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

[Snooks1971]

And would this happen now?

Fred West had learning difficulties and had suffered a brain injury as a result of a motorcycle accident so would have been classified as a vulnerable adult.
I am.also assuming that the police would want to make sure that all their bases were covered and that whatever evidence they gleaned from questioning ( such as a possible confession) could not be called into question later. This was a high profile investigation, they would be making sure it was beyond reproach.

For someone with learning difficulties he managed to get away with covering up horrific crimes for a very long time..

He was 'clever' in other ways, i.e. cunning; and for most of the murders, he had the help of Rose, who was of normal intelligence and literacy. Fred was also artistic - a good craftsman/carpenter/builder - and he used those skills to hide the bodies by building and decorating over them.

Classic troll scouring new threads to do rude first comment. Ignore them OP - imagine being this much of a loser.

Exactly.

Appropriate Adults are an important part of the safeguards.

I used to volunteer as an Appropriate Adult. It was really interesting and illuminating. I mainly supported teens. The police would ring their parents and their parents wouldn't be remotely interested in supporting them. It opened my eyes to a totally different world.

https://www.murdermiletours.com/blog/category/killers-by-iq

I just found this article which I found quite interesting, showing the iq's of serial killers.

Killers or predators (such as the horrific Cameron Hooker who kidnapped Colleen stan) who have capabilities to do anything like make their own restraints or torture devices make me feel sick to the stomach. Fred definitely is in that camp.

It was only in the 90,s!
I qualified as a mental health nurse in 1996 and worked in acute in patient care sometimes our patients did get arrested for various reasons and they would also have an appropriate adult with them.

Usually only for children like your sister though
My son is 14 and similar and currently goes to a special school for children with severe and profound learning disabilities he's also autistic he would slways have needed a high level 9f care like your sister
I remember reading an an article about Aspergers as it was known then ( yes I know it's all just autism now )
And we had a patient admitted to the mental health ward I was a nurse on with a diagnosis of Aspergers and nobody had heard of Aspergers this was around 97/98!

I'm older than you and learning difficulties were definitely recognised when I was young.

People really need to get their facts straight before posting such nonsense. After a quick, albeit basic google search, it says he was illiterate, not that his IQ was lower than average.

I assume it wasn’t high, but the way people are going on, on this thread, you’d think it was a given fact that he has a learning disability. There is no evidence that he did from what I can gather. He could have been illiterate, because he didn’t bother with school, he didn’t go often, had undiagnosed Dyslexia.

He wasn’t as daft as a lot of people are making out on here. He was cunning enough to cover it up for so long for a start. By saying his IQ was low is almost being too understanding. He was evil.

Yes, the recent thread about ‘films that wouldn’t be made now’ featured some utterly bizarre delusions about attitudes and mindsets in the very recent past.

I agree and people also seem to be mixing up learning disabilities and learning difficulties ,which are two different things learning difficulties affect how someone learn,s so whilst Fred wasent academic he was able to function well enough to get by without drawing attention to himself
Learning disabilities affect every part of a person's everyday functioning.and can range from mild to profound.

Exactly, I could t agree more!

I was happy to read your posts as everyone else just keeps using them interchangeably. As you say, they are very different and he was more than capable in other ways, despite not being academic.

@CTandA I often wonder is there a reason for evil always or are some people just born that way?
It's quite rare killers have backgrounds we'd consider nice or even typical. And a huge number of serial killers have grown up in care or were adopted. So I do think secure attachment is vital to children.

Can you use things such as traumas or head injury to explain why People do such unthinkable things or is it just they're simply evil?
I've spoken to lots of my nurse pals who work in MH about this and they mostly say just evil. I'm very torn by this. I'm sure some people are just evil yet I think they're few. I think most killers and violent offenders are a result of a trauma.

My father was very cruel and violent and a sexual predator (tweens seemed to be where his interest lay) but he had a normal childhood but he had significantly low IQ and learning difficulties. Would 100% qualify as having adhd nowadays but had naughty boy syndrome labelled on him back in the 70s.
I've never once despite my abhorrent childhood wanted to hurt another person but I grew up with kids who's homelives were very similar and they've gone on to do some awful things to women and children but the girls I grew up with (very impoverished area) went on to have children who were often removed at birth due to DV/sex work/addictions but the boys grew into offenders.

Sorry to derail I don't have anybody in real life to ask these questions to.
I think my pals would call me a miserable twat and tell me to shut up 😂

I think some.people are just evil
However there will be some people who do unthinkable atrocious acts when in the grips of severe mental illness such as psychosis a.sThey are quite literally out of their mind
But i dont.think there ,s any suggestion Fred was mentally ill
How do two people like Fred and rose team up ?
At what point would they have even started a conversation about all the terrible things they did ?

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.

I did teacher training in the early '70s. The college ran a separate course for students who wanted to reach children with what would now be called SEN. I forget what it was called then.

I remember there was some recommended reading about autism, under that name. I think I gathered that it was only just becoming understood, but may be remembering wrongly. The SEN course may have covered it in more depth, I don't know.

I would agree that media coverage was all about “savants” and Rain Man in the 80s but Fred West was arrested in 1994, Andrew Wakefield and the MMR scandal was only a few years later jn 1998. Awareness of autism and Aspergers was already “common knowledge” before the MMR fiasco. Nobody needed autism explaining when that story broke.

I can't imagine how that chat would even start. I believe myra hindley and Rose West were a couple in prison.
Can you imagine discussing with your partner your interests/hobbies and even fantasies and they reply with "well I'd love to murder a child".
There is a belief that women will be complicit in abuse to please men yet with rose, she actually murdered Fred's daughter charmine when he was in prison. She enjoyed preying on women as much as he did.

Rose West had a truly messed up life which perhaps led her to become sexually sadistic towards children and other women but she also seemed completely devoid of any empathy at all.
Fred in a police interview once she turned on him starts discussing how she casually wore a victims cardigan after they'd killed her. Those little acts of indifference to what they'd done really do stand out to me. Are they so used to poverty that the idea of wasting clothes wouldn't occur to rose or is she just so dead inside she doesn't care/or its a trophy of sorts?

I've mentioned my uncle who has psychosis on here loads, he's one of my nicer family members and bless him he believes that he went on tour with the beatles despite them not actually being a band when he was born, he believes he and Kylie Minogue were deeply in love etc and he's led the most interesting life in his wee head that I'd read his autobiography. He's harmless and just sits in cafes telling the workers all about his deluded life but if he truly believed in the same way that he had to murder people in the same way he believes he went on a weekend away with the rolling stones, then he'd be a very dangerous man.
Thankfully he isn't and just a wee dopey fella who enjoys talking shite and helping old ladies carry bags home but my goodness things could be very different for him.

It is interesting as if we understand why these people commit such atrocities we might be able to prevent them in the future.

I think adverse childhood experiences can have negative consequences in adulthood, but I don’t think that’s the full story. You’re an example of someone who has suffered significantly as a child but you wouldn’t dream of committing such abhorrent crimes. You seem lovely. Many people have abusive childhoods but they break the cycle.

The opposite can be true as well. Where you get people that come from descent childhoods and they commit atrocities- I’m thinking Harold Shipman.

In some ways it’s hard to imagine that anyone who commits such heinous crimes is anything but mentally insane, but we know that’s not true, as they’ve been assessed by psychiatrists. That’s why some people end up in Broadmoor Hospital whilst others end up in prison.

I think there are various things at play and it’s difficult to pinpoint why some people do it and others don’t. I think personality has a lot to answer for as well and I believe that some people are more likely to commit such crimes than others, regardless of upbringing.

It seems very shocking that even though he had a low IQ he was able to manipulate people like he did.
Perhaps it's a form of 'animal cunning'?

He didn't manipulate people and wasn't particularly charming. Fred had already murdered two women by the time he met Rose.

Both Fred and Rose came from very dysfunctional backgrounds and both had been sexually abused. They were both sexually obsessed, deviant and sadistic.

Neither had high IQs and Fred had suffered brain damage twice. They lured women into their car or killed baby sitters, they didn't charm them. Women felt safe because of Rose.

Rose was nicknamed Dozy Rosie because she used to rock back and forth for hours as a child. I don't know if she would have killed without Fred but she was equally cruel and sadistic.

Rose did kill without Fred, she murdered his daughter Charmaine while he was in prison. So they were both capable of killing without the other being present.