John Christie (murderer) - Innocence of Timothy Evans

Innocence of Timothy Evans

After Christie's conviction there was substantial controversy concerning the earlier trial of Evans, who had been convicted mainly on the evidence of a serial killer living in the same property in which Evans had allegedly carried out his crimes. Christie confessed to Beryl Evans' murder and although he neither confessed to, nor was charged with, Geraldine Evans' murder, he was considered guilty of both murders by many at the time. This, in turn, cast doubt on the fairness of Evans' trial and raised the possibility that an innocent person had been hanged.

The controversy prompted the then Home Secretary, David Maxwell-Fyfe, to commission an inquiry led by John Scott Henderson, QC, the Recorder of Portsmouth, to determine whether Evans had been innocent of his crimes and if a miscarriage of justice had occurred. Scott Henderson interviewed Christie before his execution, as well as another twenty witnesses who had been involved in either of the police investigations. He concluded that Evans was in fact guilty of both murders and that Christie's confessions to the murder of Beryl Evans were unreliable and made in the context of furthering his own defence that he was insane.

Far from ending the matter, questions continued to be raised in Parliament concerning Evans' innocence, along with newspaper campaigns and books being published making similar claims. The Scott Henderson Inquiry was criticised for being held over too short a time period (one week) and for being prejudiced against the possibility that Evans was innocent. This controversy, along with the coincidence that two stranglers would have been living in the same property at the same time if Evans and Christie had both been guilty, kept alive the issue that a miscarriage of justice had taken place in Evans' trial.

This uncertainty led to a second inquiry, chaired by High Court judge, Sir Daniel Brabin, which was conducted over the winter of 1965–66. Brabin re-examined much of the evidence from both cases and evaluated some of the arguments for Evans' innocence. His conclusions were that it was "more probable than not" that Evans had killed his wife but not his daughter Geraldine, for whose death Christie was responsible. Christie's likely motive was that her continued presence would have drawn attention to Beryl's disappearance. Brabin also noted, however, that the uncertainty involved in the case would have prevented a jury from being satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of Evans' guilt had he been re-tried. These conclusions were used by the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, to recommend a posthumous pardon for Timothy Evans, which was granted, as Evans had been tried on and executed for the murder of his daughter. Jenkins announced the granting of Evans' pardon to the House of Commons on 18 October 1966. It allowed authorities to return Evans' remains to his family, who had him reburied in a private grave.

There was already debate in the United Kingdom over the continued use of the death penalty in the legal system. The controversy generated by Evans's case, along with a number of other controversial cases from the same time, contributed to the 1965 suspension, and subsequent abolition, of capital punishment in the United Kingdom for murder.