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

[Snooks1971]

And would this happen now?

I was one such child. Labelled clumsy failed 90 percent of my exams. I made jolly sure ds2 's dyspraxia was diagnosed swiftly.

I was 50 this year and don't see it as 'so long ago' or that learning difficulties weren't recognised then.

@BESTAUNTB it depends!
There's a weirdness in the situation, in that children ALWAYS require an AA, and that's set out in law.
However for vulnerable adults, there is a requirement that they are assessed an an AA provided, but no equivalent law that says the Local Authority must provide an AA.

AAs are often duty social workers, but both local authorities and policing bodies often commission AA services to meet the gap, and for the very frequent occasions when duty social workers can't attend. (This is for when family/friends etc aren't used, which they often are in the first instance, as they're deemed unsuitable)

Best place to start if you're interested is NAAN (the National Appropriate Adults Network).

Following on from this if anyone is interested there was a very recent case where all 4 of the defendants were found to have significant learning disabilities and their cognitive ages were found to be well below their chronological ages - one of them was 18 with a mental age of approximately 8. All had terribly dysfunctional backgrounds. They had an appropriate adult in court with them explaining proceedings to them. It’s a horrible case because the crime itself is just so absolutely awful - two teenage boys were chased down and stabbed to death meters from one of their homes, by machetes, in a case of mistaken identity. (Murder of Max Dixon and Mason Rist if anyone wants to google). They had an adult male aged 45 drive them around looking for someone to attack- he got 38 years. The others also got very long sentences. All convicted of murder, even though only 2 of the 5 actually stabbed the boys - and rightly so, they all acted together. Really awful case.

I think the release of The Rain Man (1988) made it pretty widely known

That's exactly what I'm talking about - the image of the autistic savant unable to function without support was what most people thought of when they heard 'autism'. Not autism as we know it today, with a spectrum of functioning levels and no requirement to have an almost supernatural-level gift.

Learning difficulties were known about, they just didn't have specific labels, children were 'slow' or 'behind' or 'difficult' or 'day dreamers' or a dozen other things that might now be given specific labels. And quite a few left school hardly able to read and write. It would have been quite obvious that he had very little education and was not mentally competent. Apart from being a nasty piece of work.

So much nonsense on this thread. Please don't delude yourselves that understanding of learning difficulties and autistic spectrum disorders has only been within the last 10 years. It has been for far, far longer.

Thank you for replying.

I'm sorry that was the situation with MH issues.

Sadly, this is still not always the case.

The justice system is filled with prejudice (just look at the convictions of black men vs white men for the same crime) and people still don’t recognise that ND can be expressed in different ways.

Just because someone has a higher IQ does not always mean they are able to fully understand their crimes or aren’t at risk of being coerced.

There is also PTSD and trauma etc too.

Additional needs or ND are never excuse to commit a crime but these need to be taken into account when trying to prevent crime or rehabilitate a criminal.

Prisons are filled with people who are ND or have MH or development issues.

It’s a bit of a tricky subject to talk about, as people get offended.
Which is understandable, considering how many men were convicted of crimes they didn’t commit, simply because they were ‘odd’ but prisons and the general public are now coming around to the idea that interventions for NT people may not work with many of these men.

There is a neurodiversity lead in all prisons and they all get people who they can talk to about their issues too.

This.

My partner has ASD, and now has a conviction directly related to it. He was offered CBT as a treatment as part of his sentence... which does not help at all. really. Was just some box ticking crap.
He was under probation, and they had no idea what to do with him. He only ended up in court as he refused to accept a caution.

I’m older than you and they certainly were recognised but not necessarily with the same language as people use now.

Oh gosh - I didn’t mean it that way at all @XenoBitch! In fact I thought the poster who asked you why was being rude, and your response to them (‘Why do you ask?’) was the right sort of cutting them down to size, which I found amusing. It was supposed to be more of a solidarity thing. Sorry to have upset you.

I’m always amazed how long it took for the extent of the wests crimes to be uncovered when you consider many women and girls who got close to them including Fred’s wife and daughter went missing. And then you have 100s of women claim Fred was offering them lifts left, right and centre. Plus rose was well known for sex work and sleeping with her own father etc, there is so much chaos in this one home and yet, their crimes went unnoticed for a long time.
Fred’s interviews are chilling because as well as being a true sexual sadist, he does seem completely vulnerable which makes you wonder how vulnerable his victims must have been. Heartbreaking stuff.
Rose seemed marginally smarter but really not by much.

Ah, ok. These new MN react things can cause trouble, eh?

I never knew that! (That he was illiterate,I mean).

I wonder if him being so vulnerable/low intelligence made him more appealing to the victims 🤔

It’s usually quite intelligent men who are manipulative and get away with it isn’t it, but maybe he was able to connect easier or something. I don’t know.

There’s a Netflix documentary (woman of the hour?) about an American serial killer and it was quite shocking how many reports were made about him that went un-investigated.

It’s even more sad and frustrating to think so much suffering could have been avoided.

@Wonderi that is so true! I think back to my late teen years getting taxis and one driver was very chatty and was known as “Tim nice but dim”, I’m unsure if his name was Tim but he was a lovely man, lots of chat and he would talk you through the routes, likely autistic with hindsight because of his passion for the road names and signs but because he was jolly and chatty but never pushed any topics on you out of his talk of road names etc I always felt so much happier in his car than any other driver. I enjoyed his predictability and Fred does seem predictable. You can imagine him talking about the weather or what he’s having for dinner.
When the horrors of Cromwell street came out I was living with my wee nana for a bit and I’ll never ever forget her being shocked that someone with an accent as gentle as Fred could be a monster.
It’s amazing how biased we are to imagine serial killers to be highly intelligent psychopaths like ted bundy when in reality huge proportions have really low IQs and another thing I’ve read is very poor attachment as children and head trauma. But I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, Fred seeming vulnerable makes women more comfortable and what a dangerous situation that was.

‘Learning Difficulties’ is used in an Educational setting to describe specific difficulties someone may have, such as dyslexia, dyscalculia etc… An Ed Psychologist would diagnose not a medical doctor as it’s absolutely nothing to do with intelligence.

‘Learning Disability’ is diagnosed when the a persons IQ is below 70. (Depending where it falls, will be classified as - Mild, Moderate, Severe and Multiple/profound)

People use them interchangeably, but they really are significantly different.

Not so visible maybe, but definitely recognised (my parents both worked in the area). By the mid 90s people were far less likely to be shunted off into long stay places (usually but not always people with greater levels of difficulty than Fred West seems to gave had), and schools were much more integrated. Long stay hospitals were being closed and people were moving into community based group homes so people with a range of learning difficulties were more visible in society as a whole.

Appropriate Adult g.co/kgs/p8hwvwo

This is a very good dramatisation of the topic in question OP, it's on ITVx

That is ridiculous. Learning difficulties were recognised. My school had special teachers and in secondary school special units, there were other special schools for varying disabilities/difficulties. Just because you weren’t aware doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.

This prompted me to Google. I was at uni when it kicked off and on a gap year when the trial happened so I wasn't fully following though I remember some of it.

What struck me was how many times Fred and Rose were arrested on extremely serious charges but in the end court cases didn't happen as the defendants didn't pursue it. And yet, all their children remained with them! It doesn't seem like they were monitored despite the multiple accusations. Safeguarding has come a long way. Teachers had concerns about Heather, many people knew about the sexual activities in that house full of children. That's what shocked me, that they kept their kids throughout.

Blimey. It was 30 years ago-not the 19th century!

Has it though? Recent case - Sara Sharif. And so, so many others. Alfie Steele is another truly horrendous one. Neighbours reported hearing them attempting to drown Alfie in the bath, he wasn’t removed. The adults in these situations had police involved consistently and constantly for various things. I’m not sure we’re actually making much progress.