The Murders At 10 Rillington Place And The Demise Of The Death Penalty

May 19, 2024
12 min read

It was the 15th of July in 1953, just before 9am in Pentonville Prison, John Reginald Halliday Christie already had his arms tied behind his back and was complaining he had an itchy nose. The hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, reassured him, saying, “It won’t bother you for long.” From that moment, events proceeded with such swiftness that Christie would scarcely have comprehended what was transpiring. Pierrepoint took particular pride in the rapidity of his executions, which seldom lasted more than a few seconds once the condemned prisoner had laid eyes upon him.

Crowds gather before imposing doors of a large, official building. — Execution notice of John-Christie on the gates of Pentonville Prison, July 1953

Pierrepoint had a rather macabre party trick that he would perform whenever he had a new assistant executioner. Before departing his room to conduct an execution, he would sometimes light a cigar and leave it smouldering in an ashtray. Upon his return after the hanging, he would draw on the cigar to demonstrate that it was still alight.

Smiling couple and terrier dog pose next to a vintage car. — Albert Pierrepoint the offical executioner of England seen here on honeymoon with his wife . September 1952

Pierrepoint commenced his career as an executioner in September 1932, following a week-long induction course at Pentonville Prison, after which his name was added to the List of Assistant Executioners. His first execution as the principal executioner, or ‘Number One,’ occurred nine years later, on 17 October 1941, when he hanged the former nightclub owner and gangster Antonio ‘Babe’ Mancini at Pentonville. Moments before the trapdoor was released, Mancini was heard to utter a muffled "Cheerio!"

Mancini was the first of many, as Albert Pierrepoint, who prided himself on making death by hanging "as instant and humane a thing as it could ever be," went on to execute 433 men and seventeen women during his career.

Nobody was terribly with the passing of Christie, yet it marked a somber chapter for proponents of capital punishment, despite its widespread support among the populace. Indeed, it could be interpreted as the harbinger of the demise of the death penalty in Britain. The final execution would occur in 1964, preceding its abolition for murder the following year in Great Britain and in 1973 in Northern Ireland.

Photographer captures two policemen at 10 Rillington Place building entrance. — 1953: Police officers guarding the entrance to 10 Rillington Place, scene of several murders, in Notting Hill, London, pose for a photograph.

Who Was John Christie?

Christie was born in Halifax, Yorkshire in 1899, and to his neighbours at 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill, he was a softly spoken, unremarkable man. During the Second World War, he’d served as a War Reserve Police constable at Harrow Road, a role that gave him a veneer of authority he’d exploit for years. What his colleagues didn’t know was that the police had failed to check his criminal record before taking him on, a record that included convictions for theft and assault. He was, by some accounts, nicknamed “the Himmler of Rillington Place” by colleagues for his rigid enforcement of the rules.

Christie committed his first murder in August 1943, strangling an Austrian munitions worker named Ruth Fuerst while his wife Ethel was away visiting relatives. He buried her in the back garden. A second victim, Muriel Eady, followed in October 1944, lured to the flat with the promise of a homemade cure for her bronchitis. Christie’s method was consistent: he would make women unconscious using domestic gas, then rape and strangle them. Eady was buried alongside Fuerst in the garden. Nobody connected any of it to Christie at the time.

Man in trench coat surveys overgrown backyard of 10 Rillington Place. — The back garden at 10 Rillington Place 1953

The Case of Timothy Evans

In 1948, Timothy Evans and his wife Beryl moved into the top-floor flat at 10 Rillington Place. Evans was 24 years old, illiterate, and working as a lorry driver. The couple had a daughter, Geraldine, born in October 1948, and by 1949 Beryl was pregnant again. With money already tight and the relationship under strain, she decided she didn’t want another child. Christie, playing the role of helpful neighbour, offered to perform an abortion.

On 8 November 1949, Evans left for work as usual. Christie told him not to worry. That evening, he informed Evans that the ‘operation’ had gone wrong and Beryl was dead. In reality, Christie had strangled her. Evans, panicked and out of his depth, trusted his neighbour completely. He left London and went to Wales. Christie had promised to arrange care for baby Geraldine. Instead, he murdered her too.

When Evans eventually walked into a police station in Merthyr Tydfil and confessed that his wife was dead, the account he gave didn’t add up. He said he’d disposed of her body in a drain outside the house, but three officers couldn’t even lift the manhole cover. When police searched 10 Rillington Place, they found nothing in the drain. They should have kept looking. Had they searched properly, they’d have found Christie’s two earlier victims in the garden. Instead, they eventually found Beryl and Geraldine together in the washhouse, both strangled. That was enough for them.

The investigation was later criticised as deeply incompetent. At one point, children playing on a nearby bomb site had found a human skull in the garden, later identified as one of Christie’s victims, and a femur bone had been used to prop up the garden fence. None of it was connected to Christie. The searches were, in the words of one later assessment, “superficial at best.”

In 1950, Timothy Evans’s trial initially received relatively little attention or controversy, despite the appalling nature of the crimes. The Manchester Guardian’s coverage of the jury’s guilty verdict was modest, occupying a small column tucked between the crossword puzzle and an advertisement for Sobranie cigarettes — “In the satisfying flavour of the new Sobranie American No. 50’s, another wanderer has come to rest, beyond the reach of novelty’s temptation.”

Two young girls in sweaters, one with glasses, serious expressions. — Kathleen Maloney (left), one of the victims of British serial killer John Reginald Christie

Evans, whom Mr. Justice Lewis accused of persistent lying, was executed at Pentonville Prison by Albert Pierrepoint on March 9th, 1950. Notably, a John “Reg” Christie had served as the main prosecuting witness in Evans’s trial, and he remained impassive at the back of the courtroom when the guilty verdict was announced. Evans purportedly uttered his last words to his mother and sister: “Christie done it.”

The Bodies at Rillington Place

Three years later, in March 1953, the grim remains of three women were found concealed in a boarded-up alcove within the same residence. The bodies, only a few weeks old, were later identified as Rita Nelson, Kathleen Maloney, and Hectorina MacLennan, all of whom were described as prostitutes and written off as “among the most forlorn of their company.”

Vintage photo of a woman in a headscarf gently holding an infant. — Beryl Evans and baby Geraldine

The Daily Mail, with their usual sensationalism, highlighted that one of the women had been pregnant and was found wearing only a “pink silk slip.” However, the newspaper, along with others, emphasised the particularly disturbing nature of the discoveries due to the victims all being strangled and disposed of in the same house, and in a manner reminiscent of the murders of Evans’s wife and child.

Upon discovery of the additional three bodies, the investigating detectives initially asserted that they were confident there was no connection between these bodies and the murders that had occurred in the same house in 1949. However, after yet another body was uncovered beneath some floorboards the following day, newspapers reported that the police were vigorously seeking John Christie, who had abruptly vacated his ground floor lodgings at Rillington Place a week prior.

John Christie, serial killer, escorted by two officers in coats. — Terrified face of a doomed innocent- in one of the most infamous miscarriages of justice in British legal history, Timothy Evans was convicted of the murder of his wife and daughter, and in 1950 hanged.

Christie had not ventured far initially, he’d been lodging at a guesthouse in King’s Cross. But once news of the bodies became public, and one was quickly identified as his wife, he abandoned the guesthouse and began wandering London, spending nights in the open and frequenting cafes. Despite managing to elude capture for several days, Christie was eventually apprehended by a policeman on 31st March 1953, found gazing into the Thames near Putney Bridge. On his dishevelled person, he carried only a few coins, his identity card, and an old newspaper clipping about Timothy Evans.

Man entering dark alcove, "Tide" box, grimy, cluttered room with tiled sink. — The back room at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, London, where John Christie hid one of his murder victims.

The Trial of John Christie

On June 22nd 1953 Christie’s trial began at the Central Criminal Court during which he admitted that he had killed his wife and six other women including Mrs Evans. Essentially he had murdered the women between 1943 and 1953, usually by strangling them after he had made them unconscious with domestic gas. He then raped them as they lay there, unconscious.

At one point in the trial Mr Justice Finnemore said: “it has been made quite plain by Inspector Griffin and Mr Curtis-Bennett that there is no suggestion that anybody other than Evans killed the child.” In his closing speech Sir Lionel Heald who had led the prosecution but was also the Attorney-General said “I think you [members of the jury] will understand how, especially in my position…in a governmental position, it is most important that nothing avoidable should be said in Court which might cast an unjustified reflection on the administration of justice.” Christie’s defence of insanity failed and he was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Police officer guiding men from dark vehicle into brick building, crowd watches. — John Christie arriving at Magistrates Court 1953

Two weeks prior to Christie’s execution, a pivotal moment unfolded within the packed chambers of the House of Commons. Standing amidst the assembly, Labour MP Sydney Silverman, characterised by his diminutive stature and thick flaxen hair, introduced a bill under the ten-minute rule. This bill, if enacted, would have suspended the death penalty for an experimental period of five years. It wasn’t the first instance of Silverman championing such a cause; he had previously proposed a similar amendment to the 1948 Criminal Justice Bill, seeking a five-year suspension of the death penalty.

During the Labour government of the day, the amendment secured passage with a majority of 23 — a margin that might have been wider had Prime Minister Clement Attlee not advised his ministers against supporting Silverman’s proposal, mindful of the enduring public support for capital punishment as indicated by opinion polls.

Smiling John Christie, wearing glasses, looks from a car window. — Christie leaving Brixton Prison for court

Following the vote, the Labour Home Secretary, the 65-year-old James Chuter Ede, opted to grant reprieves to all murderers awaiting execution, albeit only until the House of Lords had rendered its verdict on the bill.

Six months later, and to little surprise, the upper chamber rejected Silverman’s amendment. However, on November 18th, the Home Secretary announced the establishment of a Royal Commission on Capital Punishment. Notably, the Commission’s remit was not to deliberate on the abolition of capital punishment but rather to examine its procedural aspects and consider whether the liability for murder could or should be constrained or altered.

Simultaneously with the announcement of the Royal Commission, the executioners were instructed to resume their duties.

Woman in white apron stands in neglected backyard with brick walls. — Mrs Hart, the neighbour of serial killer John Reginald Christie, points to the spot in the garden of 10 Rillington Place, London, where two of his victims were buried, circa 1953

The issue stirred strong emotions, particularly for individuals like Stanley Clark, who had been convicted of murdering his wife in Great Yarmouth and became the first to face the gallows in over six months. By the time the Commission initially convened in April 1949, it hadn’t escaped notice that, curiously, the average murder rate had risen by 50% in the six weeks following the conclusion of the Home Secretary’s reprieve compared to the seven months during which the deferment had been in effect.

When Sydney Silverman rose on that warm July evening in 1953 to propose the suspension of the death penalty for the second time, the Commission, comprised of ten men and two women, had held 63 meetings at 11 Carlton House Terrace in St James (the former residence of William Gladstone, now housing the British Academy). Yet, remarkably, the Commission had not yet published its report. Speaking within the allotted ten minutes, Silverman contended that the time had come to reintroduce the defeated clause from five years prior.

Silverman elucidated that the Commission’s last session to hear evidence had occurred nearly two years prior, and furthermore, the question of abolishing or suspending the death penalty was explicitly excluded from the Commission’s mandate. “Do not await the Commission’s report,” Silverman urged. “It is irrelevant to this debate. It is for Parliament to decide. Let Parliament decide.”

Continuing, Silverman underscored,

one of the things which has always influenced thinking on this matter is the finality of the death penalty, that if you made a mistake there is nothing you can do to recall your error. Many people who might otherwise have opposed the death penalty were influenced by the view that such a mistake was virtually impossible.

The Labour MP then recounted an exchange involving the current Conservative Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, in 1948, shortly after his return from serving as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. (Incidentally, Maxwell Fyfe played a pivotal role in guiding the drafting of the European Convention of Human Rights.) At that time, when queried about the potential for an innocent person to be executed, Maxwell Fyfe responded:

There is no practicable possibility. Of course a jury might go wrong, the Court of Appeal might go wrong, as might the House of Lords, the Home Secretary. They might all be stricken mad and go wrong, but that is not a possibility which anyone can consider likely. You are moving in the realms of fantasy when you make that suggestion.

In response, Silverman had this to say:

I would like to know from the Home Secretary whether he still believes that. We have had this week the complete establishment that a case made against a man on the charge of murder succeeded, an appeal failed, an application for a reprieve failed, and that man was hanged. We know today that he was convicted and hanged on a false case.

At this juncture, there erupted loud and sustained Conservative protests, with cries of “No!” and “Shame!” However, once the disruptions subsided, Silverman reiterated his assertion, emphasising “on a false case,” and contended that “the House should endorse the motion on the basis that, until human judgment becomes infallible, it has no authority to enact and enforce an irreversible sentence.”

Predictably, and notably with the Conservative Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, conspicuously absent from the proceedings, the ten-minute bill was resoundingly defeated in the House of Commons by a margin of 257 votes to 195, a majority of 61. Even the Manchester Guardian remarked in its coverage the following morning, “Mr. Silverman overreached himself considerably, and it came as no surprise that the Commons dismissed his proposal.”

Children playing on a street in front of an old building — 12th October 1966: Children playing outside 10 Rillington Place, London, the home of the mass murderer, John Christie. (Photo by Terry Fincher)

The Inquiries

Despite the assertions of former and current Home Secretaries regarding the improbability of a wrongful conviction for murder, a palpable unease emerged regarding the possibility that Timothy Evans had been executed for a crime he did not commit. This cast doubt on the public’s confidence in the infallibility of the justice system in cases of murder.

Under the direction of Home Secretary Maxwell-Fyfe, an inquiry was commissioned to investigate the potential miscarriage of justice, chaired by John Scott Henderson QC. However, in a scenario typical of Establishment response, the priority seemed to be reassuring the public of the absence of any error in Evans’ conviction, rather than a genuine pursuit of truth. The inquiry, constrained to a mere week in duration (decreed to conclude before Christie’s execution), swiftly concluded that Evans was indeed guilty of both murders.

The inquiry’s verdict rested on the premise that Christie’s confession was deemed unreliable, as it was purportedly motivated by a desire to bolster his defence of insanity rather than a genuine admission of guilt. Thus, it upheld Evans’ guilt in the deaths of both Beryl and Geraldine.

The conclusion that Henderson arrived at in the initial inquiry was met with widespread scepticism. However, twelve years later, in 1965, another inquiry was initiated under the auspices of the Labour Home Secretary, Sir Frank Soskice. This time, the inquiry was chaired by High Court judge Sir Daniel Brabin. Brabin’s findings diverged from Henderson’s, suggesting that it was “more probably than not” that Evans murdered his wife but not his daughter. This conclusion struck many as peculiar, particularly considering that both bodies were discovered together and bore signs of the same method of murder.

Given that Evans had only been convicted of his daughter’s murder originally, the new Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, recommended a royal pardon for Evans, which was duly granted in October 1966. Evans’ remains were exhumed from Pentonville Prison, and he was reinterred in St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in Leytonstone, London.

In 1961, journalist Ludovic Kennedy published Ten Rillington Place, which eviscerated both Evans’s trial and the 1953 Henderson inquiry, and made the case that Evans had told the truth when he pointed the finger at Christie. The book later became the basis for the 1971 Richard Fleischer film starring Richard Attenborough as Christie, John Hurt as Evans, and Judy Geeson as Beryl, shot partly on location at the original address before demolition. The BBC dramatised the case again in a 2016 series simply titled Rillington Place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5JGN3HXMig

The Legacy

As for Rillington Place, which was renamed Ruston Close in 1954, it was demolished in the late 1970s as part of a broader effort to clear slums in the area.

In January 2003, the Home Office granted compensation to Timothy Evans’ half-sister and his sister, Eileen, acknowledging the miscarriage of justice in Evans’ trial. Lord Brennan QC, in his assessment, affirmed that the conviction and subsequent execution of Timothy Evans for the murder of his child was indeed wrongful and constituted a miscarriage of justice. Furthermore, he asserted that there was no evidence to implicate Evans in the murder of his wife, concluding that she was most likely murdered by Christie.

The case of Timothy Evans stands as one among several pivotal instances that contributed to the eventual abolition of capital punishment for murder in 1965. Nonetheless, it remains etched in history as one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in the United Kingdom during the twentieth century.