Rose West is alive. She turned 72 in November 2025 and has spent the last 30 years inside British prisons, with no possibility of that ever changing. She holds a whole life order — the most severe sentence in the English legal system — and will remain imprisoned until she dies.
Table of Contents
Where Is Rose West Right Now?
Rose West is currently held at HMP New Hall, a women’s prison in Flockton, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire. She has been there since June 13, 2019.
Since 2020, she has been living under the legal alias Jennifer Janes, changed by deed poll in an apparent attempt to lower her profile inside the prison. Every inmate there knows who she is regardless.
Her daily life, according to prison sources who spoke to The Sun in May 2025, is solitary and increasingly frail:
- She now lives in a disabled room because she can barely walk
- She rarely leaves her wing and is escorted by guards whenever she does
- She spends most of her time in her cell, watching nature documentaries about birds
- She eats tomato soup alone in her cell for breakfast
- She receives no visitors, though large amounts of post from outside admirers arrive regularly and are screened by security before reaching her
- Her hair has turned grey and she has gained weight, but she remains recognisable to anyone who remembers the trial photographs
Other inmates refuse to associate with her. One source told The Sun: “No one talks to her because everyone knows who she is and what she did, even if she has changed her name. When I was there, she tried to make friends with the other women and gave them gifts, like vapes, but she was rejected.”
Prison staff describe her as capable of being verbally abusive to officers when her requests are not met quickly enough. Her cell has been set on fire by fellow inmates at least once. In 2019, she tried to join a prison knitting group making wool angel wings for families who had lost newborn babies. The request was refused after an immediate backlash from staff and other prisoners.
Her former lawyer Leo Goatley, who worked with the Wests from 1992 and later appeared in the 2025 Netflix documentary about the case, described her prison life as “up and down.” He sent her a letter in 2023 telling her directly that he believed she was guilty of the murders. She never replied.
How Rose West Ended Up at HMP New Hall
Before New Hall, Rose West had been moved around the prison system multiple times, each time following a threat or an incident.
HMP Bronzefield in Surrey was her first location after conviction in 1995. She was removed in 2008 after a prison plot to attack her with a sock filled with snooker balls was uncovered.
She was transferred to HMP Low Newton in County Durham, a high-security women’s prison, where she spent over a decade. During that period she reportedly befriended Tracey Connelly, the mother of Baby P. She won a prison bake-off. By most accounts, Low Newton had become something close to a settled existence for her.
That ended in June 2019. Serial killer Joanna Dennehy was transferred into Low Newton. According to sources at the time, Dennehy threatened to kill Rose West directly, telling prison officials: “Send me there and I’ll f***ing kill Rose West.” Rose was reportedly in tears when staff packed her belongings and told her she was being moved. Officials described the transfer to New Hall as routine. Sources said otherwise.
Who Is Rose West and What Did She Do?
Rose West, born Rosemary Pauline Letts on November 29, 1953 in Northam, Devon, became one of the most notorious serial killers in British history alongside her husband Fred West.
Together, and in some cases separately, they tortured, raped, and murdered at least 12 young women and girls between 1967 and 1987 at properties in Gloucester, most notoriously 25 Cromwell Street, which the press named the House of Horrors.
Rose was convicted of 10 murders at trial. They included two members of her own family:
- Charmaine West (8) — Fred’s stepdaughter, killed by Rose alone in 1971 while Fred was in prison for an unrelated offence. Forensic evidence confirmed the child died before Fred’s release, making Rose solely responsible.
- Heather West (16) — Rose and Fred’s own daughter, killed in 1987 and buried beneath the garden patio.
The other eight victims were young women — many of them vulnerable, many hitchhiking or lodging at the address — who were abducted, sexually tortured, killed, and buried in the cellar or garden. A disturbing detail that appeared in every single victim autopsy: small bones, including finger, toe, and wrist bones, were found missing from the remains. Investigators believed these were retained deliberately.
In 1972, a 16-year-old named Caroline Owens was kidnapped by the couple, assaulted over several hours at Cromwell Street, and managed to escape. Her mother reported the attack. Fred and Rose were charged with rape and assault. In January 1973, Caroline — terrified — withdrew her testimony. The couple were fined £50 each and walked free. When Caroline heard the verdict, she attempted suicide.
She testified against Rose at the 1995 murder trial, providing the prosecution with evidence that Rose was an equal and willing participant. She told the BBC in 2004: “I still think about it, the fact that I didn’t push a rape charge, some of these girls could have lived.” Caroline Owens died in 2016.
How the Investigation Started in 1994
For years, Fred West told his children as a running threat that if they misbehaved, they would “end up like Heather, under the patio.” When West children were placed in care in the early 1990s and social workers heard this, police applied for a search warrant.
On February 24, 1994, officers arrived at 25 Cromwell Street. When Rose was shown the warrant, she turned pale, became hysterical, and called out for Fred. Police found Heather’s remains in the garden and kept digging. Nine bodies were eventually found in the cellar. Three more were found in the garden and at a former address.
Fred was arrested in February 1994 and Rose in April. At Gloucester Magistrates Court on June 30, 1994, they appeared together for the first time since the arrest. Fred placed his hand on Rose’s shoulder. She visibly flinched and pulled away. That was one of the last times they were in the same room.
The Trial, the Conviction, and the Sentence
Rose West stood trial alone at Winchester Crown Court, beginning October 3, 1995. Fred was dead by then.
She testified against her barrister’s advice. In the witness box, she was at times tearful and at other times strangely casual, joking about being “always pregnant” and laughing while describing one victim’s appearance. When shown photographs of the Cromwell Street victims and asked if she recognised any of them, her face turned bright red and she stuttered: “No, sir.”
The prosecution was led by Brian Leveson, now Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. He introduced a letter Rose had written to Fred in which she hinted at getting rid of Charmaine before the child disappeared. He also pointed out that the gag found on one victim, Thérèse Siegenthaler, was a scarf tied in a bow — what he called a “feminine touch” that pointed directly at Rose.
On November 21 and 22, 1995, the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on all ten counts of murder. The judge sentenced Rose to life imprisonment and stated she should never be released.
In July 1997, Home Secretary Jack Straw imposed a formal whole life tariff, stripping any possibility of parole or release. It is worth noting: Rose West is one of only three living women in England and Wales currently serving a whole life order. The other two are Joanna Dennehy and Lucy Letby. Myra Hindley is frequently cited as a fourth, but she died in prison in November 2002.
Rose attempted to appeal her convictions. The Court of Appeal rejected the application on March 18, 1996, without granting it a hearing. She has maintained her innocence ever since.
Fred West: What Happened to Him
Fred West never faced trial. While on remand at HMP Winson Green, Birmingham, he hanged himself on January 1, 1995, aged 53. He left a suicide note addressed to Rose, their son Stephen, and daughter Mae. Those who read it described it as reading largely like a love letter to his wife.
Where Are Rose West’s Children Now?
Fred and Rose West had 10 children between them. Most have had deeply difficult lives:
- Charmaine and Heather were murdered by their own parents
- Barry West died of a painkiller overdose in 2020, aged 40, at a halfway house in Maidstone. His death was ruled misadventure at a 2021 inquest.
- Anne Marie West, Fred’s daughter from his first marriage, survived and testified against Rose in 1995. She attempted suicide twice in the years that followed.
- Stephen West served a nine-month prison sentence in 2004. In 2025, he and his partner welcomed a new child — Rose West is now a grandmother, though Stephen has reportedly cut all contact with her.
- Mae West published the memoir Love As Always, Mum xxx in 2018. Speaking in 2025, she said: “Her death will be the next thing, and I suppose she might make a deathbed confession. I just wish she’d tell the truth.”
- Four younger children were given new identities after the 1994 arrests and are believed to still be living under assumed names
Rose cut off contact with all of her children in 2006, after Mae began asking questions about her role in the murders. Her own stated reason at the time: “I was never a parent then and could never be now.”
The Questions That Were Never Answered
Rose West still refuses to help investigators locate the remains of up to 20 other possible victims linked to the case.
The most prominent unresolved case involves Mary Bastholm, a 15-year-old café worker who disappeared from a bus stop in Gloucester in January 1968. Fred had privately admitted to killing her. Police excavated a Gloucester café in 2021. Nothing was found. The case remains officially open.
25 Cromwell Street no longer exists. Gloucester City Council demolished the building in October 1996. The site is now a pedestrian walkway with no name, no plaque, and no marker of any kind.
Rose West turned 72 last November, barely walking, largely alone, and without any legal path to freedom. Whether she will ever say what she actually knows — about those whose remains were never found, about the full extent of what happened at that address in Gloucester — her own daughter does not expect it. Not unless it comes at the very end.
