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Inside 10 Rillington Place: John Christie and me, the untold truth

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a b Eddowes, John The Two Killers of Rillington Place, pp. xiv–xviii details the pervasiveness of the view that Evans was innocent and the subsequent campaign undertaken to overturn his conviction. August 2020 brought with it the publication of a new book entitled Inside 10 Rillington Place. Far from being ‘just another’ book to add to the many already written upon the whole subject, this constituted a historical watershed in that the writer was none other than Beryl Evans’s youngest brother Peter Thorley. I also found it credible that Peter believes Christie collaborated with Evans in trying to cover up the murders. Here again, John Newton Chance as far as I know was the first to suggest this theory. I’m not saying either man was right in every detail, but the general idea does resolve a number of otherwise puzzling points about the mystery of Rillington Place. Aged 85 years at the time of publication, it follows that Thorley was but fourteen in 1949 when the fateful events occurred that deprived him of his sister and niece, and the book provides a most credible, moving and compelling account of what really went on at that house, recounted in a way, and in such detail, that only someone who was actually present and deeply involved could ever have brought forth. Peter and Lea Thorley (left) [Image: Steve Reigate Daily Express]. Peter at Beryl and Geraldine’s graveside (right) [Image: Lea Thorley]

The film dramatises the case of British serial killer John Christie, who committed many of his crimes in the titular London terraced house, and the miscarriage of justice involving his neighbour Timothy Evans. Hurt received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Evans. Around the same time, he and Ethel moved into a new flat at 10 Rillington Place, the now infamous location where John Christie would go on to rape and murder more than eight women between 1943 and 1953. How John Christie Became The Monster Of Rillington Place A three-part BBC biographical crime drama focused on the Christie murders. This series, Rillington Place, was broadcast between November and December 2016 with Tim Roth as John Christie, [139] Samantha Morton as Ethel Christie, Jodie Comer as Beryl Evans and Nico Mirallegro as Timothy Evans.In 1948, Timothy Evans and his wife Beryl moved into the flat above John and Ethel Christie. By then, their marriage was nearing a breaking point, and the stress of parenthood put further strain on their relationship. Unfortunately, these stressors culminated in the most grisly of outcomes. The book is not error-free. For instance, I noticed the statement that Mr. and Mrs. Lynch had written to Beryl’s father to ask if she was staying with him, and received a telegram saying he had not seen her since the summer, which Mrs. Lynch read out at the breakfast table. This strangely reflects a similar error made in that recent travesty of “truth,” the BBC’s “Rillington Place.” In reality it was Eileen, so I understand, who telegraphed William Thorley and received a reply saying his daughter was not there, while what Mrs. Lynch read out at the breakfast table that got Evans so rattled was the letter from Evans’s mother, which Peter Thorley quoted in full earlier on. So two events have been conflated into one. At the age of 11, Christie won a scholarship to Halifax Secondary School, where his favourite subject was mathematics, particularly algebra. He was also good at history and woodwork. [6] [7] It was later found that Christie had an IQ of 128. [8] He also attended Boothtown Council School (also known as Boothtown Board School) in Northowram. Christie sang in the church choir and was a Boy Scout. After leaving school on 22 April 1913, [6] he entered employment as an assistant projectionist. [9]

Above all, this book is a moving personal story of the enduring love a boy had, and still has, for his beloved big sister and tiny niece, both of whom he still misses and mourns to this day. As though such pain were not enough to have borne, he and his family have had also to live with the sensationalised, endlessly trawled over and almost always erroneously depicted events which are so very far from the truth as he alone knew it to be – alone, that is, until now, thanks to this belated but heartfelt and crucially valuable contribution. Evans did confess to both murders. Over the course of time, he made five varying statements to the police which contained numerous fabrications and contradictions. But the truth was there. Only the killer himself could know the details about the murders; he shared this knowledge with the police. Christie carried on with his own life, getting a job as a clerk and taking on new tenants at 10 Rillington Place.John Christie was born on 8 April 1899 in Northowram, near Halifax in the West Riding of Yorkshire, [3] [4] the sixth in a family of seven children. He had a troubled relationship with his father, carpet designer Ernest John Christie, an austere and uncommunicative man who displayed little emotion towards his children and would punish them for trivial offences. John was also alternately coddled and bullied by his mother and older sisters. On 24 March 1911, Christie's grandfather David Halliday died aged 75 in Christie's house after a long illness. Christie later said that seeing his grandfather's body laid out on a trestle table gave him a feeling of power and well-being; a man he had once feared was now only a corpse. [5]

According to WalesOnline, Evans originally said to the police that a concoction he created to terminate his wife’s pregnancy accidentally caused her death, and that he had disposed of her body under a nearby drain. Christie's murders were dramatised in the film 10 Rillington Place (1971), starring Richard Attenborough as Christie, Attenborough spoke of his ambivalence concerning the role: "I do not like playing the part, but I accepted it at once without seeing the script. I have never felt so totally involved in any part as this. It is a most devastating statement on capital punishment." The film also starred Judy Geeson as Beryl Evans, John Hurt as Timothy Evans and Pat Heywood as Ethel Christie. [138] The police interrogation in London was mishandled from the start, when they showed him the clothes of his wife and baby and revealed that they had been found in the wash-house. Such information should have been kept from him so as to force him to tell police where the bodies had been concealed. The several apparent "confessions" contain questionable words and phrases in high-register language such as "terrific argument" which seem out of place for a distressed, uneducated, working-class young man such as Evans and bear no relation to what he probably said. These were almost certainly inventions made much later by the police, according to comments made by Ludovic Kennedy long after the truth about Christie had emerged. [63]I read Peter Thorley’s book with great interest, and I agree that this testimony from a first-hand witness is an important contribution to understanding the mystery of Rillington Place. See for instance Marston's summary of barrister Geoffrey Bing's criticism of the trial, p. 100: "Bing pointed out that Evans's guilt depended on two incredible coincidences. The first was that two murderers, living in the same house but acting independently, strangled women... The second was as extraordinary as the first: that Evans accused the one man in London who was strangling women in the identical way that he, Evans, had strangled his wife and child". The execution of Timothy Evans isn’t haunting because of the crime he was convicted of. It’s the fact that he wasn’t the man who did it. Charged with killing his wife and daughter, 25-year-old Timothy Evans told the court he was innocent and that it was his neighbor who lived downstairs, John Christie, that was responsible. Despite his pleas, Evans was found guilty and hanged. Christie was tried only for the murder of his wife Ethel. His trial began on 22 June 1953, in the same court in which Evans had been tried three years earlier. [101] Christie pleaded insanity, with his defence describing him as "mad as a March hare" and claimed to have a poor memory of the events. [102] [103] Dr. Matheson, a doctor at HM Prison Brixton who evaluated Christie, was called as a witness by the prosecution. He testified, using medical terminology of the time, that Christie had a " hysterical personality" but was not insane. [104] The jury rejected Christie's plea and after deliberating for 85 minutes found him guilty. [105] He was sentenced to death by Mr Justice Finnemore. [106] Gammon, Edna E. (2011). A House to Remember: 10 Rillington Place. Liverpool, England: Memoirs Books. p.63. ISBN 978-1-908-22338-8.

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