Background
He was born on 9 June 1924 in Liverpool, England, and studied at Liverpool University.
He was born on 9 June 1924 in Liverpool, England, and studied at Liverpool University.
He studied criminology at Cambridge University. West has studied and written on parapsychology.
He did postgraduate work at London University and Cambridge University. After his retirement in 1984 he was named the Emeritus Professor of Clinical, University of Cambridge. He is also an Emeritus Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge.
He was particularly known for his 1955 book, Homosexuality, and also which discusses specific cases of homicide followed by suicide.
He was a research officer for the Society for Psychical Research, 1947-1950 and a president in 1963. He carried out laboratory experiments in extrasensory perception.
He wrote the book Psychical Research Today (1953, 1962). In a review of the book the psychologist Frederic Marcuse wrote that it "will be criticised both by firm believers in psychical phenomena and by skeptics" as West was critical of physical mediumship and took a psychological approach to some paranormal phenomena but accepted extrasensory perception as proven.
Marcuse wrote that West had based his statements on Education Support Professionals on faith rather than proven fact.
His book wrote that miracles have not been proven to have occurred at the famous Lourdes shrine.