Who is Janet Leach and what is an appropriate adult?
FRED West and his wife Rose were collectively responsible for the murder of 12 young women.
The real harm they caused is even more wide reaching, as in the case of Janet Leach. She was called to act as Fred West's appropriate adult throughout his police questioning.
Who is Janet Leach?
Janet Leach is an English social worker who because enmeshed in the trial of Fred West, a monstrous serial killer.
Janet had put her name down as an "appropriate adult"— volunteers requested to sit in on interviews with vulnerable suspects.
Janet was called by Gloucester police in 1994, asking her to act as an appropriate adult for West.
At the time, Janet was newly divorced from her first husband Barry Leach, the father of her four sons, and training to be a social worker.
Leach has said that she is “haunted for ever” by what West told her and that she was “destroyed” by her experience.
What is an appropriate adult?
In English law, the police are supposed to appoint an appropriate adult when children and vulnerable people are suspected of committing a crime.
In an unexpected turn of events, she was then called to testify against Rosemary in her murder trial.
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During the trial, Janet dramatically suffered a stroke in the witness box after claiming that she hadn't sold her story to the press.
Janet later sued police, claiming she had suffered PTSD as a
result of her experience – but her claims were thrown out of court on a legal technicality.