The Christie Case

[Sherlock]

Is John Curnow's ebook still available for purchase?

I already have a copy but the website on which it could be ordered seems to have disappeared.

Does anyone have any information on this?

[Honest John]

News

John Curnow's ebook on the topic is now available; having seen various drafts I can confidently state that it is a reliable and mature piece of work.

At Dirty Dick's pub near Liverpool Street Station on 2 May 2015 there's a conference about Miscarriages of Justice in London. Ruth Ellis, Craig and Bentley and Evans will all feature - I am giving the talk on the latter, Bob Odell on the Croydon business. Could be interesting.

[Sherlock]

As Honest John records in his book, Timothy Evans also had a half-brother from his mother's marriage to Penry Probert. For some reason this fact does not seem to have been mentioned in previous books on the case, including that by Ludovic Kennedy. One wonders whether this half-brother is still alive and what kind of relationship he had with Evans. If he is still alive this would be someone else who might possibly shed more light on the case, along with Lucy Dyson (nee Endecott).

In the programme Maureen Westlake repeated the story recorded by Ludovic Kennedy in his book that it was Evans's other sister Eileen who first spotted the vacant flat on the top floor of 10 Rillington Place from a passing tube train. There seems no reason to disbelieve this. I think Mrs Westlake said in the programme that her sister regretted spotting the flat for the rest of her life due to the tragic events which happened to her family there. If she had never seen it and the Evans's had not moved there Christie would never have been associated with the Evans murders and the case would have been somewhat different; he would probably only have been remembered as a rather nasty serial killer and the extra dimension of an innocent man having possibly been executed would have been absent. This might have meant that the case would have generated much less interest and would not have been remembered quite as well today. There would probably also have been rather less written about it, and Ludovic Kennedy would not have written his book which was chiefly aimed at proving Evans's innocence. On the other hand Honest John might still have produced his thorough analysis of Christie, his crimes and his victims.

[Honest John]

Haigh was as cheerful as possible in the circs., just before his execution, so it is not unknown. On the other hand George Joseph Smith was quite the opposite in 1915.

[Honest John]

I think that the programme can only be seen as anti capital punishment propaganda. No dissenting voices were allowed and no counter arguments or cases made (I recall a programme some years ago when voices on both sides were allowed to be heard; no reference to Evans made). I echo much of what has already been said. Interesting that Evans' half sister was stated as being his sister - but they had different fathers. Can anyone remember the barrister's name? A few years ago I was told that the 2004 hearing papers were inaccessible. What was there to hide?

Hanratty not mentioned, which is noteworthy.

[contrafib]

As I said, television is there to be used as entertainment but not regarded as being particularly interested in the truth. Editing is an easy way to make things appear a certain way. I think whoever said it is right that Basil Thorley's comments regarding the murder of his sister were shown to give the impression that he didn't think it was Evans, when we know he did, but he seems to be lying about the grave, which is strange. At one point, I was expecting the present-day Lucy Endecott to appear, stating that the dimwitted Tim didn't realise that he was going off with her, his wife's friend, for a couple of nights of passion, being 10 years old as they keep saying he was.

Lazy research, simplistic presentation, where have we seen that before??! Honest John, you need to track down Mr Thorley and get the facts straight.

Serious question- What did you think of the letter he sent to his sister from prison? It seems quite cheerful, or maybe just putting a brave face on it? Is a guilty man more likely to be calm, resigned to his fate etc... than someone who is innocent?? Seems like it would be so, but who would be cheerful?

[Limehouse]

Yes, Sherlock, I was very surprised that Basil didn't seem to know where is sister and her child were buried. It's unthinkable that a funeral and burial was held without the family being involved in the arrangements. I am assuming she still had at least one parent at that time - and siblings.

I agree with the general sloppiness of the programme - and its bias against the death penalty. I don't have a problem with their mission to highlight the brutality of the penalty - but they did seem to overplay the 'harmless simpleton' card in Evans and Bentley's case.

[Sherlock]

Another odd fact in the programme was that Basil Thorley claimed to have been unaware of the final resting place of Beryl and Geraldine until 2003, ie in a common grave in Gunnersbury Cemetery.

This seems hard to believe; for one thing, the bodies of Beryl and Geraldine were exhumed for examination in 1953 after Christie claimed to have used gas on Beryl prior to killing her. There must surely have been some mention of this in the press at the time which would have mentioned the location of the grave. For another, pictures of the grave and accounts of the exhumation have appeared in several books published since 1953, for example in "Forty Years of Murder" by Keith Simpson which I think was published in 1978. It therefore seems bizarre that the Thorley family were in total ignorance of the location of the grave between 1949 and 2003, and made no attempt to find out through official channels. I seem to remember Mr Thorley saying that he visited London graveyards at random in the hope of finding the grave.

I also noticed that Basil's surname was misspelled as Thornley. I tend to think that although not all the facts given in the programme were untrue, it was hampered by sloppiness and a lack of proper research, certainly as far as the Evans case was concerned.

[a_baron]

Christie

Did anyone see that programme on ITV? What a load of rubbish. Here is my assessment:

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/17652667-new-user-event

With regard to the murder at Windsor, I should have made a note but this will have to do. While researching at Kew I found a reference to this. A young girl was murdered at Windsor at the time Sugar Ray Robinson was staying at an hotel there for one of his fights. A man resembling Christie was photographed in the crowd outside, and an appeal was made. He came forward, was named as George Mason Black, and was cleared of any involvement.

When the Christie case blew up, someone in Fleet Street remembered this, and thought it may have been Christie, but he was never in the frame. My view is that Christie murdered 6 and only 6 women.

[Limehouse]

It's true that the programme did gloss over certain facts about Evan's relationship with his wife. There was violence in the relationship - but remember that Christie was also convicted of domestic violence against a woman with whom he was having a relationship during a long break in his marriage when he and his wife lived apart.

Evans certainly was able to hold down a job. There was little option in those days. He would not have been regarded as being incapable of work. However, depending on the nature of his learning difficulties, he may well have been particularly immature, petulant and quick tempered - but not necessarily capable of murder.

Christie, on the other hand, had a string of convictions for violence, fraud and dishonesty. He was manipulative and quite able to exploit relationships of all kinds for his own ends in order to appear respectable and plausible. However, we know that he was a multiple murderer - someone who murdered the woman who had been faithful to him despite his track record. I can see no problem with holding him responsible for the murder of both Evan's wife and his child.

The programme also played down Derek Bentley's criminal past but played up his learning difficulties. Strangely, it did not mention factors that may have impacted on his behaviour such as the head injuries he suffered and the fact that he was bombed out of at least two childhood homes - one bombing resulting in the death of one of his sisters and an aunt. The programme spent a lot of time focusing on whether Bentley did or did not say 'let him have it, Chris' - the family being adamant that he did not say these words. There was no mention of the possibility that he said them in order to encourage Craig to hand over the gun - as has often been suggested.

They painted a fair picture of the events leading to the execution of Ruth Ellis - there was no doubt over the accuracy of her conviction but a strong focus on whether it constituted diminished responsibility. One thing that struck me was (and this always happens when Ellis is mentioned) the referral to Blakely as 'her lover' as opposed to 'her boyfriend'. They obviously do this to play up the image that Ellis had as a 'good time girl'. Why hasn't that old-fashioned image been dispensed with?

All-in-all, it was a play-safe depiction of the last few hangings in England. Some notable cases, such as the hanging of Hanratty in 1962, where over-looked.

I was interested to learn that hanging was not abolished in Northern Ireland until 1973 - and the programme included an interview with the last man in the Uk to be sentenced to death - in 1973.

[Sherlock]

It was interesting that Basil Thorley had agreed to participate in the "Executed" programme. I do wonder, though, whether he was merely telling the programme makers what they wanted to hear when he was interviewed.

He certainly does not seem to have mentioned anything about Christie interfering with Beryl prior to her murder to John Eddowes when the latter was researching his book on the case. I seem to remember reading other claims that Christie had made sexual advances towards Beryl before her death. In "The Two Stranglers of Rillington Place" Rupert Furneaux quotes Donald Hume, whom Timothy Evans had met whilst on remand in Brixton Prison, as stating that Christie had come to an "arrangement" with Beryl, whatever that may mean, and had subsequently murdered her. It is certainly possible, or even probable, that Christie was sexually attracted to Beryl, but this does not in itself prove that he murdered her.

My impression is that Beryl was not the kind of person who would have tolerated unwelcome advances of this kind, and that she was certainly not physically attracted to Christie herself. I also wonder what Evans would have done if he had known that Christie was interfering with his wife; with his violent temper he might well have confronted him. On the other hand, he may have been somewhat afraid of Christie due to the latter's status as an ex-policeman, or Beryl may simply not have told her husband what was going on. One wonders where the truth of the matter really lies? As Contrafib has said, if Christie was making unwelcome advances on Beryl it seems highly unlikely that she would have consented to him attempting to abort her.

Perhaps if Mr Thorley granted an interview to an independent researcher such as Honest John a clearer picture of the events of 1949 might emerge.

[contrafib]

You beat me to the punch, Sherlock. Here's the text of some of my thoughts on the programme posted on my blog.

'Watched the Timothy Evans section of the programme 'Executed' last night on ITV and it was frustratingly slick television mixed in with genuine grief and sadness from Evans's family at the event itself. A friend of mine who worked for a media company gave me the sound advice, 'don't ever believe what you see on TV', which doesn't mean that none of it is true but that it shouldn't be taken as literal truth and is all presented and edited to give a certain impression, usually a very simple one so that the viewers don't have to think too hard while watching.

Some of the programme was correct in that Evans's mother did shout that Christie was the murderer outside the courtroom during Evans's trial, and Evans did eventually accuse Christie of the murders of his wife and daughter. The ever-smiling Tim was part of his character but not the whole story, and Beryl seems to have been a nice person although fairly adept at handling herself in physical confrontations. It was interesting to see the original photos of the Evans family, and there's no reason to doubt that both parents doted on baby Geraldine, the most innocent victim in this sorry saga.

However, certain known facts were not mentioned or were misrepresented and other things simplified:
- Tim is portrayed as a harmless dimwit, fitting in nicely with the 'standard version' from Ludovic Kennedy's book. The files that were opened in the 1990s show this to be not the case, as he was a drinker who was seen with his arms round his wife's neck by one of the neighbours during an argument. The programme highlights his childlike nature and low mental age, but he was also able to hold down a job in the adult world and his mental age doesn't make it less likely that he was the killer, as it is a primitive, primal act.
-Basil Thorley, Beryl's brother, genuinely grieves his sister, but unlike how he is portrayed in the programme, he always thought Evans did it even when nobody else did, and chatted amiably with Christie outside the court during Evans's trial.
-There is no mention of the Evanses' frequent and often violent arguments, and a rather rosy picture is offered.
-Christie is portrayed in a simplistic way as aggressive and horrible. Again, part of this is true, and he was apparently rude to Evans's sisters when they came to inquire about the whereabouts about Tim and his wife and daughter, but Jonathan Oates's book offers a more rounded portrait of Christie, who was liked by many he came into contact with
-Only one of Evans's 4 official statements is mentioned, the one where he implicated Christie, whereas he confessed 3 times to killing his wife and baby.
-It is assumed that Evans' pardon in 1965 meant that he was officially an innocent man, whereas Judge Brabin's verdict was that he probably killed his wife but not his daughter.
-Basil Thorley says that Beryl had told him that Christie had 'interfered' with her and 'touched her up'. Why then would she agree to let him abort her baby?

Please no angry replies and claims that I'm a 'Christie supporter' or 'Christie apologist'. The whole case is very sad and tragic, but my point as ever is to cut through the emotion and try to draw an accurate conclusion. The police probably were hasty in their original conclusions and keen to get the case put to bed quickly. John Eddowes theorised in his 1994 book that Christie could have been a police informant, which would explain his economic survival despite being frequently off work.

TV programmes exist to serve advertisers rather than viewers and so need to tow the establishment line. Of course, this case was different in that officialdom has 'officially' been found to have got it wrong, but once again an overly simplistic review of the facts is given, as fits the make up of mainstream programming.'

[Sherlock]

I have just seen the ITV documentary "Executed", which examined some of the last executions to take place in the United Kingdom including that of Timothy Evans.

Evans' sister Maureen Westlake was interviewed, and also Beryl Evans' brother Basil Thorley. The programme took the standard line that Evans was innocent of the murders of Beryl and Geraldine, which were committed by Christie. Interestingly, when Basil Thorley was interviewed he did not state that he believed that Timothy Evans was indeed guilty, as he had told author John Eddowes some years earlier. Maureen Westlake still seems to believe passionately in her brother's innocence. She also still has a number of photographs of Timothy and Beryl in her possession which were briefly shown, not all of which I think have been previously published in any book on the case.

What did other contributors make of this programme?

[Brickbat]

Thanks Honest John for the update. Always wondered if these two direct witnesses are still alive, since both were very young in 1949. As for the Ethel letters, which started to surface in the 90s it must be a nightmare for a historian to see these being scattered all over thanks to rogue market traders and uncaring auctioneers.

[Honest John]

Miscellaneous threads

Recently I have tried to contact Lucy Dyson nee Endicott, Basil Thorley and the auctioneers of the Ethel Chrsitie letters, but no luck so far.

Someone said Lucy worked in a London club but then on buses back in Rotherham and that she was good looking.

I gave a talk last week and was asked if the Christie crimes were still possible today and whether he would eb sent to Broadmoor now. I answered yes to the first and was unsure to the second; probably no.