TV documentary reveals how serial killer Fred West was chased from Glasgow by razor-wielding lynch mob

The Channel 5 show will broadcast extraordinary claims that West was run out of Glasgow after abusing children while driving an ice cream van around the city.

A bestselling author says he personally witnessed West – who later became notorious as the Cromwell Street killer – fleeing a razor gang who were trying to kill him.

 

Fred West

Colin MacFarlane, the writer of three acclaimed biographies of his life in the Gorbals, said West had upset the leader of the Cumbie gang – a man known as Malky Frazer, rhyming slang for razor.

Speaking to the Sunday Mail, MacFarlane, 58, said:

“At first, when West arrived in the Gorbals, he was treated as a joke by kids like us. In fact, we thought he looked like one of Ken Dodd’s Diddy Men – a comical-looking character as he handed out cones to the young girls. But we soon heard he had a sinister side and was abusing some of them. He often took them for wee rides in his ice cream van. When Malky heard his 12-year-old sister had been abused by West, he went berserk. He vowed to kill West, saying he would slash West’s throat ‘like a pig’, and got his 30-strong gang behind him. On the Monday, they waited at a Gorbals street corner for West from 4pm. They were all well tanked up on the red wine Eldorado and were ready for the kill but when West failed to appear after a few hours, they gave up. The gang turned up the next day at the same time but West failed to show again. On the Wednesday, it looked like the same scenario and the gang waited for a few hours before almost giving up. But then they heard the ice cream van jingle and they knew they had got their man. Mad Malky and the rest of his gang all ran towards the van with knives, razors, bricks and hatchets. West got hit on the head with a large stone but he still managed to get to his steering wheel and speed off. The gang ran after the van as fast as they could as it swerved from side to side up the street. It was like a scene from a cowboy movie when the bad guy gets run out of town. West was lucky that day. Malky had said he planned to cut his head off.”

West was never seen in the Gorbals again. Frazer was kicked to death in a gang fight
three years later.

MacFarlane has previously written about seeing West in his native Gorbals but has kept quiet about the attempt to assassinate him until now. He appears on the first episode of a series called Fred And Rose West: Victims’ Stories, due to be broadcast in the autumn to mark the 20th anniversary of the couple’s arrest over the murders of 11 women.

West, from Gloucester, arrived in Glasgow in the early 60s after marrying pregnant
prostitute Rena Costello – who he later murdered.

By 1965, he had become a familiar sight in the Gorbals and Castlemilk as he toured the streets in his ice cream van, having settled with Rena in Coatbridge.

In November 1965, he ran over and killed a four-year-old boy, Hugh Feeney, in Castlemilk with his van but was never charged. He was chased out of Glasgow soon after.

West hanged himself in Winston Green Prison, Birmingham, on January 1, 1995, just before facing a murder trial.

The majority of the murders – including that of Fred’s daughter Heather, who was buried under a patio – took place at the West family home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester.

On November 22, 1995, Rose West was convicted of 10 murders and sentenced to life
in prison.

The new documentary is being made by the Bafta award-winning company Nine
Lives Media.

They were previously responsible for the BBC’s Pound Shop Wars series and a three-part Channel 5 drama documentary on Moors murderer Myra Hindley.  found here

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Growing Up In The Gorbals Was Tough .. Fred West Was Our Ice Cream Man

24 Sep 2007 Updated 1 Jul 2012

Author Colin MacFarlane was born in Glasgow’s Gorbals in 1955. He grew up on the same street that fictional razor king Johnnie Stark inhabited in No Mean City. The book had been published 20 years earlier, but the Gorbals remained untouched by the Swinging Sixties and was more like the bleak 1930s with the same dodgy characters hanging about its decaying streets. MacFarlane’s new book, The Real Gorbals Story, tells of the last days of the old scheme – the colourful, funny, warm, frightening, dark and dangerous Gorbals.

Author Colin MacFarlane was born in Glasgow’s Gorbals in 1955. He grew up on the same street that fictional razor king Johnnie Stark inhabited in No Mean City. The book had been published 20 years earlier, but the Gorbals remained untouched by the Swinging Sixties and was more like the bleak 1930s with the same dodgy characters hanging about its decaying streets. MacFarlane’s new book, The Real Gorbals Story, tells of the last days of the old scheme – the colourful, funny, warm, frightening, dark and dangerous Gorbals.

LIVING in the Gorbals could be an uphill battle. Because of the poor living conditions, health problems were rife. But for a 12-year-old boy, the Gorbals was like an adventure playground. We’d rake midgies, race bogies and take hudgies on the back of vans.

Around the time we were catching hudgies on ice-cream vans, there was an English guy we called Wee Fred going round in one in the Gorbals and Castlemilk.

He was a small, thick-set man with thick, dark, curly hair and a broad Gloucester accent.

He seemed quite friendly with the kids, especially the lassies.

But he lost his rag one day when my pal Chris tried to grab a hudgie from the back of his van in Thistle Street.

Waving his fists wildly, he shouted to Chris: “F***off from there or I’ll kill you!”

From then on, we surmised that there was something not quite right about him.

Me and the boys even had a suspicion that he might be a child molester who used his ice-cream van to get in contact with young lassies.

Being Gorbals street boys, we could tell most of his stories were lies and that he lived in some kind of fantasy world.

He was always boasting about his exploits with women, even claiming that pop star Lulu was his girlfriend.

One afternoon, Fred told us: “I like the Barrowland – plenty of birds there and usually the Scottish fellas are too drunk to chat them up. That’s when I make my move.”

Then he gave us the kind of wink that did not amuse us. Fred said he had come to Glasgow as he had family and friends in the area.

One of the older boys said to us: “Dae ye see the way that wee English b****** is always chatting up the young birds? He’d better start watching his step, otherwise he’ll get done in by wan o’ their brothers or faithers. There’s somethin’ aboot that guy that gies me the creeps. It’s time that bampot got back tae England where he belangs.”

Wee Fred, the friendly ice cream man, appeared in the newspapers a few weeks later.

He had run over a boy with his van in Castlemilk, with fatal consequences, claiming it had been an accident.

Not long afterwards, another ice-cream van driver told us Fred had gone back to England.

We never saw him again. But years later, I instantly recognised Wee Fred when his picture appeared in the newspapers and on TV. It was FredWest, the mass murderer.

THE Gorbals was full of all kinds of characters in the 60s. The older Gorbals men – the Bunnet Brigade” as we called them – stood every night at the bank close on the corner of Crown Street and Rutherglen Road with Peter the paper man as he sold the Daily Record.

The conversations were fascinating for a young person such as myself.

Surely, if there was a university of life, this was one of the top colleges. Read in full  DAILY RECORD

The Real Gorbals Story by Colin MacFarlane ()

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READ MORE

1. The Devils in Devon
2. Satanic Cover Up: Fred & Rose West – Occult connection?
3. West’s Postcard To Paedo Pals
4. Fred West Chased from Glasgow by Razor Wielding Lynch Mob
5. Satanic Cover Up: Fred & Rose West – Occult connection?
6. Moira Anderson, Gallogley, Gartshore, Willie McRae & The Untouchables
7. Gartshore & Moira
8. Ice Cream Paedophiles 
9. I saw Fred West run over little Scots boy  Sept 14th 1998
10. BROTHER JOINS EVIL WEST IN HELL  Nov 29th 1996
11. Brother of Fred West ‘knew about murders’ – Herald Scotland
12. ‘MURDERING WESTS WORSHIPPED DEVIL’ Occult expert claims he’s found satanic link