The Christie Case

[sdreid]

The BBC is producing a new Rillington Place mini series starring Tim Roth as Christie. I'm thinking it will probably be broadcast later this year.

[contrafib]

Rosalia- to be honest, the house and the conditions were one of the things that drew me to this case initially, and there seemed a magical element to everything going on in that tiny space. As a story writer myself, I've probably taken what we know of the house and the street and created in my mind some sort of subjective image of those people going about their daily lives. One of the reasons I love John Newton Chance's book is that he painted a vivid (obviously fantasy) picture of what may have been going on day-by-day, with Christie spending time in the garden meditating on the fact of the 2 skeletons buried there.

It seems that the conditions were genuinely pretty uncomfortable but then again, isn't 10 considered eerie simply because of what happened there. There are of course pictures of a party in the street for the Queen's coronation soon after Christie was arrested and the people seem jolly enough and the houses fairly bright in the daytime sunshine. Interesting...

Still I feel frustrated that this new production will lazily follow the official line. While having long correspondences with the creator of the Rillington Place website, we brought up the point of how quick people are to definitively make up their minds about things in this incredibly uncertain world. This is particularly galling when it's supposedly esteemed famous people whose opinions will (rightly or wrongly) gold a lot of sway with ordinary citizens. So, Richard Attenborough read Ludo's book a couple of times and was convinced and content to make a film about it and go on record saying that poor Evans was innocent and harmless (he may possibly have been the former but certainly not the latter). Likewise, John Hurt. It has wider implications regarding how easily the average citizen is to propagandise with clever words from writers and endorsement of opinions from celebrities.

Sherlock (and everyone else), thank you for your information and posts. We should keep this forum going as there will always be points of interest to come up

[Sherlock]

The U.K. online version of the Daily Mail newspaper has recently published some shots of Tim Roth as Christie filming scenes for the new drama in Glasgow, parts of which are being used to represent Notting Hill in the 1940s and early 1950s. I am not sure if Roth looks more like Christie when made up than Richard Attenborough did.

It seems that the arrest of Christie in 1953 is being shot, with the River Clyde in Glasgow representing the Thames at Putney Bridge.

Not a vastly important point perhaps, but a bus being used in these scenes is not an authentic London one from the early 1950s but one from the same period which ran in the Glasgow area, the only similarity to a London bus being the fact that it is red. I do hope that there won't be a lot of similar period inaccuracies in the serial though.

I actually live near Glasgow myself so I will probably be able to recognise the locations used when the serial is finally shown on television.

[GUT]

Thanks for posting this. It was very interesting. It's a revelation really isn't it that in 20th century Britain thousands lived in sub-standard accommodation like that shown on the video? Even more so when you realise that Timothy and Beryl Evans and their baby were stuck in two rooms on the top of 10 Rillington Place with no bathroom or WC near except the outside one in the back yard.

Unfortunately some people live in not much better conditions today

[Rosella]

Thanks for posting this. It was very interesting. It's a revelation really isn't it that in 20th century Britain thousands lived in sub-standard accommodation like that shown on the video? Even more so when you realise that Timothy and Beryl Evans and their baby were stuck in two rooms on the top of 10 Rillington Place with no bathroom or WC near except the outside one in the back yard.

[contrafib]

Anyone know why that inaccurate Fred Dineage documentary is continually reposted on you tube? must be up to 50 versions of it now, almost like they are automatic reposts. On the subject of YT, here's something I found, with footage of R Place and a brief interview with one of Evans's relatives towards the end

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fMiuiLb1A

[Sherlock]

It is also not impossible that Evans may have had some idea of loading the body of Beryl and possibly that of Geraldine onto his van and disposing them in some remote place, but that the loss of his job with Lancaster Food Products prevented this and instead prompted him to clear out of London and go to Wales, possibly at Christie's suggestion. I am not entirely clear whether Evans was actually fired from his job or resigned by mutual agreement with his boss.

I must stress that everything I have suggested in the previous posts is purely speculation, and that we will probably never know exactly what happened in 10 Rillington Place in Novembef 1949. There seems little doubt that Evans was, as F. Tennyson Jesse put it, a low form of life and a violent drunkard, but did that mean he had to be a murderer as well?

To this day in the eyes of the surviving members of his family Evans was completely innocent. Are they right?

I do not know, but truth can be stranger than fiction.

[Sherlock]

It is also unknown precisely why Evans made the unexpected return to Rillington Place so soon after leaving. Was it because he was genuinely concerned for his daughter's welfare as he claimed, or was it to ensure that Christie was still keeping silent about her death as well as that of Beryl?

The scenario I have outlined in these posts assumes a good deal of collusion between Evans and Christie in the murders of Beryl and Geraldine which was sparked off by the the violent row between Beryl and Evans in the top flat. As I think I have said before, it is not impossible that Christie did indeed show Evans the St John's ambulance book prior to this and claimed that he could terminate Beryl's pregnancy, a claim he apparently made to other people although there is no evidence that he ever carried out an abortion or attempted to do so in spite of the claim by Mr Trevallian in the tv programme presented by Fred Dinenage. When Evans was informed by the police in Wales that the body of Beryl was not in fact in the drain he may have embroidered what Christie told him by claiming that the latter had indeed killed Beryl as a result of a botched abortion in order to deflect all the blame onto Christie, although it is uncertain if he knew that Geraldine was also dead at this stage.

[Sherlock]

Due to Christie's back complaint the job of parcelling up Beryl's body and placing it in the wash house might have been done by Evans, possibly under the direction of Christie, and with or without Evans's knowledge that his child was dead or that it was intended to kill her. From pictures I have seen of the interior of the house the stairs were very narrow and awkward and it therefore seems somewhat unlikely that Evans would have been able to get the large bundle down the stairs in the middle of the night without making a good deal of noise and without waking the Christie's, as he claimed he had, particularly as he would have had to pass the Christie's bedroom to get to the yard.

Beryl's body was probably placed in Kitchener's flat as a temporary measure soon after her murder, possibly by Evans dragging it there while Christie looked on. Christie might possibly have told Evans that the wash house would also be a temporary resting place until he could dispose of it permanently down the drain at the front of the house, as Evans claimed.

[Sherlock]

If Christie killed Beryl without actually having intercourse with her it might also explain why no traces of semen were found on her body at the post mortem.

It is not impossible that Christie then did then inform Evans that he could get Geraldine looked after by a couple in East Acton; Christie had worked in that area at Ultra Radio in the later part of the war, which may be why the district came into his head. He could then have strangled the baby after Evans's departure for Wales. Another scenario might be that he actually killed the baby with Evans's knowledge and maybe even in his presence. Donald Hume claimed that while on remand in Brixton Prison Evans had told him that he had been present when the child was killed by Christie. Once again, however, this claim should be treated with extreme caution as Hume was also apparently a habitual liar.

As far as I am aware the tie that was found around the baby's neck was never conclusively determined to have belonged to either Christie or Evans, which could have meant that either of them could have been responsible for her death, or even that they were both in collusion over it.

[Sherlock]

The fact that no underwear was found on Beryl's body might or might not suggest an attempt at sexual interference by someone other than her husband. Also, although Evans claimed to have strangled Bery with a rope he brought home in his van, no rope was found in his flat as far as I am aware. I think that Christie claimed in one of his conflicting statements in 1953 that he had strangled Beryl with a stocking which he afterwards threw on the fire, and that he had attempted to have intercourse with Beryl but had been physically unable to do so because of his enteritis. Of course, anything Christie says must be treated with extreme caution, but as I think Molly Lefebure observed in her book, although both Evans and Christie were habitual liars there were also occasions when they told the truth. The question is when?

[Sherlock]

I think I have suggested this before, but I wonder if Evans knocked out Beryl in the course of a violent row, panicked, and then fetched Christie who with the good fortune to have an unconscious victim provided for him strangled her and achieved sexual release without actually having intercourse, which he was unable to perform due to his enteritis. He might have told Evans to leave the room and see to the baby while he tried to help Beryl and then told him that he had been unable to save her and that Evans would therefore be charged with her murder.

[Rosella]

Yes little Tim Evans was putty in Cristie's hands of course, innocent, illiterate, quite harmless, wouldn't hurt a fly really, according to Ludovic. Pity Beryl told a different story, before she was bumped off!

[contrafib]

Full of inaccuracies and based on a book with a pre-determined agenda (as all good agendas tend to be...)

[wigngown]

10 Rillington Place, with Richard Attenborough as Christie was an excellent, if disturbing, film.