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

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Gammon, Edna (2011). A House to Remember: 10 Rillington Place. Memoirs Books. ISBN 978-1-908-22338-8. The film, the books, they’ve clouded everybody’s judgement,” Lea says, sitting beside Thorley in their garden. “There has only ever been that one version of events. Nobody approached Peter’s family.” Thorley nods. “You would have thought she was an orphan.” St Andrew's Square and Wesley Square with position of 10 Rillington Place". Wesley Square . Retrieved 25 August 2020.

Intriguing details about Christie’s early criminal history can be found in this essay by Dr Jonathon Oates, whose biography of Christie was published in 2012. It is interesting that Peter believes Beryl was killed on Monday the 7th, not on Tuesday the 8th, and I found it confusing that he did not highlight and explain this inconsistency between his narrative and what other more or less “established” sources have to say about Beryl being seen alive on the Tuesday. I understand his remark about Beryl and Joan Vincent being mistaken for one another because they often swapped clothes, so it might have been Joan, not Beryl, who was seen alive on the Tuesday, but I’m not sure why he believes Beryl was killed on the Monday. Here I also found John Eddowes’ comment above interesting: that it was Beryl and Maureen who were seen together on the Tuesday, though it would be nice to know a source for this. Maybe it’s in his own book. Anyway it matters less in the end which day Beryl met her death, compared with who was guilty of it. The story did not end there. Three years later, John Christie had moved out and was renting his small flat out to a tenant. While decorating the kitchen the tenant uncovered a hidden cupboard. Inside were the bodies of three women. When the police came and searched the house and grounds they found a further two bodies in the garden. Under the floorboards in the front room was Ethel Christie, John Christie’s wife. John Christie was a serial killer. Kennedy, Ludovic (1961). Ten Rillington Place. London, England: Victor Gollancz Ltd. pp.23–24. ISBN 978-0685032640. There are also two well-known books on the subject: The Two Killers of Rillington Placeby John Eddowes and Ten Rillington Placeby Ludovic Kennedy.Shortly before Beryl died, she told Thorley how scared she was of Evans, and gave him her wedding ring for safekeeping, believing her husband would pawn it. He still has it now. She also told him Evans had threatened to kill her. 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.

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. Many who had delved further into the research for themselves already harboured grave misgivings about the so-called Standard Version of events – that which had Christie as the sole guilty man and Evans the hapless innocent victim, framed by a wily older man and condemned under a corrupt, incompetent and vengeful judicial system. Lease Agreement, St Andrew's Square" (PDF). Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea . Retrieved 25 August 2020. 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.

It’s the character of Evans that is central to all this, and as John Newton Chance also remarked in his book, “none of the previous stories fitted the facts of who the people were.” Daniel Brabin took this factor into account when he concluded it was more likely that Christie was the murderer of little Geraldine, “a killing in cold blood which Christie would be more likely to do.” He was always so nice to me. He never said a wrong word, we got on so well. I couldn’t believe it when they said he was a murderer,” he says. “He wouldn’t have left a child without a mother, and he would never have killed Geraldine. Christie wasn’t like that.”

Barber, Sian (22 January 2013). The British Film Industry in the 1970s: Capital, Culture and Creativity. Palgrave Macmillan. p.17. ISBN 978-1-137-30592-3. In that tiny house it’s more than likely that Christie, creeping around in his plimsolls, spying on people, and certainly taking note of any noise, would have discovered if Evans had killed his wife. Perhaps he broke in upon a fight that ended in death, or investigated the sounds heard overhead at midnight and found Beryl’s body in Kitchener’s flat. Or maybe Evans came to him for help in his predicament; who knows? Christie pretended she had gone away and sold all his furniture including the bed as well as his wife’s wedding ring and watch.Christie was demobilised from the army on 22 October 1919. [16] He joined the Royal Air Force on 13 December 1923, but was discharged on 15 August 1924. [17] Marriage [ edit ] This uncertainty led to a second inquiry, chaired by High Court judge Sir Daniel Brabin, which was conducted over the winter of 1965–1966. Brabin re-examined much of the evidence from both cases and evaluated some of the arguments for Evans' innocence. His conclusions were that it was "more probable than not" that Evans had killed his wife but not his daughter Geraldine, for whose death Christie was responsible. Christie's likely motive was that her presence would have drawn attention to Beryl's disappearance, which Christie would have been averse to as it increased the risk that his own murders would be discovered. [132] Brabin also noted that the uncertainty involved in the case would have prevented a jury from being satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of Evans' guilt had he been re-tried. [133] These conclusions were used by the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, to recommend a posthumous pardon for Evans, which was granted, as he had been tried and executed for the murder of his daughter. [134] [135] Jenkins announced the granting of Evans' pardon to the House of Commons on 18 October 1966. [135] Evans' remains were subsequently exhumed and returned to his family, who arranged for him to be reburied in a private grave. [134] There was already debate in the United Kingdom over the judicial killing. Evans' execution and other controversial cases contributed to the 1965 suspension, and subsequent abolition, of capital punishment in the United Kingdom. [136] A couple of extra points, totally unrelated to one another. Pity I couldn’t edit my post “in situ” to insert them. Timothy Evans, who had a low IQ, confessed on four separate occasions that he was responsible, claiming he had killed his wife in a fit of temper. But after being charged with murder he told officers: ‘Christie did it.’ Richard Attenborough, who played Christie in the film, spoke of his reluctance to accept 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." [9] The film was produced by Leslie Linder and Martin Ransohoff. [10] Hangman Albert Pierrepoint, who had hanged both Evans and Christie, served as an uncredited technical advisor on the film to ensure the authenticity of the hanging scene. [11]