MovieChat Forums > 10 Rillington Place (1971) Discussion > I remember the Christie business.

I remember the Christie business.

posted 17 years ago by slainzcasl
5 replies | jump to latest

I was a very young child at the time, but everyone was talking about it and I lived at the other end of the country. My mother spoke about it all her life. She was shocked when Marilyn Monroe married Arthur Miller, because she said he looked like Christie! (She was convinced no good would come of it - poor Arthur Miller).
Anyway the Christie murders shocked the whole country.
I also happened to be in the King's Road, Chelsea in 1967 and Evan's family were there raising a petition to get him pardoned. They were very nice people.

[–] Salieri-3 16 years ago

"I also happened to be in the King's Road, Chelsea in 1967 and Evan's family were there raising a petition to get him pardoned. They were very nice people."

I'm sure Evans had been pardoned by then. But what's interesting is that although a Royal Pardon was granted, the conviction remains in force to this day; this does NOT have anything to do with the fact that he was charged with mudering his wife & daughter but was convicted only for the latter - for the pardon was in respect of that conviction. His sister was still trying to get the conviction overturned 3 years ago - it seems unlikely this'll ever happen though.

[–] killjoy_1992 16 years ago

Timothy was never pardoned. He was my great uncle and my nan (his half sister) and my great aunt tried but it never happened. My great aunt gave up in the end and left my nan to do it for myself but she never achieved a pardon for him which was a shame.

[–] Salieri-3 16 years ago

"Timothy was never pardoned."

By this are you referring to the fact that he was never declared to be innocent of murdering his wife AND his daughter, or just going along with what I said about how the conviction was never formally overturned? I'm not sure I understand the logic of granting a Royal Pardon without this automatically quashing the conviction - it's not as if you're saying "They're still guilty, but we forgive them." It could be something to do with the independence of the judiciary: the Royal Prerogative of Mercy (exercised on the Home Secretary's advice) could commute the sentence of death or posthumously pardon someone found to be wrongfully executed, but only the courts can quash convictions; and as far as I know, there was no precedent in the 60s for the Court of Appeal to hear posthumous cases. Therefore, in a strange way, it is not such a bad thing that it took so long to exonerate Derek Bentley: had his parents and sister succeeded in their lifetimes, it'd have been no different to what happened with Evans, and the conviction would stand to this day; but with the case still untouched when the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) was set up (aside from a limited pardon in respect of the sentence only), and the CCRC having complete discretion over which cases to refer to the Court of Appeal - whether the defendant is living or deceased - the outcome ended up better than the family could've previously hoped for.

[–] naseby 16 years ago

Yeah it's a shame - okay, from the outside, we never knew who killed Geraldine, but if you have no evidence it was Christie OR Tim, that's still enough to exonorate Tim - or this 'point of law' really is stupid for 'partially' supporting a pardon. It's crap, Tim, murdering his own daughter? Ok, he had fisticuffs with Beryl, which didn't help him at the time, but two stranglers in the same house? One, a little Welshman who liked to use his imagination, and one a more dangerous liar. It only smacks of those idiots made a mistake, including some dodgy policemen (patronised by a former special constable, Christie). Yes, at times, the law is an ass, and to use the person(s)who died as fodder for their jobs - I hope there is a hell, and they confront their demons - literally. Too late for the Evans family who died. Our prayers for your relative, killjoy.

[–] naseby 16 years ago

Yeah it's a shame - if you think about it, they still had no real evidence either way that Evans OR Christie were guilty of Geraldine's murder. Fair enough, but that should at least exonorate Evans - all it smacks of is that those *beep* know they made a mistake, the police weren't totally reliable as well and as a result, the whole Evans family was wiped out. The judiciary (sometimes) should really be ashamed of themselves.