| Kill Total: |
1 |
Kill place: |
London |
| Kill date: |
10th April 1955 |
Victim(s): |
David
Blakely |
| Date of Birth: |
1927 |
Marital Status: |
Divorced |
| AKA: |
Unknown |
Occupation: |
Prostitute |
Ruth Ellis has the unique distinction of being the last woman to be hanged in Great Britain.
She was born in Rhyl, Wales, in 1927 and was brought up in Manchester. She had worked as a waitress and had been a dance-band singer. When she was seventeen she fell in love with an American airman, who was killed in 1944. She later gave birth to his son. In 1950 she married a dentist, George Ellis, and had his daughter. She was divorced shortly afterwards on the grounds of mental cruelty. Needing to keep two small children, she took to dying her hair blonde and became a club-manageress and call girl. Working in London’s Carrolls Club she met handsome, sophisticated David Blakely in 1953.
Also in 1953 she had an abortion and Blakely, a racing-driver, offered to marry her. She refused, but could not get rid of him. Ellis started an affair with Desmond Cussen, a friend of Blakely, in 1954 and, for almost a year, managed to keep them both satisfied while they each knew of the other’s involvement. But Blakely was not happy with the arrangement and started to get jealous. He took to beating Ruth, giving her a black eye and a broken ankle at various times. Then Blakely started seeing other women and came home one night with love-bites on his back. Ruth threw him out. He was back again the next day and offering marriage once more. Again Ruth refused, but still, they stayed together.
Blakely carried on seeing other women, and, on 6th April he told Ruth that he had to visit a mechanic who was building him a racing car. Ruth was suspicious, she followed him to a flat in Hampstead. There was no response to her knocking but she heard woman’s laughter from inside the apartment. The next day she returned to Hampstead and kept watch on the flat. Blakely emerged with his arm around a pretty, young girl. On the evening of the 10th April Ruth returned to Hampstead, arriving near the Magdala public house about 9.30pm. As she arrived Blakely came out from the pub with a friend, Bertram Clive Gunnell. They had been to fetch some drink for a party that they were attending. Ruth reached Blakely just as he got to the driver’s door of their car. He saw her and started to run in front of the car. Ruth took a gun out of her handbag and fired at Blakely, who was crouching in front of the car trying to hide. Ruth ran up to him and emptied the gun into his body.
Her trial began at the Old Bailey's court number one, on Monday 20th June 1955. She pleaded not guilty, specifically because she wanted her story told.
The jury took just fourteen minutes to find Ruth Ellis guilty and she was sentenced to death.
The sentence provoked a huge storm of protest with petitions being sent to the Home Secretary. It was all to no avail and at 9am on Wednesday 13th July 1955 prisoner 9656, Ruth Ellis was escorted to the gallows in Holloway Prison. She drank down a glass of brandy and was led to the trap by executioner Albert Pierrepoint.
On the 8th February 2002 an appeal was lodged with the Court of appeal. It was claimed that Ruth has suffered post-miscarriage depression, that her defence team were negligent and that she was persuaded to commit the crime by Desmond Cussen. The appeal asked that the muder conviction be changed to that of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility, and that the prosecution and Judges at the time had mis-=interpteted the law.
The appeal was heard on 16th September 2003. The appeal was rejected. The court stated that as diminished responsibility had not been introduced as a defence to manslaughter until the 1957 homicide act, this element was not available to the Judge at the time, also that provocation would need to be proved, but, provocation could only be used if, she had been under duress immediately prior to the shooting, not at a much earlier time.
