The police accepted all of Christie's statements as factual without major scrutiny, and he was the crucial witness at the trial of Evans. As Kennedy wrote, the police accepted the former war reserve policeman Christie as one of their own, and largely took what he said on face value without any further investigation. Bearing in mind Christie had criminal convictions for theft and malicious wounding (while Evans did not have any previous convictions for violence), the reliance on his testimony was questionable. It is significant that Christie had claimed to be an abortionist prior to his meeting the Evanses, having said so to a colleague in 1947. He also repeated this claim after the Evans trial to women he spoke to in cafés, whom he possibly regarded as future potential victims. Such an approach aligns with Christie's "modus operandi" of offering help to women so as to gain their confidence and lure them back to his flat, as demonstrated in Eady's case.