Defending a British serial murderer
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 28 June 2019
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
**Warning: Some listeners might find parts of this programme disturbing**
In June 1994 Fred and Rosemary West were charged with a series of gruesome murders of young women and girls, committed over a twenty-year period in the south of England. Among the victims were the couple's 16 year-old daughter. Mike Lanchin speaks to Leo Goatley, Rosemary West's defence lawyer.
(Photo: Composite image of victims of Fred and Rosemary West)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. Hello and Welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:46.0 | Today we're going back to June of 1994 |
| 0:50.0 | when a British builder, Fred West and his wife Rose were charged with the gruesome murders of |
| 0:55.8 | up to 11 young women. |
| 0:58.2 | The serial killings were committed over a 20-month period in the south of England. I've been speaking to Rose West's lawyer. Some |
| 1:06.0 | listeners might find parts of this programme disturbing. It's 1994 and |
| 1:15.0 | 1994 and the police are digging up the grounds of a rather ordinary house in the |
| 1:19.0 | provincial town of Gloucester in southern England. But what they've unearthed is a horrific scene of |
| 1:24.7 | murders that dates back almost 20 years. In all the remains of nine women were |
| 1:30.9 | found buried at the house, three in the garden, one under the bathroom, |
| 1:35.4 | and beneath the concrete of the tiny cramped cellar, five women had been dumped in a clockwise |
| 1:40.6 | circle. Most of them had been dismembered, many decapitated. Remnants of cloth and taped |
| 1:46.4 | bindings lay beside the majority. The house belonged to a 52 year old builder, Fred West, who lived there with his second wife, Rose, and their children. |
| 1:57.0 | I only visited once and that was after they had excavated the place and after the remains had been removed. So it looked derelict by that side, all the plaster |
| 2:06.8 | had been removed and the floors removed. |
| 2:08.8 | Leo Gotely was a local criminal lawyer assigned to defend Rose West. |
| 2:13.6 | I visited there with Superintendent Bennett who showed me the basement and these holes in the |
... |
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