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

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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. 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. As Rillington Place no longer exists, the BBC One drama was filmed in BBC Scotland’s Dumbarton Studios and on the streets of Glasgow. All were gassed, raped and strangled and hidden in the kitchen in an alcove covered over by wallpaper. It had been expertly tied, with ‘tightening’ knots, by someone well versed in this skill. Possibly Tim Evans as a driver might have done this to secure loads under tarpaulins – OR – Christie as a ‘King’s Scout’ might have learned this as a proficiency, or in one of his clerking/dispatch jobs.

And so, just as his detailed confession made apparent, it really does seem that Evans indeed did strangle to death his young pregnant wife and his infant daughter – the latter crime for which he was tried and convicted – and for which he suffered the only penalty available under the law of the day. Painfully for her youngest brother, no conviction in respect of Beryl’s murder was ever obtained. Two years later on 14 December 1952 he strangled his 54 year-old wife and hid her body, wrapped in a blanket, under the floorboards in the parlour. I want her here, next to me when I go,” he explains. “But this book is the final chapter. This is it now. This is what I know happened.”

Putting aside all the plentiful evidence for Evans’s innocence, there was always one very obvious anomaly which neither Brabin nor Thorley, nor any of the others who have written books on the subject, are able to explain away. Put simply, it is this: if you believe Evans to be guilty of killing his wife you have to accept the extraordinary reality that in the same little house in Notting Hill there lived at the same time two men both of whom were murderers, both of whom murdered women in the same way (i.e. by strangulation) whilst neither was aware of the other’s activities. It was soon joined by a second victim, Muriel Amelia Eady, a 32 year-old colleague, on 7 October 1944.

Neither corpse was discovered when detectives searched the house looking for missing mother Beryl Evans and her daughter Geraldine in late November 1949. Eddowes, John (1995). The Two Killers of Rillington Place. London: Warner Books. ISBN 978-0-7515-1285-4. 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.

Gammon, Edna E. (2011). A House to Remember: 10 Rillington Place. Liverpool, England: Memoirs Books. p.63. ISBN 978-1-908-22338-8. a b c 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.

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.” It seems odd that Christie should have said hair came from the bodies in the alcove if in fact it had come from those now reduced to skeletons; not very likely that in his last four murders the only trophy he took was from the one woman with whom he did not have peri-mortal sexual intercourse; and even more odd that one of his trophies had definitely not come from any of the unfortunate women known to have been involved. [119] Ethel Christie and the Sheffield connection to the 10 Rillington Place murders". www.chrishobbs.com . Retrieved 9 December 2019.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. 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. According to the Radio Times, it’s thought that he did this because of his low self-esteem and a desire to fit in with those around him. Filming also took place in the village of Merthyr Vale, the real life hometown of Timothy Evans. The pub scenes were filmed at the Victoria Hotel on Burdett Road in east London. The pub was subsequently demolished as part of the redevelopment of the area in 1972–73. 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 ]

St Andrew's Square and Wesley Square with position of 10 Rillington Place". Wesley Square . Retrieved 25 August 2020. Everyone who wants to know the truth already does. Those who still believe the “official” story don’t want to know the truth. [Once said of the events of 9/11 in New York]. Mary Westlake is Timothy Evans’s half-sister, herself born in September 1929, and so was evidently still alive last March and, to her credit, paying her remembrances to Timothy even though the unsuccessful campaign for his conviction to be quashed had long-since reached an end. Shortly after his arrest in 1953 the place was renamed Runton Close in a bid to shake off the past. But Notting Hill was a grotty, rat-infested slum at the time, not to mention the home of a serial killer, and no name change was going to solve the problem. Elder, Robert K. (1 June 2013). The Best Film You've Never Seen: 35 Directors Champion the Forgotten Or Critically Savaged Movies They Love. Chicago Review Press. p.247. ISBN 978-1-61374-929-6.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.