Chris Blackwell - The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Geoffrey Wansell is an award-winning author, journalist and an expert in true crime. He was the authorised biographer of Frederick West, appointed by the Government. His most recent book, Pure Evil, is about those British murderers given whole life sentences in this country. Together with his daughter Molly, Geoffrey also has a weekly true crime podcast, Blood Ties, which has been running for the past four-and-a-half years.

The presenter of twenty-eight episodes of his own one-hour television series for CBS Reality Murder By The Sea he has also made more than 120 hours of television documentaries for Sky Britains Most Evil Killers and Worlds Most Evil Killers.

He has been the principal crime and thriller reviewer for the Daily Mail for the past decade, and before that was one of the papers leading feature writers.

Together with David Suchet, he wrote the best-selling book Poirot and Me in 2013, which has been published around the world. They met on the set of the 20th Century Fox film, When the Whales Came in 1988, which was based on a Michael Morpurgo story, on which he served as executive producer.

First published in the UK by John Blake Publishing

an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

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Bloomsbury Square

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Owned by Bonnier Books

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Owned by Bonnier Books

Sveavgen 56, Stockholm, Sweden

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First published in hardback in 1996

This paperback edition published in 2022

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78946-617-1

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-78946-618-8

Audiobook ISBN: 978-1-78946-621-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Text copyright Geoffrey Wansell

The right of Geoffrey Wansell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright-holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

John Blake Publishing is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

www.bonnierbooks.co.uk

For every victim of child abuse

CONTENTS

Mans evil love

Makes the crooked path seem straight.

D ANTE , T HE D IVINE C OMEDY ,

Purgatory, canto 10

W hen I started to write the life of Frederick West, almost three decades ago, I never imagined that it would change my life forever but it did, completely.

Until that moment I had never written about a serial killer. But now I had the chance to look into the face of evil, the life of a man who I believe was the most relentless killer this country has ever produced, who may well have killed sixty young women.

The experience changed me forever though it took me a little time to realise it. By the time I started to write about him the gregarious, talkative little jobbing Gloucester-based builder had been dead for ten months, after hanging himself in his cell at HMP Winson Green in Birmingham on 1 January 1995. But his influence on my life was dramatic.

Quite suddenly I found myself plunged into the darkest side of mans inhumanity to man in the most vivid way imaginable. I was given extraordinary access to the full details of Wests crimes, life and writings an opportunity very few writers have ever been granted and one which I did not feel I could refuse. I listened to his lilting voice for hour after hour in his police interviews and conversations with his solicitor, all the time trying to comprehend what made West the monster that he most certainly was.

But that gave me the chance to write what I believe is the most detailed examination of a British serial killer that has ever been published, based largely on his own words.Wests is a story of incest and child abuse, a horrifying account of murder, lust and depravity that sullied this country forever.

The reason I was given that opportunity to write his story was the result of a decision by the then Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court, who was Wests executor. He decided to exploit Wests estate for the benefit of five of his children, who were by now in local authority care. They had been removed from Wests home at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester in the wake of child abuse allegations made against him in 1993.

The decision to allow me access to Wests papers, his police interviews, his prison diaries, his interviews with his original solicitor, his private videotapes and the police interviews of his wife Rosemary was deeply controversial. It provoked angry scenes in the House of Commons, when the then prime minister, John Major, was forced to defend the decision against criticism from all sides that no killer should benefit financially from his crimes.

But the decision stood and I was granted access to every part of the material, as well as given the right to attend the trial of Wests wife Rosemary at Winchester Crown Court in October and November 1995. At the end of the trial she was convicted for her part in ten murders and received a life sentence which will ensure that she will never be released.

As I began I took one further important decision. I wanted to paint his crimes in all their ugly, depraved detail to leave no doubt that he was a man with no respect for human life the very epitome of evil, a sadistic killer who had opted out of the human race, in the words of the late Richard Ferguson QC, who defended Rosemary West. I did not want to leave any doubt about.

This book was first written during the winter and spring of 1996 and published in hardback that autumn. The Independent commented that it relentlessly pursues the truth through the maze of Wests many deceptions, while the Sunday Telegraph added: It is unlikely that much will ever be added to Mr Wansells portrait. One other reviewer called it the definitive account of Wests life and crimes.

In fact I added more in the paperback version after I attended the trial of Wests younger brother John on rape and indecent assault charges in November 1996. Like his brother, John West escaped justice by committing suicide on the night before the jury were to retire to decide on his fate.

Ironically, both brothers killed themselves using an identical method of hanging and neither left a suicide note. Though Frederick West did leave a whole string of letters to his wife Rose in his prison cell before he killed himself.