Police dig at former home of Fred and Rose West's friends

Police officers are excavating a garden at the former home of a jailed couple who counted child killers Fred and Rose West among their friends.

David and Pauline Williams were convicted last year of sexually and physically abusing ten children between 1991 and 2004.

A spokesperson for Devon and Cornwall police said: "Following intelligence received, Devon and Cornwall Police are undertaking excavation work at a property in Cullompton, Devon. This relates to historic intelligence connected to the address and its former occupants."

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They added that the work was expected to take up to four days and that the findings would shape any further investigation.

Attention was first drawn to the couple in 2013, when a woman reported she had been raped by Williams when she was 15. Other victims later came forward, implicating Williams and his wife in a string of violent and sexual offences in Gloucester and Devon. The couple were found guilty of 48 individual and joint charges last year, after a six-week trial at Exeter Crown Court.

Williams was sentenced to a minimum of 23 years for ten rapes and 13 indecent assaults, as well as counts of cruelty, gross indecency and sexual activity with a child. His wife was found guilty of two rapes and five indecent assaults and sentenced to 12 years.

Williams once ran the Prince Albert pub in Gloucester, where the Wests were regulars, and bragged to his victims about his friendship with the couple, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Judge Erik Salomonsen, sentencing Williams in December 2015, described the landlord's behaviour as "sick" and stated that a life sentence was the only appropriate response to his crimes.