REIGN OF TERROR Fred & Rose West’s daughter reveals major secret she keeps from her own son & chilling letter her mum wrote from prison

 No one standing in the kitchen of her smart home – not even her own son – could have imagined the horror of Mae West's childhood.

The mum-of-two is keeping possibly the darkest secret from the teenager – the fact that her parents are Britain's most notorious serial killers Fred and Rose West.

Mae grew up in the haunted house of 25 Cromwell Street, where she suffered disgusting sexual abuse at the hands of her mother and father.

But what was even more chilling was that he was forced to sleep on rotting bodies buried in the basement.

Her own sister Heather was murdered and dumped in the back garden – one of 12 of the couple's known victims.

Mae, now 52, somehow managed to avoid a similar fate and now spends every day trying to fight the demons that threaten to overpower her.

Speaking on the 30th anniversary of her parents' arrest, she told The Sun Online: “I'm just trying to live a normal, everyday life – well, as normal and everyday a life as can be.

"My life now is about protecting my children, especially little ones. He doesn't know anything about my past. Not a clue."

"He's at that age now where he's starting to ask questions. All I've told him is that my father is dead and I don't speak to my mother.

“As far as I'm concerned, he would never do that. Not from me anyway."

Mae's childhood was spent as the victim of a violent beating by her parents, who attacked and sexually assaulted all eight of their children.

She was never read a bedtime story or soothed – instead the behavior meant dressing up as Fred and Rose's victims or managing to escape her father's depraved sexual fantasies.

Instead of a Saturday job at the local café or shop, Mae was asked to work as a secretary for her prostitute mother.

By the time she was born in 1972, Fred and Rose had already killed two people – her half-sister Charmaine and her father's previous wife Katherine "Rena" West.

Despite the fear around her, she has now managed to live a normal life for herself with her husband and two children.

But the ghosts of her upbringing can never really go away – no matter how deeply Mae tries to bury them.

She said: "Now, it feels like another life that wasn't mine. The years have helped. It's true what they say, time heals.

“Sometimes it feels like you have read a story and you have no role in it. Other times, you'll be reminded of something from that time and you'll know you're about to have a bad day.

“I don't talk about it. Now no one in my life except my husband knows who I am in terms of my relationship with Fred and Rose. I think I'm wearing a mask now."\

As the couple's bloodlust grows, Fred and Rose expand their number of victims by luring occupants into their haunted house.

He also lured young women into his car with Rose's presence in the front seat, to make them feel safe.

Once inside the house, they were tied up, gagged, sexually assaulted and murdered.

The murder spree of Fred and Rose finally came to an end on February 25, 1994, when the police began exhumation work on the house.

The apparent joke that Fred had made with his children that if they spoke out they would be "buried under the yard" like Heather turned out to be a real threat when authorities found a leg bone in the garden.

Further excavation work led police to find nine more bodies in the house – three more victims were found buried elsewhere.

With a staggering amount of evidence against them, the couple were charged on June 30, 1994.

Fred took his own life in prison the following year, while Rose was given a life sentence for ten murders.

While she was serving her sentence, Mae received a note from her mother breaking all ties with her.

“My mother and I stopped talking 16 years ago,” he said. We were out. It was his choice.

"She basically wrote me a letter in which she told me 'It would be best if I left you to it.' In other words, she no longer wanted to see me or communicate with me.

“It made me question a lot of things at that time, like whether I was with him or not. It's strange to have someone who is your parent and is alive but you don't see them anymore."

Mae has spent the last 30 years building a new life for herself away from the fearful shackles of her childhood.

Whereas earlier she would speak about her ordeal, she now tells people she is "fine" and moves on.

Mae believes that by throwing herself into family life, she has managed to cope - but there is still a part of her past story she cannot rewrite.

Mother was always close to sister Heather, who was murdered and dismembered after years of disgusting abuse and torture.