section_path: Early life
section_name: Early life
paragraph_text: Early life
  
  Rose West was born Rosemary Pauline Letts in Northam, Devon, to William Andrew "Bill" Letts and Daisy Gwendoline Fuller after a difficult pregnancy. She was the fifth of seven children born into a poor family. Rose's mother suffered from depression and was given electroconvulsive therapy both during and immediately after her pregnancy; some have argued that this treatment may have caused prenatal developmental injuries to her daughter.
  
  Rose grew up into a moody teenager, prone to daydreaming and performing poorly at school. After her parents separated she initially lived with her mother and attended Cleeve School for six months, then moved in with her father in Bishop's Cleeve, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Letts's father, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was prone to extreme violence and repeatedly sexually abused Letts and her oldest sister Patricia.
  
  At the onset of puberty, Letts, reportedly fascinated by her developing body, would deliberately parade naked or semi-naked around the house in the presence of her younger brother, Graham (born 1957). On numerous occasions, at the age of 13, she would also creep into nine-year-old Graham's bed at nightfall and molest him and her youngest brother Gordon.
  
  Rose West was born Rosemary Pauline Letts in Northam, Devon, to William Andrew "Bill" Letts and Daisy Gwendoline Fuller after a difficult pregnancy. She was the fifth of seven children born into a poor family. Rose's mother suffered from depression and was given electroconvulsive therapy both during and immediately after her pregnancy; some have argued that this treatment may have caused prenatal developmental injuries to her daughter.
  
  Rose grew up into a moody teenager, prone to daydreaming and performing poorly at school. After her parents separated she initially lived with her mother and attended Cleeve School for six months, then moved in with her father in Bishop's Cleeve, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Letts's father, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was prone to extreme violence and repeatedly sexually abused Letts and her oldest sister Patricia.
  
  At the onset of puberty, Letts, reportedly fascinated by her developing body, would deliberately parade naked or semi-naked around the house in the presence of her younger brother, Graham (born 1957). On numerous occasions, at the age of 13, she would also creep into nine-year-old Graham's bed at nightfall and molest him and her youngest brother Gordon.