My sister said she was staying with a 'great' family and told us not to worry. Three months later, she was murdered, dismembered and buried under Fred and Rose West's patio. For the first time, this is the truth about our family's nightmare: DEZRA CHAMBERS

Written successful touchingly neat handwriting, the missive 16-year-old Alison Chambers sent location to her mum successful May 1979 declared that she was settled and happy.

‘I americium astatine contiguous surviving with a precise homely family, and I look aft their children and bash immoderate of their housework,’ she wrote. ‘We each get connected large together, and I person readily accepted them arsenic a 2nd family. But delight enactment you are and ever volition beryllium my ain family.’

She ended her enactment by begging her parent not to interest astir her and reassuring her that she was ‘safe’.

‘Except she wasn’t remotely safe,’ arsenic her older sister Dezra Chambers says today. ‘She was successful the astir unsafe spot she could be.’

Within 3 months of penning that simple, heartfelt missive Alison had been murdered, dismembered and buried nether the patio astatine the Gloucester location of Fred and Rosemary West. It was this sadistic, murderous duo astir whom she had written truthful warmly.

Her assemblage would stay undiscovered for 15 years until it was uncovered by the constabulary successful 1994, the 2nd of 9 sets of remains recovered successful the location of the serial-killing mates whose perversions stunned the world.

Decades later, the fearfulness they unleashed – they tortured, raped and murdered astatine slightest 12 young women and girls successful Gloucestershire betwixt 1967 and 1987 – has continued to repel and fascinate the public, portion the families of their victims person lived with the consequences mostly successful silence.

Now, however, a caller three-part Netflix bid centred connected the victims’ families lays bare their agony – an agony thrown into adjacent much bitter alleviation by antecedently unheard constabulary tapes which uncover the chilling grade of Fred West’s deficiency of remorse. At 1 constituent helium dispassionately shrugs astir his victims, saying: ‘I don’t cognize which was which.’

Speaking publically for the archetypal clip astir the nonaccomplishment of her younger sister, 64-year-old Dezra tells me: ‘I did it for Alison. So often the victims are forgotten. I wanted radical to cognize who she was, and that she was loved.’

Of that determination is small doubt. Dezra, a lukewarm and affable woman, battles profound emotions successful our interrogation arsenic she recalls the ‘happy, clever and loving’ miss with whom she grew up.

‘It’s not casual to speech about,’ she says. ‘For a agelong clip I enactment everything I felt successful a box, to beryllium enactment distant determination successful the backmost of my mind. That’s however I dealt with it all.’

Today, mother-of-two Dezra lives adjacent Rotterdam, having moved to Holland successful 1988 with her then-husband. She grew up with her 2 younger sisters, Alison and a sibling she has asked not to name, archetypal successful Hanover, Germany, wherever her begetter was based successful the Army, past Swansea, Wales. Theirs was not a blessed childhood, marred by rows, unit and their father’s drinking.

‘I don’t person immoderate bully memories,’ says Dezra. ‘Sometimes I would person to interruption up my parents’ fights and we utilized to get smacked a batch arsenic well.’

She breaks down arsenic she recalls how, from the infinitesimal she had her daughters, present successful their 40s, she vowed to rise them differently. ‘With my ain I virtually did precisely the other to what my parent did,’ she says. ‘When you person your archetypal kid successful your arms, it changes what you consciousness astir your ain childhood. You wonderment however your mum could bash that to you.’

Dezra’s coping mechanics was to ‘tunnel connected through’ until she was aged capable to leave, but Alison started to rebel against the strictures of the household home.

‘She’d enactment retired each nighttime and astatine times the constabulary would get called,’ says Dezra. By her aboriginal teens, Alison had been assigned a societal idiosyncratic and, by 15, she had been enactment into care.

By this time, Dezra, a twelvemonth older than Alison, was dating the antheral who would go her husband, though she ever made an effort to enactment successful interaction with her sister. ‘We were close,’ she says.

After surviving successful 2 attraction homes successful Swansea, by January 1979 Alison had moved to Gloucester, wherever she lived initially successful a halfway location and embarked connected a younker grooming strategy astatine a solicitor’s office. At immoderate point, however, she moved successful with the Wests.

How her beloved younger sister fell into their orbit is simply a question Dezra volition ne'er beryllium capable to answer. All she knows is that it was from present Alison wrote the missive location which described the bully loving household she had met.

‘She said determination was nary stress, nary ambiance – I accidental successful opposition to what we had astatine home,’ Dezra says. ‘It seems unbelievable, but they evidently reeled her in.’

Prior to her mum getting the note, Dezra had spoken to Alison a mates of times – hurried calls successful which her sister said she conscionable wanted to fto her cognize she was OK.

‘It was affectional because, though I kept asking, she wouldn’t accidental wherever she was,’ Dezra recalls of the past clip they spoke, implicit a pub telephone. ‘Then she finished the telephone call.’

It would beryllium the past clip Dezra would perceive from her sister: she present knows that immoderate clip soon aft Alison wrote her missive successful May 1979, she was murdered.

‘The constabulary judge she died earlier what would person been her 17th day that September,’ she says. Without the instant connection that marks modern lives, however, determination was nary mode for her progressively anxious and baffled household to cognize what had happened to her.

‘People would archer maine that they’d spotted Alison successful London going to work, and I couldn’t recognize wherefore she ne'er got successful touch,’ says Dezra. ‘Of course, they hadn’t seen her, they conscionable thought they had. And you’re warring with yourself due to the fact that you privation to judge these people, but astatine the aforesaid clip something’s telling you that they hadn’t.’

At 1 point, Dezra approached The Salvation Army to inquire for help, lone to beryllium told they could find nary hint of Alison either.

‘I ever kept an oculus connected the quality for erstwhile they did stories astir stateless people, to spot if I could spot her, too,’ she says. ‘It was each I could do.’

And truthful years passed successful which Dezra became a parent and during which milestone days – Alison’s birthday, her ain daughters’ birthdays – would travel and go.

‘I’d wonderment whether she was having drinks with her friends, what she mightiness beryllium up to. But ne'er successful a cardinal years did I deliberation she mightiness beryllium dead,’ she says now.

In what seems similar a peculiarly bleak twist of fate, she recalls watching the quality when, successful February 1994, footage showed forensic officers bringing retired boxes from the Wests’ location containing remains that had been found.

They had started to analyse aft societal workers reported however the younger West children had ‘joked’ to them that their older sister – Fred and Rose’s 16-year-old girl Heather, who had past been seen live successful 1987 – was ‘under the patio’.

Persuaded by a constabulary constable to instrumentality this seriously, the plot astatine 25 Cromwell Street was excavated and Heather’s remains were uncovered.

Three days later, astatine 5.20pm connected Monday, February 28, Alison’s remains were besides found, earlier 8 different sets of young women’s remains were discovered concealed successful the cellar and nether floorboards. There were besides stashes of pornography and hidden cameras with which Fred would grounds his woman having enactment with men.

Three much bodies were subsequently recovered astatine Fred’s erstwhile location and buried successful adjacent countryside.

At home, Dezra watched the unfolding footage with a fearfulness she had nary thought would, successful time, go devastatingly personal.

‘Like everyone I conscionable thought however atrocious it was, not imagining for a infinitesimal that 1 of the radical successful those boxes mightiness beryllium Alison,’ she says.

It would beryllium different fewer weeks earlier she received a telephone from officers from Gloucestershire Constabulary asking for her mother’s number. While they didn’t explicate why, she aboriginal learned from her mum that they wanted a DNA illustration to assistance place immoderate of the Cromwell Street remains.

‘You’re conscionable reeling, hoping it’s not so,’ she says.

But it was: a fewer days later, Dezra received different telephone call, this clip from her stepfather confirming that 1 of the bodies was so Alison. ‘I retrieve really, decently breaking down. My girl says to maine present it’s the lone clip she’d ever truly seen maine crying,’ she says.

On apical of their loss, Dezra besides had to face the fearfulness of however it had unfolded – that her 16-year-old sister had been recovered with a loop circular her caput and dismembered. ‘You’re conscionable successful a wholly antithetic world,’ she says. ‘And, successful the end, each I could bash was effort to fastener those details away.’

By June 1994, Fred West had been charged with 12 murders and Rose with ten. But Fred would ne'er look justice: on with the remainder of the world, Dezra woke connected New Year’s Day successful 1995 to the quality that helium had hanged himself successful his compartment portion connected remand astatine HMP Birmingham, aged 53.

Many families of the victims were furious, feeling helium had taken the coward’s mode out, but Dezra admits to being pleased.

‘Whatever happens to killers similar him, they get a signifier of beingness that was denied to my sister,’ she says. ‘I didn’t privation that for him. He didn’t merit to live.’

Her rage astatine Rose was arsenic visceral: ‘I was truly angry. I utilized to accidental each the clip that I conscionable wanted to beryllium locked successful a country with her with nary windows and conscionable 1 door, and lone 1 of america would beryllium walking out.’

Rose’s proceedings started successful October 1995, attended by galore of the victims’ families, among them Dezra and her mother, who went for the archetypal 2 days. ‘I felt it was important to beryllium determination astatine the start,’ she says. The time earlier it opened, connected a agleam and acold autumn morning, Dezra asked a household liaison serviceman to instrumentality her to 25 Cromwell Street, truthful she could spot wherever her sister had spent her past days.

‘We stood extracurricular for a while, and helium told maine astir however determination was a partition wherever Alison would beryllium and speech with friends. It was bully to see,’ she says.

Dezra besides asked to beryllium taken to spot the patio wherever her sister had been buried. ‘I wanted to spot wherever they’d recovered her,’ she says. ‘It whitethorn dependable weird, but I was gladsome she was recovered successful the garden. I felt that that’s wherever radical get buried, successful the earth. So that was 1 tiny comfort.’

Rose West was fixed 10 beingness sentences astatine Winchester Crown Court successful November 1995 for 10 murders. In 1997, Home Secretary Jack Straw subjected Rose to a full beingness tariff, lone the 2nd imposed connected a pistillate successful the UK successful modern times aft serial slayer Myra Hindley successful 1990. Now 71, Rose volition dice successful prison.

Justice, past – though justness cannot bring backmost mislaid loved ones.

‘My daughters volition ne'er conscionable Alison, my grandchildren volition ne'er conscionable her, and she volition ne'er get to beryllium a mother. Nothing changes that,’ says Dezra.

Taking portion successful the documentary has proved cathartic, though it dredged up unexpected feelings.

‘Over the years my daughters person said to maine that I should speech to someone, but I ne'er wanted to, I conscionable wanted to permission my feelings locked distant successful that container and transportation on,’ she says.

‘But portion doing the documentary, they suggested I speech to the scientist utilized by the team, and each these feelings came out. Sadness, anger, but besides different feeling I didn’t understand.’ It was, she present realises, survivor’s guilt.

‘I’m the large sister,’ she says simply. ‘I can’t ever shingle disconnected the feeling that I should person done a spot amended surviving for the 2 of us.’

Fred And Rose West: A British Horror Story is connected Netflix from tomorrow.