’s stories. When he finally left, Bill and Daisy were united in their dislike of her new friend. Bill told his daughter that Fred was a liar and a ‘dirty Gypsy’ and that she was to have nothing more to do with him. Daisy agreed. ‘What he was saying didn’t add up,’ she says.

  It was shortly after this that Rose’s parents discovered she was spending all her time with Fred, and not going to work at all. Rose admitted as much when Bill confronted his daughter, saying there was no one else to look after the children. She said she was working at the caravan between eight and six, that nothing improper was going on between her and Fred, and that Fred was going to pay her for her work. This glib reply infuriated her father and he ordered her to stop seeing Fred. ‘There was no way Dad was going to allow her, at her age, to go down to a caravan with a man who had two children,’ says Daisy. She was especially alarmed when she worked out that Rose was visiting that ‘eerie’ p
lace by the lake. Daisy often passed the caravan site on the bus, and the dismal lake made her shudder. She thought it exactly the sort of place where the type of men her own mother had warned her about might live, and wondered whether the missing teenager Mary Bastholm was drowned in the grey water.

  But Rose’s relationship with Fred had already gone beyond looking after Charmaine and Anna Marie. She had become his secret lover, just like Anna McFall, the ‘nanny’ who preceded her.

  By this stage in his life Fred had developed perverse ideas about sex. He was particularly excited by aggressive, sadistic sex and had begun to collect extreme sado-masochistic pornography. It was difficult to find a girl who would allow herself to be tied up, a girl who would also allow Fred to beat her and who would beat him when he asked, because Fred enjoyed receiving punishment as well as giving it. Rena had flatly refused to take part in his sex games, but in Rose he probably found a willing partner to all his perversions, a pretty teenager who did not have to be forced into doing what he wanted.

  Rose accepted Fred’s behaviour because she was craving affection. She had also probably been abused herself as a child, and placed little value on her own body. Rose was also excited by the company and attentions of an older man and was naïve enough to accept whatever she was told to do. After all, Fred was twelve years older than her. ‘The way Rose was, she could have been influenced by anyone,’ says her brother Andrew.

  From deviant sex, Fred introduced Rose to prostitution, and she began to entertain men in the caravan just as Rena had done. Fred was used to the idea of his women selling themselves; indeed, he found it exciting. He was also grateful for the money it brought in, and knew that a young girl was more valuable because she could pretend to be a virgin. Several of Bill Letts’ workmates at Smith’s Industries lodged at Lake House, and he soon became aware of the rumours surrounding caravan 17.

  Rose’s brothers Andrew and Graham Letts believe it was because their father knew about Rose being a prostitute that he first considered placing her into care. Before taking this step, Bill led his errant daughter into the living room at Tobyfield Road and lectured her on the fate that awaited girls who associated with older men. He explained exactly what he thought of Fred, emphasising how dishonest he considered him to be and dared Rose ever to visit the caravan site again. Rose listened in sullen silence.

  Bill despaired of getting through to Rose. He visited Gloucestershire social services and explained that his fifteen-year-old daughter was seeing an older man. As a result, the social services suggested that Rose be taken into care to keep her away from Fred.

  Towards the end of the summer of 1969, Rose was taken to a large converted house near the centre of Cheltenham, which was home to a number of troubled teenagers. She was only to be allowed out under controlled conditions, to visit her parents or go to work. She was not allowed to see Fred. There was also a curfew. Rose hated the home, which she described as being like a prison. In the three months she stayed there, she did not receive a single visit from either her parents or any of her brothers or sisters; neither could she speak to them on the telephone, as the Letts family were not connected. Rose felt that she had been forgotten and completely rejected. It naturally seemed that her only friend in the world was Fred. She escaped from the home on one occasion to see him, and when she was legitimately allowed out for the weekend to visit her parents, Rose went instead to the caravan site. They went to considerable trouble to keep these assignations quiet.

  In one love letter from Rose to Fred – which was written at around this time – it is clear she was already taking a dominant role in the relationship, insisting that she be told everything about Fred’s past:

  Dear Fred,

  I am glad you came to see me. Last night made me realise we are two people, not two soft chairs to be sat on … about us meeting this week, it could be Sunday afternoon. I will have to get Lynda to say I’m going with her. You know we won’t be able to meet so often, that’s why I can’t get the idea out of my head that you are going with someone else … You told my aunt about Rena. But what about telling me the whole story even if it takes all day. I love you, Fred, but if anything goes wrong it will be the end of both of us for good. We will have to go somewhere far away where nobody knows us.

  I will always love you,

  Rose

  When Bill Letts found out that Rose was still seeing Fred, despite being in care, he marched down the road to warn Fred off. Fred, who had recently finished at the bakery and was about to start a new job at a garage, was at home when Bill came into the small, fenced-in garden that surrounded caravan 17. The older man worked himself up into a rage, shouting and waving his finger at Fred, who listened without any significant reaction as he was warned to leave Rose alone. He did not even register a grim smile when Bill threatened he would ‘cut [Fred] up into little pieces’ unless he heeded the advice.

  Fred was facing more serious problems with the police. On 23 August he was reported for failing to produce documents for his car, and was also warned about unpaid fines from June. He was told he could go to prison unless he paid. Five days later he appeared at Cheltenham Magistrates Court, charged with the theft of fence panels from one of his employers. He was fined £20 and given a suspended prison sentence. On the same day he was also reported for not having a test certificate for his car.

  While Fred’s criminal problems were mounting, Rose learned that her time in care would soon be over. When she reached her sixteenth birthday the authorities would no longer be empowered to detain her and she could go back to her lover, but eleven days before Rose was due to be let out of the home, Fred was sent to gaol for the first time in his life. He was given thirty days for failing to pay his fines.

  Her Majesty’s Prison Gloucester is a grim fortress-like building behind the law courts on the western side of the city. It is near enough to the docks to be within reach of Herring gulls, which perch on top of the gate house. In 1969, when Fred first lined up for his ‘kit’ of rough prison clothes and toilet equipment, the prison was already more than 150 years old. It was not a high-security gaol, but was still a depressing institution where inmates were disciplined by being put on a diet of bread and water. The cells are lined along landings, under a curved Georgian roof which echoes with the noise of men trudging up and down the steel stairways. Fred did not cope well with prison life. He was not a ‘hard man’ inside, and was a victim of ‘taxing’, the term used for bullying by other inmates. He could not wait to leave.

  On 28 November, while Fred was still inside, Charmaine and Anna Marie were taken into care yet again. The next day was Rose’s sixteenth birthday, and she duly left the Cheltenham home. Her father gave her a final lecture, which ended with a familiar ultimatum: if she ever went to see Fred again, then he would disown her, but if she stopped seeing him and found a good job, then she could stay with her family. There must have been an argument over this because a policewoman was called to the house, and later a social worker as well, who appears to have calmed the situation and wrote in an official report of the visit that the family ‘presented as quite reasonable’.

  One morning a few weeks later Rose came downstairs with her bags packed. It was the first her parents knew of her decision to leave home. Daisy and Bill were surprised, as they thought that Rose had decided to see matters their way. In fact, Rose had only been waiting for Fred to finish serving his thirty days in prison.

  Rose had decided that she loved Fred, and that her future lay with him – the first and only man ever to have taken such a strong liking to her. She was excited by him sexually, intoxicated by his attentions and relished the prospect of uninterrupted days spent playing with his children. The relationship also freed her from the constraints of Tobyfield Road, where she was forced to live like a child, answering to her mother and especially to her oppressive father. Fred was her means of escaping all this; her graduation to adulthood.

  Daisy asked if she really intended to leave, not quite believing such a thin
g possible of her simple-minded daughter. Rose airily replied that, yes, of course she was going, and laughed about it. Without saying another word, she slipped out of the front door and walked gaily down Tobyfield Road in the direction of Fred’s caravan, carelessly swinging her bags as she went.

  But Bill Letts was not about to give up on his daughter just yet, and made another attempt to curb her, contacting the police and requesting that they ‘pick Rose up’ because of her association with Fred. This happened at an address in Cheltenham. A police surgeon then examined Rose, and, on 21 February, discovered she was pregnant. Bill Letts refused to have her back at home, so Rose was again placed into care.

  She was discharged only days later, on 6 March, on the understanding that she would return home and have her pregnancy terminated. Instead Rose went back to Fred’s caravan, and Bill Letts washed his hands of his youngest daughter once and for all.

  8

  THE TRAGEDY OF MIDLAND ROAD

  When Rose left home to live with Fred, he collected Anna Marie and Charmaine from the social services, intending that they should all live together as a family. At first Rose was pleased to have two little girls to wash and feed, but she was soon exasperated by their demands for attention – her mother, Daisy, describes the relationship between them as ‘like a child looking after children’. Fred had nothing whatsoever to do with their care. Rose’s brother Graham remembers: ‘It was her job to look after the kids. He was quite strict about it.’