Review: ‘Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story,’ starring Russ Williams, Howard Sounes, Rachel Carlyle, Howard Ogden, Leo Goatley, Brian Leveson and Sasha Wass

May 21, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story”

Directed by Dan Dewsbury

Culture Representation: The three-episode documentary series “Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story” features an all-white group of people discussing serial-killer couple Fred West and Rose West, as well the Wests’ known victims, who were murdered from 1967 to 1987 and buried at the couple’s home in Gloucester, England.

Culture Clash: Until they were arrested in 1994, Fred West and Rose West fooled many people into thinking that they were a normal couple, but the couple lived a secret and evil life of raping, torturing and murdering their female victims. 

Culture Audience: “Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching documentaries about how famous serial killers were caught and the perspectives of law enforcement and victims’ loved ones.

“Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story” presents a fairly serviceable but not entirely comprehensive account about this husband-and-wife duo of murderers. It borrows heavily from interviews and information already shown in ITV’s documentary about these two notorious serial killers. This Netflix docuseries has slow pacing but is worth watching for previously unreleased police interviews with Fred and Rose West.

Directed by Dan Dewsbury, “Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story” has a traditional documentary format of blending archival footage with interviews that were done specifically for the documentary. Much of the documentary’s archival footage comes from ITV’s 2021 two-part documentary “Fred and Rose West: Reopened.” “Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story” could have done a better job of identifying which interviews are old archival interviews instead of giving the impression that many of these interviews were filmed for the documentary.

Serial-killer spouses Fred West and Rosemary “Rose” West targeted young females (all under the age of 22) as their known murder victims, who either lived in the couple’s home in Gloucester, England, or were brought to the couple’s home. The first-known victim (pregnant 18-year-old Anne McFall) was murdered in 1967, and last-known victim was the couple’s 16-year-old daughter Heather, who was murdered in 1987. Fred was charged with murdering 12 people, while Rose was charged with murdering 10 people: nine of them were among Fred’s 12 victims, while another was Fred’s stepdaughter Charmaine, whom Rose murdered on her own.

Unofficially, there are probably more victims who are either still missing, or there wasn’t enough evidence to prove who murdered them. At various times, Fred confessed to the crimes that he and Rose were charged with, and he initially said he was solely responsible for all of the crimes. Fred eventually admitted that he and Rose committed almost all of these crimes together. However, Rose maintained during her trial that she had nothing to do with the kidnappings, tortures, rapes, and murders of the victims. She still claims to be not guilty of all of the charges.

What’s debatable is if Rose or Fred was the mastermind in committing these crimes. The evidence suggests that Fred started out as the dominant partner. But over time, according to investigators and witness testimonies, Rose became the more manipulative and more controlling sadist in committing these heinous crimes, and she eventually turned against her husband after they were both arrested. On January 1, 1995, before 55-year-old Fred was set to go to trial, he committed suicide by hanging in his jail cell at HM Prison Birmingham, also known as Winson Green Prison, in Birmingham, England.

The series’ first episode, titled “Fred,” details how the killer couple got caught. This episode has several clips of audio and video recordings of Fred’s confessions and Fred leading police to where the bodies were buried in the couple’s home and in their backyard. The second episode, titled “Rose,” uncovers how Fred and Rose initially portrayed Rose as completely innocent and unknowing that these crimes took place, but then the truth eventually came out that she was a willing participant in the crimes. The third episode, titled “The Trial,” chronicles who went on trial for these crimes and what the outcome was.

Fred West and Rose West are such well-known serial killers, there’s really no mystery about what happened after they got arrested because it got so much media exposure. Fred and Rose had already narrowly escaped a trial after they were arrested in 1992 for child abuse. Fred was accused of sexually abusing his then-13-year-old daughter, while Rose was arrested for child cruelty. The case was dismissed when the daughter refused to testify.

However, because of these 1992 arrests, Fred and Rose lost custody of all five of their younger children, who were put into foster care. And that’s when some of the children began to reveal that Fred and Rose frequently threatened the kids that they would be buried in the backyard, just like their sister Heather, who had been missing at the time. Publicly, Fred and Rose had been telling people that Heather disappeared because she probably ran away from home.

Acting on this information, police did a search of Fred and Rose’s house backyard in February 1994, and found the remains of Heather in the backyard patio, just as Fred and Rose had told their kids where Heather’s body was buried. Fred confessed to the murder and then revealed that there were more people buried on the property. He said he couldn’t remember most of the victims’ names, but they were identified by dental records, DNA, and other methods. Fred and Rose were arrested in February 1994. In November 1995, Rose was convicted to 10 life terms for the 10 murders she was charged with, which means she will die in prison.

“Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story” focuses more on the investigations and trial and doesn’t give a lot of details about the personal backgrounds of Fred and Rose to explain how they ended up as sadistic serial killers. The documentary leaves out information of Fred’s history of being an accused sexual abuser, going back to his teenage years. Rose reportedly had an incestuous relationship with her father, which is not mentioned in the documentary.

Fred was born on September 29, 1941, in Herefordshire, England, to a family of farmers who lived in poverty. His parents had eight children, but only six (Fred and one brother) survived to adulthood. Fred worked as a driver for an ice cream van and later spent most of his career as a construction worker. He was married to his first wife Catherine, nicknamed Rena, from 1962 to 1971, the year that she was murdered. At the time of her murder, Catherine had been separated from Fred because she said he abused her for years.

Catherine was also battling with Fred over custody issues for their two daughters: Charmaine and Anna Marie. Charmaine’s biological father was someone else, but Fred adopted Charmaine and raised her as his own child. Catherine’s murder remains unsolved, although it’s easy to speculate who would have the means and the motive to murder her.

Rose was born on November 29, 1953, in Northam, England. Her parents had seven children. Just like Fred, Rose grew up in poverty. Fred first took an interest in Rose in 1969, when Rose was 15, and Fred was 27. Her parents never approved of Fred, but Rose defied her parents’ wishes to not get involved with him. Within weeks of meeting Fred, Rose became a nanny to his daughters Charmaine and Anna Marie. Rose killed Charmaine in 1971. Just like most of the Wests’ murder victims, Charmaine’s remains were not found until many years later.

Fred and Rose got married in 1972. By all accounts, Fred forced Rose to become a sex worker very early on in their marriage. By 1983, Rose had given birth to eight children:

• Heather (daughter born in 1970)
• Mae June (daughter born in 1972)
• Stephen (son born in 1973)
• Tara (daughter born in 1977)
• Louise (daughter born in 1978)
• Barry (son born in 1980; died of a drug overdose in August 2020)
• Rosemary Jr. (daughter born in 1982)
• Lucyanna (daughter born in 1983)

Some of the fathers of these children were clients of Rose’s sex work. None of the Wests’ surviving children is interviewed for the documentary, although there is 1990s archival interview footage of their son Stephen West after Rose was sentenced to life in prison. The documentary does not mention all of the children by name. Nor does the documentary mention that Barry, the son who died from a drug overdose, told authorities that he witnessed his parents murder his sister Heather when Barry was about 7 years old.

In addition to being involved in prostitution, this murderous couple had a BDSM swinger lifestyle where they would pick up young women to go back to the West home and other places for orgies. Some of these women became murder victims. Other victims were teenage runaways or other young women who needed a place to stay and rented a room in the West family house. Other victims were believed to have been kidnapped off of streets (some of the victims were last seen waiting at bus stops) or tricked into going to the West house for non-sexual reasons. Rose and Fred also had surveillance equipment throughout their house, although there were no recordings found that showed them committing their crimes.

The 10 victims whom Rose was convicted of murdering are:

• Charmaine West, Fred’s 8-year-old stepdaughter, who died in 1971
• Lynda Gough, a 19-year-old West house lodger, who died in 1973
• Carol Cooper, a 15-year-old, who died in 1973
• Lucy Partington, a 21-year-old student, who died in 1973
• Thérèse Siegenthaler, a 21-year-old student, who died in 1974
• Shirley Hubbard, a 15-year-old, who died in 1974
• Juanita Mott, an 18-year-old former West house lodger, who died in 1975
• Shirley Robinson, a 19-year-old former West house lodger, who died in 1978
• Alison Chambers, a 16-year-old, who died in 1979
• Heather West, Fred and Rose’s 16-year-old daughter, who died in 1987

In the previously unreleased February 1994 audio recordings, the people heard during the police interviews are Fred West; detective constables Darren Law and Hazel Savage; Janet Leach, the appropriate adult (someone who provides emotional support for children or vulnerable adults who are questioned by police); and Fred’s solicitor/attorney Howard Ogden. During these interviews, Fred sometimes refuses to comment or give details, while other time he is forthcoming.

Leach was not interviewed for this documentary, but she says in an archival TV interview that Fred seemed to have two very different personalities: cold/emotionally detached and emotional/sensitive. Leach was also there and can be seen in the grainy video footage of Fred showing police where some of the bodies were buried. Leach says she became disgusted when she asked Fred why he was winking at her, and he replied, “Didn’t you see the bone sticking out?”

There are more previously unreleased police interviews of Fred than of Rose, who is only heard in audio recordings in the documentary. In the interviews, she is adamant about not knowing about the crimes, which she blames entirely on Fred. But at one point, she says that if she did do anything wrong, Fred forced her to do it and forced her to keep quiet about it.

In his police interviews, Fred is fiercely protective of her by saying that if Rose knew about the crimes, she would’ve reported it. But in the documentary’s third episode, it’s pointed out that when Fred saw Rose in a courtroom for the first time since they were in jail, he touched her twice, and she refused to acknowledge him. The reality must’ve sunk in at that point that she had turned against him, and he finally confessed that she was his partner in crime. By January 1995, he was dead by suicide.

People interviewed in the documentary include Russell “Russ” Williams, who was a Gloucestershire Police detective constable who worked on the West murder cases; Fred’s solicitor/attorney Ogden; Rose’s solicitor/attorney Leo Goatley; Sir Brian Leveson, lawyer for the prosecution; Sasha Wass, KC, lawyer for the defense; Professor Paul Britto, a forensic psychologist who assisted police investigators on the murder cases; Rachel Carlyle, who was the Gloucester Citizen newspaper’s crime correspondent in 1994 and who reported on the case; and Howard Sounes, who covered the West murder cases for the Sunday Mirror, wrote books about these cases, and is a senior producer of “Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story.”

Also interviewed are people from the victims’ sides of the story. Jayne Hamer was a 17-year-old runaway who lived as a lodger with Fred and Rose from October 1976 to November 1977. Hamer says at first, she thought Rose and Fred were a loving, normal couple. But she eventually learned it was a false image. Hamer was also a friend of pregnant murder victim Robinson, who told Hamer that Fred was the father of her unborn child, but Hamer didn’t believe Robinson at the time.

Hamer moved out of the house after she suspected there was child abuse going on behind closed doors because she heard a child shout, “Stop it, daddy!” on three separate occasions. She says she didn’t report any suspicious activity to authorities because she thought she wouldn’t be believed. Hamer is one of the people in the documentary who say that Rose was in control of things and Fred was “besotted” with Rose.

Sisters of some of the murder victims are interviewed in the documentary, and most are not identified by their last names. These interviewees include Dezra Chambers, older sister of Alison Chambers; Lucy Partington’s older sister Marian; and Juanita Mott’s sisters Mary-Ann and Belinda. Marian gives a poignant description of what happened when she visited the mortuary where her sister Lucy’s remains were being held. She says she wrapped Lucy’s skull in a blanket as a way of giving comfort to her long-deceased sister.

Marian explains, “It was the most healing part of the whole experience for me because it was like I didn’t see the horror that led to this. I just saw the beauty. I just knew it was the right thing to be doing. I just wanted to reclaim Lucy as my sister.” In another part of the documentary, Marian meets up with Williams to thank him for his police work on the case.

“Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story” has a deliberate and sometimes-plodding procedural tone that covers many of the basic facts. However, the series falls short in giving a lot of important details about the killers and their victims. The third episode, which is about Rose’s trial, has a fairly generic summary of what happened and could have had better insight about the ups and downs of the trial, considering that the documentary has interviews with lawyers from the prosecution and the defense.

Caroline Owens (a former live-in nanny for Rose and Fred) was the star witness in Rose’s trial because Owens was the only victim who was kidnapped, raped and tortured by Rose and Fred West and not only managed to escape but also reported what happened to authorities. Owens’ testimony was considered tainted because she made an advance agreement with the Sunday Mirror to be paid for an interview about the case after the trial ended. That information and archival interviews with Owens are in the documentary, but the documentary fails to mention that Owens died in 2016.

Despite flaws in not giving enough background information, “Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story” does a good job of putting a spotlight on the interrogation parts of the investigation where Fred West’s crucial confessions were made. There is also proper acknowledgement of the bravery of the West children who reported that their sister Heather was buried in the family’s home backyard. The police ultimately found much more when they searched the property. But without these children coming forward in the first place, sadistic serial killers Fred and Rose West might have gotten away with their disgusting crimes.

Netflix premiered “Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story” on May 14, 2025.