Fury over Fred West ITV drama

Apr 3 2011 by Lisa Hutchinson, Sunday Sun

ITV was last night urged to pull the plug on a dramatisation of serial killer Fred West’s life – by the loved ones of a suspected North victim.

Furious relatives of Mary Bastholm, strongly thought to have ben West’s first victim in 1968, reacted with horror to the broadcaster’s plans.

Mary, then a 15-year-old waitress, has never been seen since being spotted in West’s car after setting off to meet her boyfriend.

Mary, born and bred in South Shields in South Tyneside, had moved to Gloucester with her family, and worked at the town’s Pop In cafe where West was a customer and carried out repairs.

He was charged with the murders of 12 girls. Most were found in his cellar at 25 Cromwell Street.

West committed suicide in prison on New Years Day 1995 before he could stand trial.

After that Mary’s relatives on Tyneside called on his partner Rose, 56, who is serving life for 10 murders, and is in Low Newton women’s prison in Brasside, County Durham, to help find Mary’s body, but to no avail.

Now they have hit out at TV bosses for cashing in on evil as the killer’s story is told in a new drama heading for our screens.

The wife of Mary’s cousin Harry, Patricia Bastholm, said from her South Shields home: “The telly bosses do what ever they want – we’re only the little people and they don’t listen to families of the victims.

“I think this will be terrible for relatives who have gone through so much after the killings. “It’s a money making thing, they don’t make programmes to make a loss. Why should they make money out of other people’s grief? It is terrible.”