Who was Fred West? From farm labourer to notorious murderer

Police to excavate cafe toilet in search for missing girl

Fred West
The West family
(Image credit: Wikimedia)

Police searching a cafe in Gloucestershire for the body of a suspected victim of serial killer Fred West have found six “anomalies” that will now be investigated further.

Mary Bastholm went missing in 1986 at the age of 15 and police have been searching the cellar of the premises where she previously worked. Six parts of a toilet area in the cafe are to be excavated in the next step of the search, Gloucestershire police said.

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 Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.