and Fred installed a separate doorbell to the household which Rose's clients were instructed to ring whenever they visited. Much of the money earned from Rose's prostitution was spent on home improvements. By 1977, Rose's father Bill had come to tolerate his daughter's marriage, and to develop a grudging respect for Fred. Together, he and Fred opened a café they named The Green Lantern, which was soon insolvent. By 1983, she had given birth to eight children, at least three of whom had been conceived by clients. Fred willingly accepted these children as his own and falsely informed them the reason their skin was darker than that of their siblings was because his great-grandmother was a black woman. Domestic violence When each of the West children reached the age of seven, they were assigned numerous daily chores to perform in the house; they were seldom allowed to socialise outside the household perimeters unless either Fred or Rose were present, and had to follow strict guidelines imposed by their parents, with severe punishmentalmost always physicalbeing the penalty for not conforming to the household rules. The children feared being the recipients of violence from their parents, the vast majority inflicted by Rose, occasionally by Fred. The violence was sometimes irrational, indiscreet or just inflicted for Rose's gratification; she always took great care not to mark the children's faces or hands in these assaults. Heather, then her younger brother Stephen (born 1973), both ran away from home; they returned to Cromwell Street after several weeks of alternately sleeping rough or staying with friends, and both were beaten upon their return. Between 1972 and 1992, the West children were admitted to the casualty units of local hospitals thirty-one times; the injuries were explained as accidents and never reported to social services. On one occasion, as Stephen was mopping the kitchen floor with a cloth, Rose accidentally stepped into the bowl of water he had been using. In response, Rose hit the boy over the head with the bowl, then repeatedly kicked him in the head and chest as she shouted: "You did that on purpose, you little swine!" On another occasion, Rose became furious about a missing kitchen utensil, then grabbed a knife she had been using to cut a slab of meat, repeatedly inflicting light scour marks to Mae June's chest until her rib cage was covered with light knife wounds. All the