Ruth Ellis 13 July

On this day, the 13 July in 1955, Ruth Ellis became the last woman in Britain to be executed. The hanging took place at 9.00 am BST at Holloway Prison and was carried out by the executioner Albert Pierpoint. She left behind an 11-year-old son. Ellis was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey for shooting her lover, racing driver David Blakeley, 25, outside the Magdala public house in north London on Easter Sunday. Despite the fact that, at her trial, the jury took only 14 minutes to find her guilty, the hanging of Ruth Ellis was one of the most controversial executions ever to have taken place. It is now widely accepted that this case was in large part instrumental in the bringing about the eventual suspension of the death penalty in Britain in 1965. It has often been postulated that, in any other country, Ruth Ellis would not have been hanged. If ever there was a crime of passion, this was it.
Ellis had been in her short life a photographic model, a club hostess, a mother and a divorcee. Ruth Ellis was no saint, a peroxide blonde, she often came across as a "brassy tart" (to quote the press of the day). She had a tragic attraction to men who drank heavily, who abused her, who two-timed her with other women and who liked to live what passed for the 'high life' in the West End clubs and bars of the 1950s. Ruth Ellis was David Blakeleys lover. Ruth said of him in evidence, "He was violent on occasions...always because of jealousy in the bar…he only used to hit me with his fists and hands, but I bruise easily, and I was full of bruises on many occasions.." Ruth was also living with Desmond Cussen, another fast car fan and it was Desmond Cussen who drove her, with her .38 revolver, to the Magdala Public House. Blakeley was in the pub with a friend, Clive Gunnel who was a friend also of Anthony and Carole Findlater. Blakeley had been having an affair with Carole Findlater for some time, with the full knowledge of Anthony Findlater, who serviced Blakeleys cars, and this was no secret to Ruth. Blakeley and Gunnel had gone from the Findlater’s home, where they were drinking, to the Magdala to buy more cigarettes and booze. Four days before the murder Blakeley had left Ellis after yet another fight and gone to stay with the Findlater’s. Ellis was beside her self with anger, hurt and jealousy. She drank Absinthe for four days, could not sleep and was taking tranquillisers. She had also had an abortion just ten days previously . As the two men stepped from the pub, Ruth walked up and emptied her Smith and Wesson revolver into Blakeley, in full view of witnesses. As Blakeley lay in a pool of blood, a Metropolitan Policeman came out of the pub and arrested Ruth Ellis for murder.
In September of 2003, the Criminal Cases Review Commission brought the case to the Court of Appeal arguing that Ellis was suffering "battered woman syndrome". The appeal judges ruled she had been properly convicted of murder according to the law as it stood at the time. The defence of diminished responsibility did not then exist.