After three years of working as a foreman at the Commodore Cinema in King Street, Hammersmith, at the beginning of the Second World War Christie applied to join the War Reserve Police and was accepted despite his criminal record, as the authorities failed to check his records. He was assigned to the Harrow Road police station, where he met a woman called Gladys Jones with whom he began an affair. Their relationship lasted until mid-1943, when the woman's husband, a serving soldier, returned from the war. After learning of the affair, he went to the house where his wife was living, discovered Christie there, and assaulted him.