The Christie Case

[Writerboy]

I dont know if Trev. claims Christie actually told him this does he? Much as it feels arrogant to disregard something said by someone who was actually there I find the whole statement he makes bizarre and highly unlikely, and also completely lacking in evidence or plausibility. I think the abortion thing was merely Christie's way of luring women to the house. Though if he was well known for offering it it seems strange Ethel never knew. In those days neighbourhoods were very intimiate and everyone knew all the gossip.

Similarly in the Black Museum doc Bill Waddell claims Christie was dismissed from Harrow Road police station for interfering with women in the canteen, something I dont think I've ever seen mentioned elsewhere...

[Sherlock]

One of the major mysteries concerning the Christie case is exactly what Ethel Christie did or did not know about her husband's activities both inside their house and outside it. As you rightly say, neighbourhoods were much more intimate and close-knit in those days, and if the local gossip was that Christie was known to offer to perform abortions it seems strange that Ethel apparently never heard anything about this.

I wonder if she did in fact hear something at some point and chose to ignore it, either out of fear of her husband or possibly because she wanted to convince herself that he was an honest and decent man and a reformed character in spite of his earlier criminal record.

As Honest John has already revealed, Christie was still having an affair with another woman after the war and was actually cited as co-respondent when her husband divorced her. Ethel can hardly have failed to have known about that and it must have shown her something of what kind of a man her husband really was.

I wonder if Ethel was so trapped within her relationship with her husband that she simply lacked the willpower to leave him or to challenge him over his behaviour? We will probably never know.

[Sherlock]

It is now possible to pre-order Honest John's book on Amazon, as I have just done. Expected time of delivery is October.

[Sherlock]

I have also never read anywhere else that Christie was dismissed from the War Reserve Police for interfering with women in the canteen at Harrow Road Police Station. I recently came across a short BBC radio documentary on the case on Youtube in which the current curator of Scotland Yard's Black Museum stated that this was why he left the police.

Ludovic Kennedy stated in a footnote in Ten Rillington Place that the information he had obtained from New Scotland Yard was that Christie had been released from the War Reserve Police at his own request. Previously, F. Tennyson Jesse had stated in her introduction to The Trials of Evans and Christie that he had been dismissed from the police because of his affair with the young woman who worked at Harrow Road Police Station.

However, Honest John has discovered that Christie was still having the affair with the lady after the war. Therefore, the reasons for him leaving the police still seem unclear. Kennedy suggested that Christie could no longer stand the strain of being a policeman whose job it was to discover murderers when he had in fact committed a murder himself, that of Ruth Fuerst. I am not certain that I accept this theory.

I wonder if the real reason he left was that he had indeed been interfering with women in the police station and was allowed to resign rather than suffer the indignity of being dismissed? Could the Metropolitan Police still have material relating to this on their files which the curator of the Black Museum knew about but was not public knowledge?

What do Honest John and others think?

[Brickbat]

It is now possible to pre-order Honest John's book on Amazon, as I have just done. Expected time of delivery is October.

Can't find it on Amazon or anywhere else. What's the exact title of the book & author's name under which it's listed? Thanks.

[Sherlock]

The title is John Christie of Rillington Place; Biography of a Serial Killer.

If you put that title into the Amazon UK search box you should find it OK. Publication date is given as 18th October and the price is £15.59.

[Honest John]

I have been unable to find a reason why he left; as Kennedy rightly states he left voluntarily. However, Kennedy's reasoning for this is, like so much of his book, speculative. I have seen no evidence for why he left. However, it is worth noting that Christie had many, many jobs (mostly van driving like Evans; contrary to Kennedy he was rarely a clerical worker at this time) from 1919-1939 and the longest lasted three years. He was of a restless disposition work wise, like so many serial killers. He may have left because of this low boredom threshold or he may have left to ill health, real or imagined, as his sickness records show he had been off ill for some weeks prior to departure in December 1943, and I tend to favour this. By this time, with the vast reduction in air raids, the police perhaps felt less of a need for every single man that they had needed in the Blitz of 1940-1.

[Sherlock]

Hello Honest John

Yes, that does sound like a very plausible reason for Christie's leaving the police.

It is interesting that most of Christie's jobs between 1919 and 1939 mostly involved van driving rather than clerical work. In his statement to the police given to Chief Inspector Jennings at Notting Hill Police Station on 1st December 1949 after the arrest of Evans, he stated that he had been released from the police to go to work at the Ultra Radio factory as an electric van driver. This statement is provided in full as an appendix in The Two Killers of Rillington Place by John Eddowes.

It would seem, then, that his job at Ultra Radio was the last which involved driving, as his two succeeding jobs at the Post Office Savings Bank and British Road Services were clerical posts which no doubt involved only desk work.

[sdreid]

In the movie, it has Christie showing the flat to Mr. and Mrs. Evans. Was he a sort of manager of #10 and, if so, was he paid for this or have his rent reduced as a compensation?

[Sherlock]

I've never read anywhere that Christie was ever given any formal responsibility for showing prospective tenants round the house or was any kind of manager. It could be that the film is merely using some artistic licence in showing him acting as such.

On the other hand, Ludovic Kennedy stated in his book that Christie usually answered the front door when the bell rang whether the caller had actually come to see him or not, and had also bored a small hole above his kitchen door so that he could observe visitors. It seems that he liked to know everything that went on in the house, and so it is not impossible that he himself took on the task of showing the Evans's and other prospective tenants the top flat whether he had in fact been asked to do so or not.

[sdreid]

Yes Sherlock, I wondered if it could be some license. The film also has him and Evans putting Beryl's body in the flat of the man who is away in hospital which would indicate that Christie had a key to the residence. Again, I don't know how true the account is.

[Honest John]

PS Trevellian's interview was part of a less than wonderful 2011 TV programme. However, in 1965 when interviewed in the Brabin Enquiry he merely stated that he had heard that Christie was an abortionist and there's no evidence he ever spoke to Christie. Jennings stated categorically that Christie was not an abortionist and the myriad statements made by neighbours in 1953 don't mention it either. I think we can safely assume he wasn't.

[contrafib]

Honest John, what's the final date on your book again?? Any last thoughts before it's published? And any media advertising accompanying the book??
I suppose a special TV programme featuring a reevaluation of the case including all theories of Evans' and Christie's guilt and including archive interviews with some of those who were around at the time is out of the question, eh?? probably!

[Honest John]

18 October is the big day, as it were. Authors tend to look forward top books being published with a mixture of joy and concern, especially with anything controversial and I suppose I am no exception. One could always do better.

No news on a tv slot, regrettably.

[Sherlock]

Hello Honest John. I can't wait for your book to be published and I have it on order with Amazon.

I also hope that it's publication might encourage a new television documentary to be made examining the case. I even hope that it might inspire a new film or television play about Christie and Evans utilising the new information uncovered by you. I never felt that the 1971 film starring Richard Attenborough and John Hurt was particularly satisfactory as it contained many inaccuracies and also felt that it did not even evoke the historical atmosphere of the early 1950s very strongly, even though it was filmed on location in the former Rillington Place. For example, the 1990s film Let Him Have It concerning the Craig and Bentley case starring Christopher Eccleston gave a far more convincing depiction of the atmosphere of South London in 1952-53 period.