Free Rose West: The Making of a Monster by Jane Carter Woodrow

she would just as soon as the younger
     children had grown up. But every year Bill made sure there was another baby on the way to keep her there, although Daisy was
     to have several miscarriages.
    When the children got older, 8-year-old Andy or one of his big sisters would push the well-worn pram over the Burrows with
     Gordon – the latest Letts arrival – inside. Three-year-old Graham would sit on the pram seat at the front, while Lassie, Glenys’s
     collie, ran along beside this – briefly – happy little bunch. The children would pass an aged donkey in a field on their journey,
     which they would make a fuss of and play games of trying to guess its age. Rosie, however, never went on any of these trips
     but stayed at home with her mother, who wouldteach her knitting and crochet and later dressmaking – which Rose would excel at and use as a means of enticing a young victim
     to her bedroom in Cromwell Street many years later. Otherwise, little 7-year-old Rosie would be at home, alone with her father.
    When Bill wasn’t trying to electrocute his workmates, he would take Patsy and Joyce out in the works van. One of the young
     apprentices at Smith’s was keen on Patsy, but Bill warned him off her, telling him that his family were of the ‘Catholic persuasion’.
     This was one of Bill’s many lies: the Letts’ were not raised as Catholics and didn’t go to church at all at this time. It
     was no coincidence that this was when Daisy had just had another baby, and clearly Bill had his own ideas for Patsy.
    When the 15-year-old got out of the bath one day, her father followed her into her bedroom where he pushed her onto the bed
     and tried to remove her bathrobe. Patsy screamed as he tried to touch her and pushed him away. She then rushed out to the
     landing, where Bill caught up with her and hurled the young girl down the stairs. Her injuries were such that she had to attend
     the Casualty department at the local Barnstaple hospital. After making a second attempt to molest Patsy, Bill beat her when
     she resisted. Patsy fled Northam soon after this, joining the Wrens with the help of her friend’s father, Mr Sander Job, who
     gave her a reference. With Patsy gone, Bill bullied his next daughter, Joyce. On a trip out in the van, he took her to a pub.
     Bill was barely a drinker himself, but tried to ply the 14-year-old with gin masked with orange juice. Joyce had always stood
     up to her father, which didn’t go down well with Bill, who would hit her.
    Soon afterwards, Daisy and the younger children helped Joyce move her bed across to her friend, Diane Glover’s house. Diane
     was two years younger than Joyce and both girls attended secondary school in Bideford at the time. The younger girl remembered
     sharing her bedroom for several weeks with Joyce,who said her father ‘had turned strange’, and that she needed to get away from him. This begs the question: did Daisy know
     that Bill had been physically abusive to both the older girls and had tried to sexually abuse Patsy? And if so, did she also
     have any doubts or concerns about his special ‘bond’ with their youngest daughter?
    Joyce began work in Bideford soon afterwards and moved back home, but when her father hit her again, she went to stay with
     another friend. Glenys was the next daughter in line, but Bill did not turn his attentions to her. As a small child she could
     happily sit on her father’s lap without him ever touching her inappropriately, or hitting her. Although the exact nature of
     Bill’s relationship with his youngest daughter is unclear at this point, he had actually begun to look for opportunities elsewhere
     to satisfy his lust for young girls.
    The Rock & Roll Club
    Bill had only been in his job at Smith’s for a year or so when, having been caught using the works van to go on day trips
     to Plymouth, he was sacked. Bill found another job soon after, working for television repairers, Squires in Bideford, but
     he quickly