Rose West, mom hen from hell: She’s had a string of lesbian affairs together with with Myra Hindley. Now inmates inform TOM RAWSTORNE how she’s grooming younger girls with make-up and cake… with one wicked intention

With her walking stick, bowed legs and grey hair, Jennifer Jones cuts a grandmotherly figure within the walls of HMP New Hall. Now 72, while she spends most of her time alone in her cell she is always on the look-out for someone to chat to.

Subjects include her love of nature documentaries – David Attenborough and hedgehogs are particular favourites – and her hobbies, which include sewing and cooking.

As for advice, she is only too willing to share her knowledge and experience with the younger women inmates.

‘Don’t mix with bad people,’ she recently told one new arrival, aged in her twenties. ‘And do your best to stay out of prison because it’s not worth living your life in here.’

And, make no mistake, Jones knows that better than most.

Because her real name is Rose West, Britain’s most notorious female serial killer, who, along with husband Fred, collaborated in the murder of at least ten young women and girls.

Lodgers, babysitters, children and strangers were raped, tortured and abused before being buried in the cellar or under the patio in the couple’s Gloucester ‘House of Horrors’ home.

While her husband cheated justice by hanging himself in prison as he awaited trial, West was convicted in 1995.

One of a handful of women prisoners currently serving a whole life order, as such she never will be released, a fact West is said to have fully come to terms with.

And so it was that in 2020 she changed her name by deed poll in a vain attempt to find some anonymity in her final days.

But lurking beneath her new identity and the ‘mother hen’ persona she has adopted in recent years lies the real Rose West – as manipulative and predatory as ever.

Earlier this week it emerged that West had sexually assaulted another inmate at the prison in West Yorkshire, having first groomed her victim for weeks. ‘Rose looks like a frail pensioner, but she is still extremely dangerous – as this attack shows,’ a source revealed. ‘She befriended a young girl, in her 20s, and basically groomed her before the attack.

‘The whole prison is talking about it and inmates are shocked. It wasn’t clear if West was caught in the act of attacking her or if her victim reported her.

‘But guards were on the scene pretty quickly and West was taken from her cell and put in front of a governor.’

The source added: ‘Her victim is vulnerable and West took advantage of her before trying to force herself on her. West has form for trying to make friends with young girls in there.’

Indeed, this week a number of former inmates at the jail described how they have either witnessed or been on the receiving end of West’s charm offensive.

‘Rose would try and befriend people,’ one told the Daily Mail. ‘She would do up their hair, put make-up on them. She would also make cakes on a Friday – it became a sort of thing on the wing where people would make cakes for the weekend and the staff would join in.’ She added: ‘I was working in the coffee shop and library at the time so I saw a lot of her.

‘She was quite arrogant, like she was some sort of celebrity. She had a lot of the screws wrapped around her little finger and she knew it.

‘They were always asking if she was OK. The screws told us that she had to be protected because she was such a high-profile prisoner. Me and my mate once asked if she did it – kill her kids. Her face nearly exploded.

‘She went bright red and started shouting “miss, miss” – calling for the guards.

‘She was saying “they are harassing me… they are calling me a murderer”. She went right off on one saying, “I didn’t kill my kids, I didn’t do anything wrong”.’

West has been in Rivendell House, a ‘prison within a prison’ named after the elvish settlement in JRR Tolkien’s book The Lord Of The Rings, since moving to the jail seven years ago.

It has 30 en suite cells, the majority of which are occupied by prisoners with personality disorders. A handful of other cells are occupied by ‘restricted status’ – high risk – prisoners such as West, with the remainder given to trusted prisoners who are there to act as a ‘stabilising’ presence.

These often include younger women serving short sentences, such as Eleanor Brown, who was released from prison in October after serving half of a two-year sentence for posting naked images of her father’s mistress on an escort website in an act of ‘revenge’.

The unit aims to provide a regime of ‘growth, enablement and empowerment’ where inmates can tend to chickens and roam the grounds. They can also take part in yoga and knitting classes and attend film nights.

‘I was just stood in the queue for food and Rose knew I was new – she had not seen me before – and she just asked me what my name was and then said I had a really nice name,’ Ms Brown told the Daily Mail.

The 26-year-old was unaware who she was talking to until another inmate took her to one side and told her.

‘If you walked past her in the street, you wouldn’t look twice,’ she said, adding that when they met again West chatted with her about what she had been watching on TV – telling her ‘how much she liked David Attenborough’. But it was on Ms Brown’s last night in prison that she had a chance to see West up close.

‘She just came up to my cell and knocked and wished me luck,’ said Ms Brown.

West also then shared a few words of advice – warning her not to follow in her footsteps and the perils of prison life.

‘I wished her well and that was it,’ she said.

On her release from jail, Ms Brown said she watched the recently released Netflix documentary about the Wests.

‘Her voice is still the same… and I was, like, “woah… I have met you, but not this person they are explaining on TV… I have met this nice person who wanted to make me feel a bit welcomed”.

‘Don’t get me wrong, the crimes are absolutely horrendous but she was absolutely lovely, she was really kind.

‘She came, she introduced me to herself. It was really weird. It makes you think, what does evil look like?’ The answer to that was laid bare, detail by terrible detail, at West’s seven-week trial at Winchester Crown Court.

While she tried to blame all of the killings on her husband, her participation and the sadistic pleasure she derived from what they did was never in doubt.

As prosecutor Brian Leveson told the court: ‘[The victims’] last moments on earth were as objects of the sexual depravity of this woman and her husband.’ The jury heard how many of the victims had been stripped, bound with adhesive tape and sexually tortured, then killed, dismembered and buried. Many were gagged to prevent them from crying out.

West’s victims included her 16-year-old daughter, her eight-year-old stepdaughter and her husband Fred’s pregnant lover. Describing her crimes as ‘appalling and depraved’, Mr Justice Mantell sentenced West to life imprisonment, telling her: ‘If any attention is paid to what I think, you will never be released.’

With her sentence subsequently confirmed as a whole-life tariff, and with her having long ago decided not to appeal, it means the only way West will leave prison is in a coffin.

But while she appears to have accepted her fate, throughout her time inside there has been one constant feature – the targeting of other inmates to satisfy her sexual desires. Her first months in jail were at HMP Durham where she had a short-lived lesbian fling with Moors murderer Myra Hindley.

Writing in his 2019 book Understanding Fred And Rose West, West’s former solicitor Leo Goatley recalled talking to her about the relationship.

‘It is true that Rose wasted no time in finding friendship with a number of women who were serving prison terms at the same time,’ he wrote.

‘Rose’s first paramour was the Moors murderer, Myra Hindley, who happened to be on the hospital wing at HMP Durham at the same time in 1995 and early 1996. Visiting at the time, I recall that Rose was quite taken with Hindley, impressed by her knowledge and ability. Rose said that Hindley had studied various Open University courses.

‘She said: “Yeah, Myra, she’s all right, we get on, I want to see how it goes.” This was a reference to a flowering, albeit short-lived, lesbian relationship.’

Mr Goatley claimed that she admitted to him that she only ever enjoyed sex with women, saying that she preferred the ‘softness and sensuality of being with women rather than the roughness of men’.

In her early years in prison, West cut a formidable figure, at her heaviest tipping the scales at 17 stone (107kg).

‘Rose did not fear any of the threats from younger inmates,’ recalled Mr Goatley.

‘On the contrary, she told me in no uncertain terms that if they got to her she would fight and give them ‘a good f****** seeing to’.

‘It was evident to me that when it came to it, Rose was tough, uncompromising, capable of looking out for herself physically and would be the last to back down.’

As such, other women sought her protection, with ‘master manipulator’ West often targeting vulnerable inmates.

After a decade at Durham she was moved to the privately run HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Surrey. Fellow inmates there would complain that West was accorded special treatment.

Pictures of her cell emerged showing her surrounded by luxuries that included a TV, DVD player and stereo.

She was also allowed a sewing machine and embroidery kit while the walls were plastered with posters of cats.

In her spare time, West helped look after the jail’s pet rabbits and guinea pigs.

She was also allowed to take part in activities such as Easter bonnet-making and other country crafts.

In 2008, Rose West was moved from Bronzefield to top-security Low Newton in Brasside, Durham. It was reported that shortly before the move, prison staff had discovered a plot to attack her.

Five balls had been stolen from the pool table – to be placed, it was feared, in a sock or stocking which would then be used to bludgeon West.

More lesbian flings followed at Low Newton, including, it is claimed, with Tracey Connelly. Connelly was jailed for allowing the death of her 17-month-old son Peter – known as Baby P – at their home in Tottenham, north London. He died in 2007 after months of abuse.

Another relationship with a prisoner 30 years younger than West was said to have been so serious she considered seeking permission to marry.

A source said: ‘West is a master manipulator. She seeks out vulnerable people and then befriends them. West was like a homing missile when this new lifer arrived. She watched her for a few weeks before striking up a conversation.

‘They soon became friends and West began introducing her to other cons, buying her little treats like shower gel and teaching her how to cook.’

Now at HMP New Hall, with her advancing years, West is said to interact less and less with other prisoners.

‘Rose is just a lonely old woman now who spends most of her time in her cell,’ another former inmate told the Daily Mail this week.

‘I have seen her doing her ironing outside – then she will disappear again.

‘She calls everyone “love” or “dear” and I suppose she just wants to have an easy life in prison. That is not that unusual. From what I know, she had a few lesbian relationships but, again, that is not unusual for lifers.

‘A lot of older women just want companionship and someone to chat to.’

Another 28-year-old inmate, who served time for fraud, recalled being approached by West, who offered to help mend her clothes, saying she enjoyed sewing.

On other occasions, West attempted to make friends by handing out vapes and posting Christmas cards under cell doors. She has little or no contact with the outside world, and if she moves out of the unit is accompanied by multiple guards.

West has earned many of the privileges she enjoys through good behaviour, once telling a pen pal: ‘Being a model prisoner is the only thing that has afforded me any kind of dignity over the years.’

But, following the latest incident, West’s life is set to get slightly less easy.

As The Sun newspaper reported, after assaulting the inmate, West was hauled before a governor for an ‘adjudication’, though neither the police nor prison service would say if there had been a criminal investigation into what happened.

As a result, West lost the privileges she enjoyed as an ‘enhanced’ prisoner. Those included extra cash to spend in the jail canteen, TV and DVD rights, access to workshops and time out of her cell.

‘It is pretty disgusting she had the freedom to do something like this in the first place,’ observed the source.

Old and decrepit West may be but – even after more than 30 years in jail – she is still posing a threat to those around her.