The film about the Christie murders, 10 Rillington Place, showing in Watford this week, has brought back memories of this macabre case for a Croxley Green man.

Accounts clerk Mr William Rutherford, of Grove Crescent, knew the main characters involved in this notorious piece of British criminal history including John Reginald Christie, the man who strangled seven women.

Mr Rutherford worked in a London estate agent’s in the late 1940s and was, in fact, the man responsible for letting the top floor flat at 10 Rillington Place to Timothy Evans and his wife Beryl. She was later to become one of Christie’s victims and Evans himself was erroneously hanged for the crime.

“The only thing that I keep worrying about is if only I had not let out the premises to the Evanses, they would still be alive today,” said 55-year-old Mr Rutherford.

“I was in charge of the management side of the business and when the top floor rooms became vacant, it was eventually decided to let them.

“Previously Mrs Evans had written asking if she could have the flat and we decided to let them if they still wanted it. I called on Evans’s mother, who lived near Rillington Place, and said we would consider them for the tenancy.”

The Evanses duly moved in with their young daughter Geraldine. Mr Rutherford used to see them quite regularly (and the Christies as well) when he collected the rent from them.

“I had just left my job at the estate agent’s when on the Saturday evening, I opened the newspaper and saw a picture of Beryl Evans. It was a terrible shock  to see she had been found dead and Evans had been arrested,” he said.

Christie is described by Mr Rutherford as a “very mild man” and he was shocked to learn of how he had hidden the bodies of the strangled women in cupboards, under the floorboards and in the garden.

[From the Watford Observer of March 19, 1971]

NOSTALGIA NOTE: The 1971 film 10 Rillington Place stars Richard Attenborough, John Hurt and Judy Geeson and was adapted by Clive Exton from the book of the same name by Ludovic Kennedy. Hurt won a Bafta nomination for his portrayal of Timothy Evans. The film dramatises the case of British serial killer John Reginald  Christie and the miscarriage of justice involving his neighbour Timothy Evans.