[3] Rose's mother suffered from depression and was given electroconvulsive therapy both during and immediately after her pregnancy; some have argued that this treatment may have caused prenatal developmental injuries to her daughter.

[7][8] At the onset of puberty, Letts, reportedly fascinated by her developing body, would deliberately parade naked or semi-naked around the house in the presence of her younger brother, Graham (born 1957).

[11][12] Initially Rose was repulsed by Fred's unkempt appearance, but quickly became flattered by the attention he continued to lavish on her over the following days as he invariably sat alongside her at the same bus stop.

[15] Shortly thereafter, Rose began a relationship with Fred, becoming a frequent visitor at the caravan park where he lived with the two children from his first marriage to Catherine "Rena" Costello, daughter Anne Marie and stepdaughter Charmaine.

Her father vehemently disapproved of the relationship, threatening Fred directly and promising to call social services if he continued to associate with his daughter.

[19] On her 16th birthday, Rose left the home for troubled teenagers to return to her parents while Fred was serving a thirty-day sentence for theft and unpaid fines.

[22] According to Anne Marie, she and Charmaine were frequently subjected to extensive physical and emotional abuse throughout the time they lived under Rose's care at Midland Road.

Despite the years of neglect and abuse, Charmaine's spirit had not been broken[23] and she talked wistfully to Anne Marie of the belief she held that her "mummy will come and save me".

In her later testimony at Rose's trial, Shirley stated that her two daughters had been playmates of Charmaine and Anne Marie when her family lived in the upper flat of 25 Midland Road in 1971.

"[28] As with the Giles family, Rose explained Charmaine's disappearance to others who enquired about her whereabouts by claiming that Fred's first wife, Catherine "Rena" West, had taken her eldest daughter to live with her in Bristol.

[29] When Fred was released from prison on 24 June, he allayed Anne Marie's concerns for her sister's whereabouts by claiming her mother Rena had collected Charmaine and returned to her native Scotland.

[32] When Rena's body was discovered, a short length of metal tubing was found with her remains, leaving open a possibility she had been restrained and subjected to a sexual assault prior to her murder.

[37] Shortly after giving birth to her second child, Rose began to work as a prostitute, operating from an upstairs room at Cromwell Street and advertising her services in a local contact magazine.

[38] In addition to her prostitution, Rose engaged in casual sex with both male and female lodgers within their household, and individuals Fred encountered via his work; she also bragged to several people that no man or woman could completely satisfy her.

Rose carried the sole key to this room around her neck,[43] and Fred installed a separate doorbell to the household which her clients were instructed to ring whenever they visited.

[48] Between 1972 and 1992, the West children were admitted to the casualty units of local hospitals 31 times; the injuries were explained as accidents and never reported to social services.

Learning that Owens disliked her stepfather and was looking for a job, Fred and Rose offered her part-time employment as a nanny to the three children then in their household, with a promise she would be driven home each Tuesday.

[62] Rose, who had begun to engage in prostitution by this time, explained to Owens that she worked as a masseuse when the younger woman enquired about the steady stream of men visiting her.

[39] In her subsequent statement to police, Owens stated that, at Cromwell Street, she was given a drugged cup of tea to drink before being again gagged and subjected to a prolonged sexual assault from the Wests.

[63] The following morning, having noted Owens' screaming when one of his children had knocked on the door of the room in which she was restrained, Fred threatened that he and his wife would keep her locked in the cellar and allow his "black friends" to abuse her, and that when they had finished he would bury her body beneath "the paving stones of Gloucester".

Although initially too ashamed to divulge what had happened, when her mother noted the welts, bruises and exposed subcutaneous tissues on her daughter's body, Owens burst into tears and confided her ordeal.

[70] Rose continued to profess ignorance of her husband's activities, but the circumstantial evidence that mounted against the couple was considered sufficient to prosecute her for ten murders: those of the young women whose bodies were found at Cromwell Street, and of Charmaine West.

[74] The Wests told friends and concerned parties that she had left home to work at a Devonshire holiday village and on one occasion fabricated a phone call, supposedly from Heather, to allay her siblings' suspicions regarding her disappearance.

[76] At pretrial proceedings in February 1995, Rose pleaded not guilty to ten charges of murder (the murder of Charmaine having been added to the original nine after Fred's suicide, and two counts of rape and indecent assault of young girls having been dropped with a view for later resubmission) though her counsel conceded that circumstantial evidence indicated Rose's willingness to subject young girls to sadistic physical and sexual abuse.

[79] An important early decision by the judge was to admit testimony related to the sexual assault of three women by Fred and Rose, accepting the prosecution's argument that it established a pattern of behaviour repeated in the murders.

[80] In his opening statement, prosecutor Brian Leveson portrayed the Wests as sadistic sex-obsessed murderers, terming the bodies discovered at Cromwell Street and Midland Road "more terrible than words can express"; "[The victims'] last moments on earth were as objects of the sexual depravity of this woman and her husband".

"[85] Ferguson emphasised that Fred, before meeting Rose, had committed at least one murder strikingly similar to those at issue in the present trial, and that the prosecution's case was largely circumstantial.

[88] In reference to her relationship with her eldest child, Rose admitted her relations with Heather were strained before claiming to the court that her daughter was a lesbian who had physically and psychologically abused her siblings.

The intention of this testimony was to illustrate to the jury that Fred was capable of abducting, assaulting or attempting to attack women without Rose, which the prosecution had never disputed.

[96] The Lord Chief Justice later decided that she should spend at least twenty-five years in prison, but in July 1997, Home Secretary Jack Straw subjected Rose to a whole life tariff.