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

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The book should be read by any and all who have an interest in the subject and by the legions of readers, and viewers, whose perceived knowledge and understanding derive from the mass of previous works, that of Ludovic Kennedy in 1961 chief among them. The third and final episode opens with a brief recap on last week’s death of Beryl Evans and a short sequence in which the Notting Hill police are pressing Timothy Evans to confess (although the official records, still in existence and held at The National Archives, reveal that the confessions were volunteered and received in an atmosphere of calm and restraint. Evans himself made no allegations against the police of any duress, undue influence or aggression). Neither corpse was discovered when detectives searched the house looking for missing mother Beryl Evans and her daughter Geraldine in late November 1949.

It wasn’t long before some suggested that it must surely have been the monster downstairs who killed Beryl and Geraldine. Campaigns were launched, principally by Evans’s family, to recognise what they said was a gross miscarriage of justice. Eventually, he received a posthumous royal pardon. And that, so far as most people believe, was the end of that. 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 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. A huge fight erupted towards the end of 1949 and Peter Thorley told his father about the bruises he had seen on his sister.

Four days after Christie moved out, a tenant broke through the hollow wall while trying to install a shelf for his wireless radio. The police search that followed also uncovered the body of Ethel Christie in the parlour and a tobacco tin containing clumps of pubic hair. By the time of his trial in 1950, Evans had recanted his previous confessions and pleaded innocent, claiming Christie was the culprit. Christie, a key witness in the trial, denied having any part in Beryl’s or Geraldine’s death. In September 1916, during the First World War, Christie enlisted in the British Army; he was called up on 12 April 1917 to join the 52nd Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment to serve as an infantryman. In April 1918, the regiment was despatched to France, where Christie was seconded to the Duke of Wellington's Regiment as a signalman. Evans reported that he didn’t know his daughter was dead until the police told him about the body. He had thought she was with Christie, who was unwilling to let him see her. Mary Westlake v Criminal Cases Review Commission [2004] EWHC 2779(Admin)(17 November 2004), High Court (England and Wales). It includes a segment from the Hansard transcript of Jenkins's decision to recommend a pardon in the House of Commons.

Root, Neil (2011). Frenzy!: Heath, Haigh & Christie: The First Great Tabloid Murderers. Preface Publishing. ISBN 978-1848093171. Jesse, F. Tennyson (1957). The Trials of Timothy John Evans and John Reginald Halliday Christie. Notable Trials series, William Hodge.Christie committed his murders over a ten-year period between 1943 and 1953, usually by strangling his victims after he had rendered them unconscious with domestic gas; some he raped as they lay unconscious. Ethel Christie and the Sheffield connection to the 10 Rillington Place murders". www.chrishobbs.com . Retrieved 9 December 2019. Camps, F. E. (1953). Medical and Scientific Investigations in the Christie Case. Medical Publications. Christie was hanged at 9:00 a.m. on 15 July 1953 at HM Prison Pentonville. His executioner was Albert Pierrepoint, who had hanged Evans. [113] After being pinioned for execution, Christie complained that his nose itched. Pierrepoint assured him that, "It won't bother you for long". [114] After the execution, Christie's body was buried in an unmarked grave within the precincts of the prison, as was standard practice for executed prisoners in the United Kingdom. [115] Victims [ edit ]

He added: ‘They decided to not build anything on this land and it’s not listed as contaminated, but as a memorial garden.’On 8 November, Evans returned from work and Christie told him that the operation had gone wrong and Beryl had died at 3pm. But after his capture and arrest Christie confessed to killing Beryl Evans and controversy still rages over whether Timothy Evans was the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice.