Nearly three years passed without major incident for Christie after Evans's trial. He soon found alternative employment as a clerk with the British Road Services at their Shepherd's Bush depot starting work there on 12 June 1950. At the same time, new tenants arrived to fill the vacant first- and second-floor rooms at 10 Rillington Place. The tenants were predominantly black immigrants from the West Indies; this horrified Christie and his wife, who both held racist attitudes towards their neighbours and disliked living with them. Tensions between the new tenants and the Christies came to a head when Ethel prosecuted one of her neighbours for assault. Christie successfully negotiated with the Poor Man's Lawyer Centre to continue to have exclusive use of the back garden, ostensibly to have space between him and his neighbours, but quite possibly to prevent anyone from uncovering the human remains buried there.