10 Rillington Place
He gave evidence during the trial of John Christie in 1953, having produced a detailed and comprehensive report on the many bodies found at 10 Rillington Place. The bodies were well preserved and so much relevant information could be gleaned from their condition. His report showed a consistent pattern of attack by Christie, most of the intact victims having been sexually molested and strangled. Beryl and Geraldine Evans had alone been strangled, and their bodies were exhumed to be re-examined for Christie's trial.
The skeletal remains of Christie's older victims buried in the back garden at Rillington Place (a human thigh bone visibly propped up a small fence) provided less information, although it proved possible to identify the women involved. There could be little doubt that Christie had murdered them all, that Timothy Evans was innocent, and that he had been wrongly executed, although it took many years to establish the truth of the matter. The forensic and witness evidence pointed to a serious miscarriage of justice, although it was contested by a series of lawyers and politicians well after the events. However, several authors, such as Ludovic Kennedy, pointed out the many contradictions and errors in the Crown's case, and the innocence of Evans is now widely accepted, both by public, experts and by the Crown itself. The case was the most prominent of a series of miscarriages which ultimately led to the abolition of capital punishment for murder in England, Wales and Scotland in 1965.
Read more about this topic: Francis Camps
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