section_path: Formal charges/Diversion of culpability
section_name: Diversion of culpability
paragraph_text: Diversion of culpability
  
  As he was held on remand at HM Prison Birmingham in the months following his arrest, Fred became increasingly depressed. This became worse after Rose's public rejection of him at Gloucester Magistrates' Court on 30 June, her refusal to reply to letters he sent her, and reports leaked to the press in which she (Rose) had assumed the role of a grieving mother who had lost a daughter and stepdaughter to her husband and in which she declared both her innocence of murder, and her hatred of him.
  
  Fred pleaded with Stephen and Anna Marie (the only children to visit their father while on remand) to convey to Rose that he loved her, but Rose never acknowledged these overtures. In response, Fred withdrew his earlier confessions to having acted alone in the murders, and instead accused his wife of almost total culpability in all the murders to which he had been charged, excluding that of Anne McFall, which he claimed had been committed by his first wife.
  
  As he was held on remand at HM Prison Birmingham in the months following his arrest, Fred became increasingly depressed. This became worse after Rose's public rejection of him at Gloucester Magistrates' Court on 30 June, her refusal to reply to letters he sent her, and reports leaked to the press in which she (Rose) had assumed the role of a grieving mother who had lost a daughter and stepdaughter to her husband and in which she declared both her innocence of murder, and her hatred of him.
  
  Fred pleaded with Stephen and Anna Marie (the only children to visit their father while on remand) to convey to Rose that he loved her, but Rose never acknowledged these overtures. In response, Fred withdrew his earlier confessions to having acted alone in the murders, and instead accused his wife of almost total culpability in all the murders to which he had been charged, excluding that of Anne McFall, which he claimed had been committed by his first wife.