Kathleen Richards, now 65, has spoken for the first time about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of serial killer Fred West while living at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester. In a new memoir, Under Their Roof, she reveals that West assaulted her repeatedly during the 15 months she rented a room there in 1979. She managed to escape after waking up to find him on top of her, but kept the details secret for nearly 50 years.
Richards gave crucial evidence at Rose West’s trial, which helped secure her conviction for 10 murders in 1995. However, she never told police or family what Fred West had done to her. She says she felt unable to speak about it until now. Fred West took his own life in 1995 while on remand, charged with 12 murders.
Richards’ childhood in Dublin was marked by poverty and abuse. She was the fourth of 10 children, underfed and regularly beaten by her parents. At school she was called “Smelly” because of her urine-soaked clothes. From the age of seven, she was sexually abused by a factory caretaker and later by her maternal grandfather, who paid her a penny or a boiled potato for the acts. When she told her mother, she was dismissed with anger.
After moving to England, Richards ended up at Cromwell Street. She says the abuse by West was a continuation of a pattern of vulnerability. Her memoir, she says, is not just about the Wests but about how abusers target the vulnerable, and how victims can be abused multiple times by different people. She describes it as a story of survival against the odds.
Richards now lives with the trauma but says she hopes her book will help others understand the dynamics of abuse. She is supported by her daughter Hannah, who accompanied her to the publisher’s office for an interview. Richards describes herself as “lucky to be alive” and says she finally feels able to tell the full truth.
