944 Quotes by Stephen Richards

Everyone used to laugh at him because he was the first one to do it. This was all new to people and it took a bit for everyone to get used to it. Then… yes, you’ve guessed, I too dyed my hair and other people followed suit as well and the punk explosion was about to hit the scene in a big way.

After a couple of weeks in Polmont, I started to become more assertive and began arguing with older, bigger boys. I loved it. This is where my ugly side would make some scary and unpredictable appearances. Even to this day, I can go from a happy-go-lucky cunt to the devil on acid.

In Polmont, everyone was acting the hard man and giving it the large. I had to fight or cosh or do something to be accepted. I can tell you, it was better to be in a gang than being on your own, and I’d do anything in Polmont, no questions asked!

Although my swimming stroke became powerful, I wrestled with the waves and I considered that if I were on the same path of the ferry then I’d be sucked under by the boat and be drowned. The sea was insistent in the direction I swam, washed onwards and there was not a sight or sound of any boats or shipping.

In January 1995 three prisoners, two category ‘A’ prisoners and a lifer escaped from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. After four days of freedom they were recaptured. My length of freedom far surpassed theirs.

I thought they were going to kill me there and then, which would have been a relief. To my horror, they spoke words that I will never forget: ‘We are going to keep you in the cellar and let our black friends use you and when they have finished with you, we will kill you and bury you under the paving stones of Gloucester. There are hundreds of girls there, the police haven’t found them and they wont find you!

At 31 years of age, Fred West was a big man trapped in a little man’s body. He thought himself to be a gynecologist and Warren Beatty look-a-like all rolled into one … the surgeon and the stud.

Once you’d been with Freddie, you wouldn’t go anywhere else.’ (How true this was to prove.) This incessant bragging by Fred West was at best, annoying and at worst, sickening. According to him, he was God’s gift to women.

That high pitch scream emitted by Rose made me wince! Her ear bursting howls would stun me into silence as much as it silenced the eldest child in their home, eight-year-old Anna-Marie.