'I gave her a f***ing sorting out': Fred West chillingly confessed to murder of missing teenager Mary Bastholm in tapes unearthed for Ch5 documentary
- The tape features in Channel 5's Fred and Rose West: The Search for the Victims
- Producers also tipped off police about where Mary might have been buried
- But an extensive police search at The Clean Plate cafe revealed nothing
- West's son Stephen told police his father had confessed to Mary's murder Serial killer Fred West appears to chillingly confess the murder of missing teenager Mary Bastholm and had to 'give her a f***ing sorting out' in tapes unearthed by a documentary airing this week.
West, one of Britain's most notorious serial killers, murdered at least 12 young women, eight of whom were raped, tortured and mutilated.
Nine of his victims were discovered buried in the back garden at the Wests' home in Cromwell Street, Gloucester, in 1994.
Fred West, pictured with his wife Rose, appears to chillingly confess the murder of Mary Bastholm in an audio recording heard by the makers of a new TV documentary airing this week
Police have long suspected he may have also killed other women, including 15-year-old waitress Mary, who has never been found. He is said to have confessed to murdering her to his son Stephen, but never admitted it to police.
The latest revelation comes just weeks after the same Channel 5 production team tipped off police about the potential whereabouts of Mary's body, sparking an excavation of The Clean Plate cafe in Gloucester where she worked as a waitress and West was known to have frequented.
During the recording, which was made by a legal team, West is heard saying: 'The girl, Mary Bastholm, remember I said that to you in the car. I had to go back and give her a f***ing sorting out,' The Sun reported.The tape features in Channel 5's Fred and Rose West: The Search for the Victims, which begins on Monday.
It is unclear in the recording who he is talking to or whether he is recalling a conversation with his wife, Rose, who was convicted of 10 murders.
However Leo Goatley, lawyer for Rose West, said that the serial killer - who killed himself while awaiting trial at Birmingham's Winson Green prison - was notorious for not telling the truth.
He told the documentary: 'Fred West was a prolific liar. I'm quite sure that he did kill Mary Bastholm, but trying to extract the remote strands of truth from Fred's fantasies and lies was very difficult.'
More than 50 years on since her abduction from a bus stop on Bristol Road, Gloucester, in 1968, her remains have never been found.
Goatley added: 'One of the wicked and sinister things about the West case is that troubling feeling that there's more that needs to be discovered.'
Elsewhere, the documentary makes startling revelations about how officers gagged as they came across the bodies of West's 12 known victims.
His lawyer, Howard Ogden, graphically describes how they were beaten, raped and tortured, including having their fingers removed.
He said: 'I remember one particular grave. It was a skull that was wrppaed round with masking tape and coming out of the nostrils of the skull were two little pipes that enabled the victim to breathe.'
Bindings and bondage suits were found at 25 Cromwell Road, Gloucester, alongside evidence of holes drilled into the beams of the cellar, which is consistent with the victims being strung up during their mistreatment.
Goatley said: 'The excavation of the cellar had tangible, real evidence of the fate of those victims.
'There was a picture emerging, sadistic sexual abuse, resulting in their lives ending, whether deliberately through stabbing or strangulation or through just total abuse and neglect and expiring whilst they were, for example, strung up in the cellar.'
The documentary has regularly hit the headlines in recent weeks after producers tipped off police that West may have buried Mary Bastholm in the cellar of The Clean Plate cafe, where she worked as a waitress.
The cellar where police searched for the remains of missing schoolgirl Mary Bastholm
Fred West is pictured with his son Stephen as a boy. Mr West is understood to have told an officer his father confided in him that he murdered Mary
But police excavation work costing at least £55,000 has found no trace of her - with officers believing 'evidence' presented to them was detritis from a pipe accidentally drilled though by the show's producers.
Earlier this week, Gloucestershire Police were forced to defend their actions after no trace of Mary was found and promised to review how the force had acted with the TV crew.
It came as extraordinary details emerged that the documentary crew, with the blessing of her family and the cafe, had drilled into the floor themselves and then put an endoscope camera down the hole.
They believed they captured images of blue material matching the coat the girl had been wearing when she went missing and contacted the police.
But Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden said he thought the pictures showed wreckage from a pipe they had drilled through that simply appeared blue through the imaging technology.
Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden with a representative of Mary Bastholm, who is believed murdered by Fred West
He said: 'Everybody working on this is disappointed that we didn't find Mary. Allowing her family to finally lay Mary to rest after 50 years was absolutely the most important reason for this excavation.
'The information that was presented to us by the production company on May 7 was significant.
The marked-up cellar floor of Clean Plate café in Southgate Street, Gloucester, on the day excavation work began last month
'The family had been contacted by the production company and the owners of the café and they were working together and the family were hugely supportive of the work of the production company.
'New information had come to light that we felt it was appropriate to assess. The new material was predominantly that there was a blue material in a void in the ground under the café.'It is unfortunate that the initial work by the endoscope and the drilling by the production company couldn't guarantee that there were human remains or nothing connected to Mary's disappearance within that void.
'We had to make a decision to excavate. There was an image of blue material, we felt it was the right decision.
A police tent covers the site in front of the Clean Plate cafe after finding evidence a victim of Fred West may be buried there
A police officer guards the area of the Clean Plate cafe, where a cellar excavation was taking place over a two week spell
'I don't think there is any legal basis where we would seek costs from the production company although if in a gesture of goodwill they would be prepared to provide something that would be something we need to discuss with them.
'We felt of having the expectations of the family raised as they were as a consequence of the activity that was taken and that the family were very supportive, we couldn't discount what had been seen by the endoscope.
'I believe the overall cost to date is £55,000, it may be that cost rises to £75,000, that doesn't include the reparation costs.
The cafe, which was formerly called the Oasis cafe, had building work done by West and Mary had also worked at the venue
'When we were called by the production company it was because they had seen an image of what appeared to be blue material.
'When our senior investigating officer and our experts looked at the footage from the endoscope that had been deployed by the TV production company it was clear that there was imagery of something that was blue and it couldn't be identified as to what that was.
'Under excavation we found a pipe that wasn't blue and we believe that the drilling may have gone through that pipe and created some sort of detritus or debris which is what the endoscope picked up.
'When we looked we didn't see anything blue so what we believe is that the imagery has given the impression of something blue.'
The family of Mary said they are 'still very sad' that her body was not recovered during the Clean Plate cafe excavation, but continue to 'hold out some hope that one day Mary will be found'.
They added: 'We were hoping to get final closure on her disappearance so that we could put her to rest.
'We have been open-minded throughout this process and we now know the cafe can be ruled out.
'We can however hold out some hope that one day Mary will be found.
'Mary was a strong-willed, happy-go-lucky teenager dearly loved by her parents and two brothers.
'She enjoyed life and was just coming into her own when her life was tragically cut short.
'Her parents and two brothers were never the same after she went missing.
'They have now sadly passed away without ever knowing what happened to their loving daughter and sister.'
The areas dug up were identified by a team of expert forensic archaeologists and anthropologists ahead of the excavation work, with experts working out the remaining parts of the cellar had been undisturbed since prior to 1968, when Mary Bastholm disappeared.
Sir Trevor was understood to be making a new follow up film to his ITV 2019 show Fred & Rose West: The Real Story, with particular focus on the abduction of Mary, viewed by experts as West's last unsolved murder.
Fred West's son Stephen West (left) assisted police after six 'anomalies' were found at a cafe where missing Mary Bastholm is feared to be buried. Mr West gave information to an officer who led the murder investigation into Fred and Rose West (right)
Gloucestershire Constabulary's crime scene coordinator Martin Cuffe said of the search area: 'It's probably about 20m long by 10m wide. It's not an expansive area. It's a very old building, several hundred years old and we have a number of challenges.
Gloucestershire Police said experts had been focusing on six areas underneath a toilet floor in the cellar area (pictured)
'There are a lot of other hazards including very low ceilings - around four to five feet. A lot of the time our staff are having to work bent over. It creates for quite a challenging environment; a lot of our time is spent on hands and knees crawling around.'
Anything discovered has to be taken to a lab to be checked over properly and tested.
He added: 'That could be human remains, but it could also be items of evidence, personal property or belongings.
'Once sieved it's then transported and sorted to another location within our cordon. We can then go back and review each section.'
It comes after police interviewed West's son Stephen, who he had confided in that he had murdered Mary, as well as other women, whom he buried in a well in a remote cornfield opposite the Berkeley nuclear power station in Gloucestershire.
A police source told MailOnline that West explained he had given the information to chief superintendent John Bennett, the now-retired officer who led the murder investigation into his father and mother, Rose West, back in 1994, but was not believed.
The police source said: 'Officers spoke with Stephen West yesterday and asked him to go back over what his father had told him back in 1994 when he visited his father in prison.
'Mr West explained that he had told Chief Supt Bennet, who led the police investigation, that his father had told him that he had killed numerous women and buried them under a well in a remote field near the Berkeley nuclear power station.
'He also said that his father had admitted to murdering Mary Bastholm but didn't want to reveal where she was.
'However, Mr West said his information was apparently brushed off at the time because Chief Supt Bennett considered his father to be a liar and someone who could not be trusted to tell the truth.
'Mr West told officers that when his information wasn't acted on he travelled to the location himself to see if his father was telling the truth and found the well, which he described as being in 'the middle of nowhere'.
'In light of the current investigation at The Clean Plate cafe, Mr West's information on what his father disclosed to him from prison is being treated with much more seriousness.'
Last week Mr West confirmed to MailOnline that his father had admitted to him that he had murdered Mary and had done work on the cafe where she worked, which was then known as the Pop-In cafe.
Contractors were seen arriving at The Clean Plate cafe in Gloucester
A TV production company filming at the site - now called The Clean Plate - reported finding blue material buried. Pictured: The cellar floor before excavation
Teenager Mary Bastholm, who worked at the Pop-In Cafe in Gloucester, went missing in 1968. A mallet and brush in the cellar
An aerial view of police activity at The Clean Plate cafe in Gloucester
Contractors arrived at The Clean Plate cafe in Gloucester as the investigation continued
Police found 'possible evidence' in Gloucester of where a suspected teenage victim of serial killer Fred West may be buried
'I said to him, 'Did you do it? You've always denied it.' He said 'yeah, I did do it. I did take her'.
'I told him that he had to tell the police as he had nothing to lose as he couldn't be in any more trouble than he already was but he was adamant that he wouldn't.'
Mr West added: 'He talked to me about another 20-30 victims on top of what the police found. He said he lost count, forgot victims' names.
'There were a number of other locations that my dad told me he'd buried his victims. I told police this back in 1994/5.'
Fred West hanged himself on New Year's Day 1995 while awaiting trial for the murders of 12 women. He was never investigated over Mary's disappearance but has always been the prime suspect.
The potential new leads investigated in the cafe were uncovered by a documentary team, led by Sir Trevor McDonald, who brought in dogs trained to find dead bodies that became agitated when in the basement.
They also used a scanner able to penetrate stone which picked up a 'suspicious object' under the concrete floor.
Forensic archaeologists discovered six 'voids' – around 2ft at their deepest – in the cellar toilet area of the cafe. A camera placed through a hole in the floor found a piece of blue material beneath.
Mary was wearing a blue coat, blue and white dress and was carrying a blue bag on the day she went missing on January 6, 1968.
Detective Chief Inspector John Turner said police would consider their options following the dig but an 'obvious' line of inquiry would be interviewing serial killer Rose West.
The 67-year-old is serving a life sentence at HMP New Hall in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, after she collaborated in the torture and murder of nine young women and her eight-year-old stepdaughter with her husband.
Prior to the investigation starting, DCI Turner said: 'If we were to find something I will then consider other investigative opportunities.
'One of the obvious ones would be speaking to Rose West.
'We found six voids within the basement. It could be water ... it could be something decomposing.
'They have drilled a hole in the ground to vent the area and at that point the search dogs with them have indicated some kind of interest.
'An endoscope has then been put into the void and they had seen what they have described as a blue bit of material.'
Mr Turner said of West himself: 'If Fred were alive, undoubtedly he would be interviewed around the disappearance of Mary.
'He is the only one who really knows if he had involvement in Mary's death.'
Police officers remove objects from The Clean Plate cafe in Gloucester
Police at the scene in Gloucester as they prepared to excavate The Clean Plate cafe
Mary's disappearance in 1968 was at a time when builder West was abducting girls in Gloucester.
Detectives have recently spoken to Stephen West, Mr Turner said.
Mary's body was not found during the 1994 excavation of the Wests' home, now known as the House of Horrors, on Cromwell Street in Gloucester.
The detective said there was conflicting evidence during the original House of Horrors inquiry as to whether West had carried out renovation work at the cafe in 1968 or later, in 1976.
'Since then there has been a lot of rumour and folklore about Mary and Fred's link with the cafe and the decision was made that there was insufficient evidence at the time to excavate the site,' Mr Turner said.
'I met the Bastholm family on Monday and spoke with them at length about what we were going to do and the plan moving forward.
'Clearly since 1968 the family haven't known what's happened to Mary.
'There has been some speculation that she may have been linked to Fred West at that time and there was conflicting information within the investigation around that.
'But it is really important to them that we do actually now search for the truth and find out once and for all if Mary is buried under the basement.'
In a statement, Mary's family said: 'We are extremely happy Gloucestershire Police is continuing to try and search for Mary and this gives us a chance to potentially put her at rest after all these years.
'We hope this is a chance to finally get closure for Mary and would like to continue to ask for privacy whilst the excavation is ongoing.'
West is said to have told his son Stephen that he killed Mary while in custody, just weeks before killing himself in January 1995.
Detectives have already interviewed Stephen to investigate the claims.
Police had received information that West was responsible for renovations in 1968 to the basement of the cafe, then called the Pop-In.
But contradictory statements that West had not carried out building work there led police to rule out an earlier search.
West (shown above) worked as a builder, and he may have laid the floor that is now being dug up as part of a forensic probe
Mr West is understood to have told an officer that his serial killer father confided in him that he murdered Mary as well as other women, who he buried in a well in a remote cornfield opposite the Berkeley nuclear power station (file picture)
Drone pictures from above the Clean Plate show police putting up forensic tents at the front and rear of the property
A petition in 2012 led then-Gloucestershire chief constable Tony Melville to review the investigation for Mary. But he said they would not conduct a further search unless 'new and compelling' evidence came to light.
West, one of Britain's most notorious serial killers, is known to have murdered at least 12 young women, eight of whom were raped, tortured and mutilated.
The remains of nine victims were discovered buried in the back garden at the Wests' home in Cromwell Street, Gloucester, in 1994.
West killed himself while awaiting trial at Birmingham's Winson Green prison.
Mary was on her way to play Monopoly with Tim Merrett in nearby Hardwicke when she went missing.
Last week Mr Merrett, now 72, said he has no doubt West killed Mary but doubts she is buried under the cafe.
He said: 'To me it doesn't make sense that she is there but I would urge the police to keep looking for her.
'I've never forgotten Mary, she was my girlfriend for about six months when she just disappeared.
'She was coming up to her 16th birthday.
'When Fred West was caught it was obvious to me that Mary was one of his victims.
'He didn't give up the names of everyone he killed and I believe Mary was one of those.'
Tormented, tortured, and murdered: Tragic lives of Fred and Rose West's children who they sadistically abused... with daughter Heather becoming their final victim
Monster Rose West was the mother to eight children, five of whom were fathered by her husband Fred.
Fred West also had a daughter, Anne-Marie, and a step-daughter, Charmaine, from his previous marriage. Charmaine was murdered by Rose. Her mother Rena was one of West's early victims.
Rose had Tara, Rosemary Junior and Lucyanna by other men.
Together, the Wests had daughters Heather, Mae and Louise and sons Stephen and Barry, who was the youngest.
Heather West
Heather, the eldest, ended up as the couple's final victim when she was murdered aged 16 in 1987. She was strangled and her head was cut off.
Admitting the murder to police, West said in an interview: 'I cut her legs off with that and I'm not telling you I have lived that a million times doing that since then and then I cut her head off and then I put her in the bin and put the lid on and rolled it down to the bottom of the garden behind the Wendy house.
Jayne Hamer, who lodged with the serial killers, said in a documentary earlier this year she heard Heather screaming 'stop it Daddy'.
She said Heather later warned her to 'get out of here while you can' and added that the teenager 'saved my life'.
Heather West was the eldest child of Fred and Rosemary West. She was murdered by her parents in 1987
Mae West
Mae West, now 49, is oldest surviving child of her sadistic parents. In an interview with the Daily Mail in 2018, she spoke about show she was horrifically abused by both her parents.
She was groped and fondled by her father and beaten by her mother, while her uncle John – West's brother – raped her when she was aged just five.
Despite her horrific ordeal, Ms West is now happily married and has two children.
Her memoir, 'Love As Always, Mum xxx', was published in 2018.
She said that for ten years she visited her mother in prison but ended contact with her after experiencing more of her 'coercive, controlling' behaviour.
Mae West, now 49, is oldest surviving child of her sadistic parents. In an interview with the Daily Mail in 2018, she spoke about show she was horrifically abused by both her parents
Mae (left) is seen above in a childhood photo with her elder sister Heather
Stephen West
Stephen West, born in 1973, is the third child of Fred and Rosemary.
He was jailed for nine months in 2004 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl.
Mr West said in a podcast interview last year that his spell in prison saved his life.
'If they hadn't sent me to prison I wouldn't be alive today.
'Without a doubt. I came out a better person and made massive changes to my life.'
Stephen West, born in 1973, is the third child of Fred and Rosemary. He was jailed for nine months in 2004 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl
He said he had previously thought he was not affected by his parents' crimes but then admitted 'I didn't come out of it unscathed at all'.
Mr West revealed he had cut off contact with his mother, saying he 'had to'.
'In 1999 she called me with hate and was blaming me for everything.
'She said I should have died when I was born and all that sort of stuff. It was a disgrace,' he added.
Louise
Louise, born in 1978, was the youngest daughter of the Wests.
She has not spoken publicly about her childhood.
Barry
Barry, the Wests' youngest child, was found dead from a suspected overdose last year.
Barry West, 40, (pictured) has been found dead from a suspected overdose
He was aged just seven when he saw his parents beat his sister Heather to death.
He was taken into care five years later and was too scared to give evidence at his mother's trial in 1995.
Barry was plagued by psychiatric problems and nightmares his entire life and is understood to have long battled drug addiction.
After his mother's trial, he moved from Gloucester – where he had lived with his parents – to a different part of the country, where he lived under a new identity.
He was found dead at a hostel in Maidstone, Kent.
A family source said in the Mail on Sunday after his death: 'He never found peace, never escaped the ghosts of Cromwell Street. Of all the Wests' younger children, Barry had the most difficult life.'
Tara, Rosemary Junior and Lucyanna
Tara was one of the children who her mother, who worked as a prostitute, is believed to have had with a sexual client.
She previously said that, unlike her siblings, she escaped abuse. She said that her mother 'spoilt' her because of guilt she had about her origins.
Of West, she said: 'I realise now that Dad was only interested in his natural daughters. He thought they were his property. Because I wasn't his daughter he left me alone.'
Rosemary West had two further children – Rosemary Junior, who was born in 1982, and Lucyanna.
Charmaine West
Fred West's stepdaughter from his first marriage, Charmaine was murdered by Rose in 1971 while Fred was in prison.
She was killed after refusing to give in to the woman's bullying.
When he was released from prison, Fred buried Charmaine's body.
This led to him murdering his ex-wife Rina West, who as Charmaine's mother had been asking about the eight-year-old.
Anne Marie West
Anne Marie is West's daughter from his first marriage.
She was raised by Rose after her mother and sister were murdered.
Gill Britt, another woman who lodged with Fred and Rose, revealed in a 2019 podcast how Anne Marie knocked on her bedroom door to reveal 'horrific' bruises.
Anne Marie (pictured in a TV interview in 2011) is West's daughter from his first marriage. She was raised by Rose after her mother and sister were murdered
She added: 'Straight away she made it quite clear that people were doing this to her.
'In hindsight, at 17, I would never got my head round it but as I've grown up and had children and had life experience.
'I know that I know that those injuries were inflicted in a very abusive way.'
Ms Britt says the youngster was just 13 when she first showed her her injuries.
She would eventually escape their clutches with the help of her boyfriend Chris Davis in 1985 and would go on to testify against her father and Rose in court.
When she left 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester she was still unaware Fred and Rose had murdered her mother Rena and her two sisters. They were only caught in 1994.
The tragic victims of the House of Horrors murderers
Although Fred West was convicted of killing 12 women and Rose 10, the pair are thought to have killed up to 20 more.
One victim who was almost certainly killed by West was his former girlfriend Anne McFall who like the others, was found in a shallow grave with body parts missing. West denied it.
The warped pair used whips to torture their victims as well as their own children.
Fred West committed suicide by hanging himself in a prison cell in January 1995 — before he could stand trial for the murders.
Rose West is still a prisoner at HMP Low Newton in Durham, having been handed a rare 'whole life tariff' for her part in the killings.
Confirmed victims include:
Charmaine West, eight: Fred West's stepdaughter from his first marriage, Charmaine was murdered by Rose in 1971 while Fred was in prison.
Rena Costello, 27: Charmaine's mother Rena, Fred's first wife, was murdered when she arrived to pick up her daughter Charmaine in August 1971. With Charmaine already dead, it is thought Fred killed her to avoid an investigation.
Lynda Gough, 20: Miss Gough was a lodger in the West's home and was killed in April 1973. Rose told her mother she had moved to Weston-super-Mare.
Carol Ann Cooper, 15: The teenager disappeared while walking home from the cinema to her Worcester children's home in November 1973. Her remains were found buried in the Wests' garden.
Lucy Partington, 21: After spending Christmas with her family in Cheltenham, Miss Partington disappeared after leaving to catch a bus. The student was the cousin of novelist Martin Amis and the sister of author Marian Partington.
Therese Siegenthaler, 22: The South London student was killed in April 1974 after disappearing while attempting to hitch-hike to Ireland.
Shirley Hubbard, 15: One of the Wests' youngest victims, she disappeared on her way home from college in Droitwich. When her body was discovered, her head was completely covered in tape with a rubber tube placed in her mouth to allow her to breathe.
Juanita Mott, 18: Miss Mott, a former lodger at 25 Cromwell Street, was living in Newent when she vanished.
Shirley Robinson, 19: Another lodger, Miss Robinson was killed in 1978 after becoming pregnant with West's child.
Alison Chambers, 17: The teenager disappeared in August 1979 and her remains were later found beneath the patio at 25, Cromwell Street.
Heather West, 17: Repeatedly raped by her father, Heather complained to friends about the abuse and was murdered by her parents in a bid to keep her quiet.
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