10 Rillington Place
John Reginald Halliday Christie
Black Boy House, Shibden, Nr Halifax is the birthplace of the infamous serial killer John Reginald Christie. Christie was born at this address on April 8, 1898; he was hanged on July 15, 1953.
Black Boy House
Timothy Evans
People tend to read Ludovic Kennedy's book '10 Rillington Place' or view the film based on Kennedy's book and believe that this is the true version of events that surrounded Christie and Evans. Far from it. In fact the book '10 Rillington Place" is mostly fiction based on Kennedy's speculations about the case.
If film goers and readers were to delve a little further into the murders they would quickly realize that there was a great deal of evidence to suggest that Evans was in fact guilty of the murders of his wife and child.
I have read the transcripts of the Evans and Christie cases in great depth. I was left with an ueasy feeling that Evans did murder his wife Beryl and their baby, Geraldine. I have never been prepared to argue this point now or in the past with anyone who simply base their arguments on the Kennedy book and film.
Timothy Evans has always been overley portrayed as a slow and backward man, particularly by people who have fought the cause that he was an innocent man who was hoodwinked by Christie and wrongly hanged, but you must remember he was a working man, a lorry driver and he did do things that the normal working man would do, looking after his family, visiting pubs and the cinema; in other words he was able to function like any other working man despite his educational limitations.
The main reason Evans was hanged was because he (and nobody else) convinced the police he had firstly killed Beryl and then later convinced them he had also killed his daughter. Evans was never tried for the murder of his wife but was found guilty of the murder of Geraldine. Had Geraldine survived she would now be in her early sixties.
After the murders he left Rillington Place to go to Wales to his Aunt's, it would have been a journey that would have taken seven or eight hours, which would have been ample time for him to think about the situation particularly with regards to Christie and his role in the proceedings. But what is the best he could come up with when walked into Methyr Vale police station? He told the police his wife had died after taking pills that had been given to him by a lorry driver at some unknown transport cafe. No mention of Christie of whom it has been said was being protected by Evans for some quite unknown reason.
When he was later confronted by police back in London and for the first time told his child had also been found dead he didn't cry out in grief like any other father would, he immediately admitted he had also killed his child and more or less said that Gerladine's cryng had got on his nerves.
You've really got to ask the very leading question: Why did Evans want to protect Christie and take the blame for Christie's murderous deeds, the man who (supposedly, he claimed) had murdered his (Evans') wife and child? I cannot think of one single solitary reason under God's sun why he should vaguely, remotely want to do this.
Why did Christie confess to killing Beryl? Christie pleaded insanity at his trial and with this plea it can be simply a case of 'the more the merrier', but he did not admit to killing baby Geraldine because although he enjoyed killing women, and freely admitted this, even he would not admit to stooping so low as to kill a helpless child.
Did Christie know Evans had murdered his family? We'll never know but it is likely that he did know of the murders and perhaps told Evans he would get rid of the bodies for him and advised him to get a way for a while.
I read a book a short time ago by author John Eddowes entitled bluntly "The Two Killers Of Rillington Place". Eddowes delves into great depths of the case and puts forward quite irrefutable evidence that Evans was in fact guilty of the murders. Unfortunately the book is out of print and has become very collectable with an original first edition selling for over £50.00 a copy. If you can get hold of a later edition I would certainly read it.
The film '10 Rillington Place didn't always stick to the truth: It strongly intimated that Christie killed the baby; showing him, on hearing the baby's cry picking up a man's tie and having a look of evil intent in his eyes. In fact Christie never admitted to killing Geraldine and was never found guilty for that crime. Another scene shows Evans in a pub with of a group of men who were obviously laughing at him. This was a fictional scene only put in to emphasize that Evans was a tall story teller.
Another fallacy that has built up over the years is that the police who conducted the case somehow coerced and bullied Evans into confessing to the murders. Why is it that neither Evans or his council ever once complained about police procedure regarding Evans' questioning?
It seems that one of the biggest arguments in Evans' favour is that it would be nearly impossible to have two stranglers living in the same house. Too much of a coincidence? There have been bigger coincidences.
John Hurt played the part of Evans in the film 10 Rillington place with great sympathy but it did not portray Evans for what he really was; a violent drunken wife-beater and murderer.
10 Rillington Place
I have been interested in the Christie/Evans case for many years and my earliest memory of the case was when I heard my mother discussing the case with my father the day Christie was hung. I also remember her informing me one morning when I was very young that, "Derek Bentley has just been hung'. I don't remember any other cases from that period.
In the winter of 1966/67 I played with a rock band in the Ladbroke Hotel in Notting Hill. A guy who was giving us a lift home asked us if we would care to see Rillington Place, which was a few hundred yards away from the pub. (The Ladbroke hotel which was on Talbot Grove was demolished in the seventies, probably around the time Rillington Place was 'delivered').
We sat at the end of Rillington Place gazing down at the infamous number 10 in the far left hand corner. It was one of the grimmest places I have ever seen, of course taking into account what had occurred there less than twenty years earlier. There were children playing in the street who were mainly of West Indian origin.
I was friendly with a middle aged Irish couple who used to come and see the band at the Ladbroke and I was telling the husband that we had been to see Rillington Place and he told me Christie used to occasionally have a drink in the Ladbroke Hotel in the forties and early fifties and he also informed me that he and his wife shared the same doctor with Christie and that whenever they visited the doctor, Christie was usually there. He also said he found Christie a very friendly and sociable type of a man.
John Eddowes makes a tragic observation in his book. All who lived at 10 Rillington Place; John Christie, Ethel Christie, Timothy Evans, Beryl Evans and Geraldine Evans would all be dead within a few short years.
In July 2008 I returned to the Rillington Place area after nearly 40 years. It was a similar day to that day in 1967, the sun was shining and Notting Hill was how I remember it (minus the slums). In the mid sixties there were very few cars parked in the area but today you would be very lucky to find a parking space; and beware if you book a hotel in Notting Hill and other popular areas of London, the hotel owners don't always tell you that it's nearly impossible to find a parking space. I pulled up at the end of Bartle Road, roughly where we had stopped in 67. Of course Rillington Place has long gone but it didn't take much imagination to visualise this grey street, even after all those years.
I went to the spot where the Ladbroke hotel had stood and it too had been replaced by red brick dwellings.
The map below is the area today; I have looked at an old map of the Rillington Place area and put 10 Rillington Place where I believe it originally stood (house and garden). I think it is quite accurate.
Ordnance Survey Map of Notting Hill
1914
Purchase ordnance survey map of Notting Hill 1914.
Shows Rillington Place, Portobello Road, White City. and many more locations
Also lists many of the occupants and businesses in the area in 1914.
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