Personal Column: I escaped from Fred and Rose

Unhappy at home and only 17 years old, Caroline Roberts first joined the Wests' household willingly. But when she tried to leave, matters took a very disturbing turn. She has spent three decades recovering

She was young and pretty. He was older, scruffy and not very attractive. I first met them in 1972, when I was 17 and hitch-hiking back from my boyfriend's in Tewkesbury. I was standing in the same spot where I always stood, when their car pulled up. I didn't think they were a couple at first, but they told me they were married with three children, and offered to give me a lift back to Gloucester. There was a lot of banter between us all, and they seemed really nice and chatty.

By the time we got to Glouc- ester, they asked me if I'd move in with them and look after their kids. It seemed like a blessing. I wasn't getting along with my stepfather and I had this romantic idea that I'd be going to live in this nice big house.

In reality it was very scruffy, and I ended up sharing a room with eight-year-old Anne-Marie, Heather, two, and Mae, who was just six months. But they were nice enough to me.

I got on quite well with Rose. She was only two years older than me. She loved brushing my hair and when the kids would go to bed we'd watch TV and chat about boyfriends and stuff. Fred was quite crude, but nothing serious. He'd go past Rose and shove his hand up her skirt or grab her boob, but I just put it down to his smutty sense of humour. When Rose went upstairs with one of her regular blokes, I just thought she was giving them a massage.

During the six weeks I lived with them Fred and Rose encouraged me to have a sexual relationship with my boyfriend, Tony. They would invite him to stay over, and it was nice to have somewhere comfortable to be with him. They encouraged other sexual liaisons too, with another lodger and an ex-boyfriend they invited to stay without telling me. Fred would say strange things like: "Don't worry if you get pregnant, I've done abortions on girls before and had sex straight after with some of them." I felt sick, but I took it as a joke. He was a bit of a liar.

But then Fred said: "Me and Rose think that you should join our sex circle." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. When I told him to get lost, he started threatening to tell my step-dad what I'd been up to. He said: "Once I tell him what you've been doing, he's not going to want you back, is he?" I decided to walk out and went back home. I told my mum that I'd fallen out with Fred.

A couple of weeks later I was hitch-hiking back from Tewkesbury again when I saw their car pulling up. I wanted to run away because I was scared we were going to have a fight, but when Fred got out of the car, he was all smiles. They kept saying stuff like: "Oh Car, we've missed you," and: "We're sorry if we upset you - it was just a joke. Come in and we'll give you a lift home."

I didn't want to upset them, so I got into the back seat. Rose got in beside me and before I knew it, Fred pulled the car over and punched me round the head until I fell unconscious. By the time I came round, they had tied my hands behind my back with a scarf and were wrapping brown parcel tape around my head like a gag. They pushed me down into the footwell of the car and kept saying, "Calm down" and "We're taking you back for tea."

They took me to a bedroom. Fred gave me a cigarette and promised he'd take me home in a minute, while Rose sat down next to me and started kissing my neck, at which point I started getting hysterical. That was the beginning of 12 hours of on- and-off abuse. It would be abuse and then a cup of tea, calm down and then abuse again. I was stripped naked, bound and threatened that I would be all right as long as I did as I was told. I could feel their hands touching me all over, then Fred got out a belt and beat me between the legs, saying it would help "improve my sex life", and that he'd done it hundreds of times before. Then they would bathe me and start again; I couldn't trust when they were being nice and when they were being horrible and that screwed me up for a long time. When Rose performed oral sex on me it was revolting. I felt betrayed by her.

I was raped, beaten and smothered until I almost suffocated. Fred threatened to keep me in the cellar and let their friends use me, and when they were finished with me they were going to bury me under the paving stones. He said there were already hundreds of girls under there, and if the police couldn't find them, they weren't going to find me. I wished I were dead. He made me promise to keep quiet and come back to live with them, and in return he would let me go, so I agreed. They were so happy once I told them I'd stay, cuddling me and combing the knots from my hair.

Fred sent me to help Rose at the laundrette. I told her I was going out to get cigarettes and I just kept walking. I felt so ashamed that I refused to tell my mum until she forced it out of me. The police took pictures of my injuries, but the cross-examination was so nasty I refused to go to trial and testify. The detective implied I enjoyed this kind of thing and made me feel so terrible about myself that I was happy to go with the indecent assault charges. The Wests were fined just £50 fine each, because the judge felt there must have been some "passive co-operation" on my part. That sent me on a downhill track. I no longer trusted my friends in case they had lesbian tendencies. I started drinking and taking drugs and became more vulnerable and more sexually submissive. I was angry for many years.

I'll never forget that day in 1994 when the police found the first three limbs under the patio of Cromwell Street. It brought back all those memories I'd been trying to forget for 22 years. I couldn't help but think that if I'd have taken them to court in 1972 then all those other girls might still be alive. My husband gave me a hug - and I hit him. I didn't want to be touched, used or abused. Sex was going to be dirty again from now on and those feelings of shame resurfaced. As they started bringing the bodies out, the terrible feelings of guilt grew stronger. I hated myself. I didn't feel lucky that I'd got away. I wished it had been me. How did I deserve to live? I was consumed with guilt.

Standing up as a witness was a turning point for me: it gave me back my self-respect. This time I didn't care what people thought: I wanted to tell the truth. I felt that as long as Rose got put away, then I knew I'd have done something for those girls.

I've forgiven Rose for what she did to me. I've turned my life around. I'm a drugs and alcohol counsellor and my book was great therapy. I love my life, and I wouldn't change a thing of what I've gone through because it's helped me become the person that I am today.

'The One That Got Away' is on the Crime & Investigation Network on 15 February, 9pm