Why did Fred West have an “appropriate adult” allocated to him whilst he was interviewed by police?

[Snooks1971]

And would this happen now?

Thank you - I appreciate your post, maybe I am too simplistic.

I assume someone accused of the crimes he was accused of would have not been considered of sound mind back then.

There hasn't been any significant attitudinal change in this respect. The range of attitudes towards people committing these sorts of atrocities were the same as now. As I get older I feel increasingly amazed by how people misperceive the past.

My sister has a profound disability and went to special school in the 90s, it was full of children with diagnoses of autism and learning disabilities. It was a much more ableist time, sure, but those conditions were recognised, especially by professionals.

@FelixtheAardvark
What an incredibly rude statement !
Scroll on by ,rather than be nasty

Yes I think I may be guilty of that! The past seems so fudged (Yorkshire Ripper for an example) but that’s looking back with computers and learned experiences within police forces.

thanks everyone

It was talked about a lot. The more common term then was Asperger's syndrome and there was plenty of awareness among ordinary people. Just not the degree of relentless labelling that we have developed in the last few years.

The TV show 'Appropriate adult' about the woman assigned to him was very good. Dominic West and Emily Watson. Presuming Dominic and Fred were not related?! DW was excellent though. I still find the whole West story to be unbelievably shocking all these years later.

What do you mean those days? The police were digging up the garden of 25 Cromwell St when I got married in Gloucester in 1994. Fred and Rose West were arrested and charged in the same year. We’re not talking about ancient history, here.

Thankyou. They weren’t celebrated though in the main stream. Makes me angry now.

The term ‘learning difficulties” might not have been recognised but the concept of low intelligence certainly was.

To cover the case/prosecution. Let's be honest the man was completely a nut job. So glad he's gone.

Sure, if that makes you feel better! I wasn’t alive back then, hence why I said “I assume”.

Fred west remains a notorious killer to this day, so it’s not particularly difficult to infer he was infamous and notable back then.

The thing is you are coming from your own experience, if you didn't work in education of healthcare then you would have no reason to know about learning difficulties or autism. It was far more common for children to be in specialist schools and not in mainstream. So chances of you coming into contact with anyone or general chit chat would be minimal.

If we didn't have the internet most people unless directly working in the industry or with family experience wouldn't have a clue either

in those days

What does that mean, its not that long ago, its not the 1920s or something.

Learning difficulties were recognised in 1970s, if perhaps not diagnosed in the same way as now. I attended a school which had Remedial classes on site.

I started this thread against my better judgement, been here for 19 years. As ever, asking a question on MN is so much better than googling your query, however random! Thank you.

“In those days?!”
it’s just a phrase because I was in my 20s in the 90s! It seems like a lifetime ago.
I’m not 200 years old! It’s a phrase that is all.

Remedial class was not necessarily for people with LD. My DP was in a remedial class when he was in school, and does not have LD.
I went to college that had a Transitional class, and that was aimed at people with LD. It taught life skills etc along side playing catch up for the those who didn't get through GSCE English and Maths.

Special educational needs, 'special schools', autism are not new concepts.

The police have for a long time been cautious of cases collapsing because of procedural errors - people deemed not to have been able to understand the caution or questions given to them.

Better to offer assistance if not necessary than to have someone found not guilty on the basis of flawed investigation

It may seem a long time ago to you but I was born in the 70s and it was practically yesterday

So much this ^^

I'm only two years older than OP, but don't think about the Cromwell Street case as being that long ago. And whatever terms were used, learning difficulties and SEN were certainly recognised and accommodated in the 90s, and had been for decades.
Even in the 70s there were “remedial” teachers who came into my mainstream primary school, as well as there being special schools.

And yes, the attitudes towards those committing such crimes was very much the same as now.

I mean a lot of conditions may not have had specific names like now but people have known about general learning difficulties for years. They were often just called names like slow or worse.
We had a neighbour growing up who would have been in her 70s in the 1980s. She used to tell us stories of her being in the “school for slow children”. She couldn’t really read or write other than her name. But she wasn’t a stupid lady. She used to make up amazing fiction stories on the spot for us kids! She could keep us entertained for hours! If she was in visiting at my bedtime I’d always ask if she could tell be a bedtime story! It was so much better than anything from a book!

Yes in the 70s we knew it as people who were slow or backward or retarded, those were the general terms.

Yep, I know a lady in her 60s who went to a "special school"... had no diagnosis of anything until her 50s where she was diagnosed with Asperger's.

How often are you in custody???

@Snooks1971, it doesn't have to have a label to have an AA, if they clearly don't understand, or even if there is a suspicion they don't fully understand, an AA would be provided.