Ruth Ellis has always been portrayed as the victim of a cruel boyfriend who abused her and a cruel legal system that hanged her. But is this really an accurate picture? Based upon the known facts, which are very well documented, I propose to take an "alternative" look at this famous case.

On Wednesday the 13th of July 1955 at London's Holloway Prison, she secured her place in history as the last woman to be executed in Britain. Her case is memorable because she was hanged, had she had been given a life sentence she would have been forgotten in a few weeks by most people.

Her famous "crime passionel" was recaptured 30 years later in the film "Dance with a Stranger" in which Miranda Richardson gave an excellent portrayal of this volatile and emotional woman. Sadly the film only told half the story and gave no coverage of the trial and her behaviour at it or her evidence in answer to the questions put to her.

The Crime

She had a passionate and tempestuous relationship with a young man called David Blakely with whom she often quarrelled and had recently suffered a miscarriage at the hands of after he punched in the stomach during a fight.

Blakely was a waster and a heavy drinker who used to frequent the Little Club, a drinking club which Ruth managed. He was building a racing car with his friends the Findlaters and over Easter of 1955 consistently refused to see her despite repeated visits and phone calls to the Findlater's house where he was staying. They had, unfortunately, taken on a nanny whom Ruth suspected David was having an affair with, although in truth he wasn't.

So in a pique of jealousy and rejection on Easter Sunday afternoon (the 10th of April) Ruth persuaded her other boyfriend, Desmond Cussen to drive her to Hampstead where she lay in wait for Blakely outside the Magdala public house in South Hill Park, where he and Findlater were drinking.

When they came out to the car to drive home she called to Blakely who ignored her, so she fired a first shot and then pursued him round the car, firing a second shot which caused him to collapse onto the pavement.  She then stood over him and emptied the remaining four bullets into him, as he lay wounded on the ground. One bullet injured a Mrs. Gladys Yule in the hand as she was walking up to the pub.

Other drinkers came out of the pub to see what had happened and Ruth was arrested by an off-duty policeman, Alan Thompson, still holding the smoking gun. She was taken to Hampstead police station where she appeared to be calm and not obviously under the influence of drink or drugs which she is alleged to have been taking by some on the afternoon prior to the shooting. She made a confession to the police and was charged with murder. She appeared at a special hearing of Hampstead Magistrates Court the following day where she was remanded in custody to Holloway Prison to await trial.

It has been alleged that she had previously been up to Epping Forest or Hampstead Heath and done some target practice although we cannot be sure that this was true.

The trial

Her trial opened on Monday the 20th June 1955 in the Old Bailey's No. 1 Court before Mr. Justice Havers.

Ruth appeared in the dock in a smart black two piece suit and white blouse, her hair re-dyed to her preferred platinum blonde in Holloway with the special permission of Dr. Charity Taylor, the Governor. Hardly the image of the poor downtrodden woman!

She pleaded not guilty, apparently so that her side of the story could be told, rather than in any hope of acquittal. She particularly wanted disclosed the involvement of the Findlaters in what she saw as a conspiracy to keep David away from her.

When the prosecuting counsel, Mr. Christmas Humphreys asked her "Mrs. Ellis, when you fired that revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely what did you intend to do" she replied "It was obvious that when I shot him I intended to kill him."

There were legal submissions made by Mr. Melford Stevenson, QC, counsel for the defence, regarding provocation. Mr. Justice Havers said he had given careful consideration to these but ruled that there was "insufficient material, even upon a view of the evidence most favourable to the accused, to support a verdict of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation."

Mr. Melford Stevenson said that in view of that ruling it would not be appropriate for him to say anything more to the jury.

The jury were then brought back into Court and in their presence Mr. Melford Stevenson said: "In view of the ruling which your Lordship has just pronounced I cannot now with propriety address the jury at all, because it would be impossible for me to do so without inviting them to disregard your Lordship's ruling."

Mr. Christmas Humphreys, indicated that in the circumstances he would not make a final speech to the jury either.

The Judge then summed up. After reviewing the evidence for the prosecution his Lordship said: "You will remember that when Mr. Stevenson made his opening address to you he told you that he was going to invite you to reduce this charge of killing from murder to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation.

"The House of Lords has decided that where the question arises whether what would otherwise be murder may be reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation, if there is not sufficient material, even upon a view of the evidence most favourable to the accused, that a reasonable person could be driven by transport of passion and loss of control to use violence and a continuance of violence, it is the duty of a judge, as a matter of law, to direct the jury that the evidence does not support a verdict of manslaughter. I have been constrained to rule in this case that there is not sufficient material to reduce this killing from murder to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation."  “It is therefore not open to you to bring in a verdict of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation.”

Referring to the evidence for the defence the Judge said: "This Court is not a court of morals, this is a criminal court and you should not allow your judgement to be swayed or your minds to be prejudiced in the least degree against the accused because according to her own admission she had committed adultery, or because she was having two persons at different times as lovers. Dismiss those matters wholly from your minds."

His Lordship went on: "But I am bound to tell you this, that even if you accept every word of Mrs Ellis' evidence there does not seem to be anything in it which establishes any sort of defence to the charge of murder."  The jury then retired and not surprisingly found Ruth guilty after deliberating for only twenty three minutes. It was hard to see how any other verdict was possible.

To convict a person of murder two things have to be proved, one that the person actually killed the victim and two that they intended to kill the victim (known as the "mens rea" or the "guilty mind") - clearly there was no question as to whether Ruth had actually killed David Blakely and by her famous answer to the question as to her intention when she fired the shots there could be no question as to her intent. If it had been possible to show that she had not intended to kill him the correct verdict would have been guilty of manslaughter.

Mr. Justice Havers had no alternative but to sentence her to death. The black cap was placed on his head and he sentenced her to be taken to the place where she had last been confined and from there to a place of execution where she would suffer death by hanging. To which she replied "Thank you".

Unlike many people who have just heard their death sentence Ruth did not faint or become hysterical but rather turned on her heel, smiled to her friends in the public gallery and walked calmly down the stairs at the back of the dock. She was taken back to Holloway in a prison van and placed in the Condemned unit, where she was guarded round the clock by shifts of two female warders.

She decided against an appeal (there were absolutely no legal grounds for one) and therefore the final decision on her fate rested with the Home Secretary, Major Gwilym Lloyd George. Despite considerable public and press pressure he decided against her. His decision was announced on Monday the 11th and communicated to Ruth by the Governor of Holloway. She was visited by her mother, her solicitor J G Bickford and her friend, Jacqueline Dyer, within an hour of hearing there would be no reprieve.  Petitions containing several thousand signatures were sent to the Home Office requesting a reprieve.

Execution

Death came quickly in those days, Prisoner 9656 Ellis spent just 3 weeks and two days in the condemned cell at Holloway.

There was much public sentiment at the time for a reprieve and thousands of people had signed petitions asking for clemency, including 35 members of London County Council who delivered their plea to the House of Commons the day before Ruth was to die. On the Tuesday evening, the eve of the hanging, the Governor at Holloway was forced to call for police reinforcements because of a crowd of more than 500 who had gathered outside the prison's gates singing and chanting for Ruth for several hours. Some of them broke through the police cordon to bang on the prison gates, calling for Ruth to pray with them.

Inside the usual preparations had been made.

Ruth had been weighed and the correct length of drop calculated. The gallows had been tested on the Tuesday afternoon using a sand bag of the same weight as Ruth, which was left overnight on the rope to remove any stretch. Around 7.00 a.m. on the morning of execution the trap was reset and the rope coiled up so as to leave the leather covered noose dangling at chest height above the trap. A cross had been placed on the far wall of the execution room at Ruth's request.

In her cell Ruth wrote a letter to David's mother apologising for killing him and to her solicitor telling her that she had not changed her mind at the end (about being hanged).

She was given canvas pants to wear which had been compulsory for female prisoners since the Edith Thompson debacle. She had also been given a large brandy by the prison doctor to steady her nerves and was attended by a Catholic Priest.

At nine o'clock Albert Pierrepoint entered her cell, pinioned her hands behind her back with his special calf leather strap and led her the 15 feet to the gallows. Pierrepoint recalled that Ruth said nothing at all during her execution. When she reached the trap a white cotton hood was drawn over her head and the noose adjusted round her neck. His assistant, Royston Ricard, pinioned her legs with a leather strap and when all was ready stepped back allowing Pierrepoint to remove the safety pin from the base of the lever and push it away from him to open the trap through which she now plummeted.

The whole process would have occupied no more than ten or twelve seconds and her now still body was examined by the prison doctor before the execution room was locked up and she was left hanging for the regulation hour.

Around a thousand people, including women with prams, stood silently outside the prison that morning, some praying for her.  At  eighteen minutes past nine the execution notice were posted outside the gates and after that the crowd dispersed.

Ruth's body was taken down at 10.00 a.m. and an autopsy performed by the famous pathologist, Dr. Keith Simpson which showed that she had died virtually instantaneously. Unusually, the autopsy report was later published and Simpson noted the presence of brandy in her stomach. The official report of her execution read as follows "Thirteenth July 1955 at H. M. Prison, Holloway N7": Ruth Ellis, Female, 28 years, a Club Manageress of Egerton Gardens, Kensington, London - Cause of Death - "Injuries to the central nervous system consequent upon judicial hanging." Her death was registered on 14th July 1955 (the day after the execution) on the basis of a Certificate issued by J. Milner Helme, the then Coroner for the City of London, following an Inquest held by him on 13th July 1955. Her death was registered in the Registration District of Islington, Sub-district of Tufnell as Entry Number 25 for the September Quarter 1955.

Ruth was buried within Holloway prison in accordance with her sentence but later disinterred and reburied in a churchyard in Buckinghamshire when Holloway was rebuilt in the 1970's. She was the sixteenth and last woman to be executed in Britain in the 20th century.

Did Ruth deserve to hang?

This is a very subjective question and it is always dangerous to judge a case from a previous and very different age, but having talked to people who actually remember the case I have not found anybody who felt she deserved to die for what she did.

However, in view of the evidence presented to them and the law as it stood in 1955, the jury had absolutely no option but to find Ruth guilty of murder. It was, after all, a murder that was premeditated and did not fit the legal definition of provocation as it was not carried out in heat of the moment. At that time a murder conviction carried a mandatory death sentence, leaving the judge absolutely no discretion. We do not know what the his private recommendation, included in his report to the Home Office was, but the Home Secretary was obviously advised against a reprieve in her case. Like all condemned prisoners she was examined by a panel of Home Office psychiatrists who found her to be "sane" i.e. not suffering from any mental illness that would have been severe enough to diminish her responsibility for the crime.

The problem in Ruth's case, as in so many others before and since, is the imposition of a mandatory sentence for murder. The jury were not permitted to reach a manslaughter verdict, and, in fairness, the evidence they heard simply did not justify it and thus were left only with a verdict of guilty of murder. Had they been asked merely to reach a verdict of guilty to homicide, leaving the actual sentence to be decided by others, perhaps she would have gone to prison for a few years and never been heard of again. But our system at that time was very much "all or nothing" and for that matter still is, although the mandatory death sentence has been replaced by the mandatory "life sentence". The question of whether Ruth deserved death or not was not one the jury were able to consider - if they had been it is very unlikely that she would have been hanged.

Ruth had many qualities that engendered great public interest, she was an attractive, sexy young woman, a mother of two small children and a murderer whose victim was probably seen by most people as not entirely blameless. Her crime could hardly be described as "evil", a subjective concept admittedly, but a very one important in the minds of the general public in determining the justice of a case. She also behaved with great courage at all times which no doubt, earned her considerable respect.
Not surprisingly the press gave tremendous coverage to the story and in doing so aroused considerable sympathy for her. Much was made of her recent miscarriage and of the violence she suffered at Blakely's hands.

Another major factor that induced public sympathy was the knowledge that those prisoners who were reprieved seldom served more than twelve years in prison which made execution seem a very harsh punishment by comparison. If "lifers" were known to serve thirty or forty years it would, perhaps, have seemed much more proportional.

This was a time when there was a substantial majority in favour of capital punishment but that support had been known to waver when it came to executing an actual person, particularly when that person was female, attractive and had not committed a particularly awful crime.

The evidence in Ruth's favour

There seems little to suggest that she would have been a danger to the general public had she been released on parole after serving 10 –14 years of a life sentence. She had shown no propensity to violence to anyone other than Blakely.

She had clearly suffered much provocation, of the sort that many people who have experienced a passionate relationship, would be able to appreciate even if it fell outside the strict legal definition of provocation. She had certainly been the victim of a considerable amount of violent abuse from David Blakely, much of it witnessed by their friends and her customers.

It was known that she had suffered a miscarriage 10 days before the crime, after Blakely had punched her in the stomach and it is at least probable that this would have affected her mental state.

Her crime was at least somewhat understandable unlike those who rape and murder small children and are outside the understanding of most of us.

She showed remorse and willingness to accept responsibility for her crime having made no attempt to run away or hide the truth of what she did or of what she had intended.

It would be easy to add here that she was, at 28, relatively young and that she had two small children, although these factors are, in my view, "red herrings" that should have no place in deciding whether or not to reprieve her.

How important is it to uphold the law even in "hard cases"?

In 1955 we had a mandatory death sentence for the crime of murder and in upholding the law it is very important that a sentence, once passed, be carried out even when the instinct of many would have been to reprieve. The problem in Ruth Ellis' case is that so many others were reprieved for no apparently more obvious or deserving reasons. 90% of all the 145 women sentenced to death in the 20th century were reprieved. Here are three cases from the Spring of 1955 to compare the justice or otherwise of Ruth's sentence against.

A woman was reprieved a week before Ruth died for murdering her next door neighbour with a shovel in what seemed quite as bad a crime as Ruth's. 40 year old Mrs. Sarah Lloyd was sentenced to death at Leeds Assizes on the 6th of May 1955 for killing her 86 year old neighbour, Mrs Emsley, after a long running feud between the two women. She was due to be executed on July 7th but was reprieved on the 5th. Her case had attracted virtually no publicity and it was really only her husband who made any effort on her behalf to obtain a reprieve. She served just 7 years of her life sentence for this crime.

Sgt. Emmett Dunne was reprieved at the same time for murdering a colleague, whose wife he was having an affair with, simply because the offence took place at a British Army base in Germany and Germany did not permit capital punishment, even for soldiers from a foreign country. Emmett Dunne remained in prison for 11 years, before being released on licence.

On April the 1st 1955, 28 year old Alfred "Jake" Wayman was reprieved four days before he was due to hang for the murder of his girlfriend, Josie Larvin, who he had stabbed to death, before he cut his own throat and stabbed himself. He survived this but was reprieved on the grounds that the throat wound might open up if he was hanged and lead to an unpleasant mess. He served 12 years of his life sentence.

One can only conjecture as to how the same Home Secretary could make such different decisions and they could ever be justified to the "ordinary person in the street." There was no question of actual guilt in any of these cases, so that wasn't a problem. Therefore either all four should have been hanged as the law decreed or the law should have been changed and none of them hanged. In reality, half of all convicted murderers during the 20th century were reprieved. This however made the whole system a lottery with typically an average of 11 "losers" a year - hardly justice!

Two things may have counted against Ruth with the Home Office. She shot Blakely to death and in doing so injured an innocent passer-by and she had, by the standards of the day, very dubious sexual morals. This was seen as much more serious fifty years ago than it would be now.

I have always wondered if one of the less publicised reasons the Home Office had for executing her was because of the public interest and sympathy that her case generated. I think the Home Office officials were, in the main, against capital punishment by this time and in the cynical way of the Civil Service used Ruth Ellis as a pawn in persuading parliament to abolish hanging. When there is public interest in a particular case letters are written to MP's and to the press by ordinary people who would never normally publicly express a view. In Ruth's case these were predominately in favour of a reprieve. So by executing her, the Civil Service possibly felt they were furthering the abolitionist cause. Did the same happen in Derek Bentley's case four years earlier?

In any event Ruth's case led to the Homicide Act 1957 which limited the types of murder that were capital and introduced the defence of diminished responsibility. (Ironically neither of these changes would have saved her). Capital punishment was effectively abolished nine years after her death and there were no hangings in Britain during 1956.

It is interesting to compare the public sympathy and interest in Ruth's case to the total lack of either in the case of Mrs. Styllou Christofi, hanged a year earlier.  Mrs. Christofi was an unattractive middle aged Greek Cypriot woman who had brutally murdered her daughter in law (and possibly another person previously) and in whom there was very little media interest. Albert Pierrepoint made this point to the army of reporters waiting to interview him after Ruth Ellis' execution. He had hanged them both.

Equally the other women hanged since the end of the war, Bill Allen and Louisa Merrifield, had very little attraction (sex appeal?) for the media and for various reasons elicited little public sympathy.

One has to decide whether one is in favour of the death penalty for all those convicted of capital crimes or not. If you are, you will, inevitably, have to accept that some prisoners will have more endearing qualities than others but that these cannot or should not be any excuse for a reprieve.

An "alternative" conclusion

We are told that Ruth's principal motive was jealousy and it seems reasonable to accept that this was the prime mover in her subsequent actions. It has been said that Blakely wanted to end their relationship although we cannot be sure of that, or of whether Ruth new of his intention. But in any event there are some very interesting questions raised by the case:

Why did she not try finding another boyfriend - she had plenty of potential boyfriends available?

Why did she give no thought to what would happen to her children?

Why did she choose to murder Blakely when she knew that she could well be hanged for doing so?

Why did she choose to murder him in a public place where there would be witnesses and then calmly allow herself to be arrested rather than trying to escape?

Why did she choose to kill him in the way she did thus removing any possibility of a manslaughter verdict?

Why did she play out her ice cold act in court and give the answers she did to the prosecuting counsel.

Why did she not appeal or do anything whatsoever to save herself?

It is always assumed, particularly by the media, that nobody could actually want to be executed. (Although there are plenty of cases of what the Americans call consensual execution in that country over the last twenty years.)

Although she was found to be legally sane she was also clearly not entirely "normal" in any accepted sense of the word. Normal people do not have such complete disregard for their own lives and more particularly for the lives of their children. (Her son Andria later committed suicide.)

But what if her motive was to kill Blakely and then to die herself so ending their earthly relationship and ensuring that he could not be unfaithful to her again?

It has been said that she intended the last bullet for herself although this has never been proved. Perhaps in the heat of the moment she did not count the shots or perhaps she could not bring herself to commit suicide. So was being hanged merely a form of state assisted suicide without the risk of "bottling out " at the last moment or of not actually succeeding in killing herself?

She apparently had no intention of serving a "life sentence" and being finally released an "old" and broken woman. This idea certainly did not appeal to her.

Perhaps she wanted to be punished and being hanged fitted her own romantic/masochistic image of what should happen to her for the murder of her errant lover.

As stated earlier, she was known to be in favour of the death penalty (reiterated by her in a letter she wrote to her solicitor in her last hours in Holloway.) She also seemed to have a clear idea of what execution by hanging in the twentieth century was like. On the day before the execution she told her friend Jacqueline Dyer "Don't worry, its like having a tooth out and they'll give me a glass of brandy beforehand"

Obviously we can never the innermost workings of her mind over this period but one could almost say that she did everything she could to manipulate the system to obtain her death from it.

Had she pleaded guilty she would have been sentenced to death but her testimony would not have come out and the Home Office would have simply decided for her what her intentions and state of mind were at the time of the shooting and would quite probably have reprieved her.

She was, as said earlier, found sane when examined in Holloway by prison psychiatrists, but was she sane at the time of the murder? Or was she driven mad by jealousy? We cannot know - but she effectively blocked any defence of temporary insanity by her answers to the prosecution's questions.

One can only wonder why she behaved as she did and continued to pursue her death with total courage right up until the end.

Ruth's case is principally memorable because she was hanged. Had David Blakely shot her instead of the other way round he would got little sympathy and have been forgotten within a few days after his execution.

But Ruth had sex appeal and as the last woman to hang, is still of interest now.

Much has been made of where Ruth got the revolver and of what Desmond Cussen's role in the killing was. Ruth claimed all along that she had been given the gun by a customer as security for some money. Others claim that Desmond had obtained it for her. I cannot really see what difference it makes where it came from - she wanted a gun and either had one in her possession or obtained one. In those days she would have had no problem in obtaining a gun through her wide circle of contacts. It has also been claimed that Desmond was a party to the killing. This I feel is unlikely. He drove Ruth to Hampstead - that is not in doubt. Whether he knew she had the gun is not clear and neither is whether he was aware of her intentions. He was a reasonably successful businessman and he was infatuated with Ruth. Like many weak willed men he would have done anything for her, no doubt, in the hope that she would finally love him instead of Blakely, or at least just to get her company for a while, but I cannot believe that he would have let Ruth murder Blakely in the way she did had he known of her intentions or really thought that she would have carried them out. People in 1955 knew the likely punishment for murder - Desmond would certainly have done so and also known that even if Ruth was reprieved she would have to serve a life sentence. I tend to think that he would have done his best to dissuade her from shooting Blakely rather than have been her co-conspirator - he had everything to lose by knowingly allowing what actually happened. He could well have gone to prison himself for a lengthy period for aiding and abetting her in the offence. Had Desmond wanted Blakely dead (and there is no evidence that he did) I am sure he would have found a way that was not likely to result in tragedy for Ruth and the loss of the woman he loved.

8th of February 2002

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has referred Ruth's conviction to the Court of Appeal which could set aside her murder conviction and substitute it for one of manslaughter.

Ruth's sister, Muriel Jakubait, and daughter Georgie, who died recently, have campaigned for this ever since she was hanged.

Evidence was presented to the CCRC that Ruth was suffering from post-miscarriage depression at the time of the shooting. (She had miscarried 10 days before the killing after Blakely, who was the baby's father, punched her in the stomach.) It was also suggested that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder although this condition had not been medically defined in 1955.

At the Old Bailey on 20th June 1955, Christmas Humphreys assisted by Mervyn Griffith-Jones and Miss Jean Southworth, instructed by the Department of Public Prosecutions, appeared on behalf of the prosecution. Melford Stevenson QC, assisted by Mr Sebag Shaw and Mr Peter Rawlinson instructed by Messrs Cardew-Smith and Ross appeared on behalf of the prisoner Ruth Ellis.

Christmas Humphreys opened the case for the prosecution. He said Ruth took a gun which she knew was loaded, and shot David Blakely dead by “emptying that revolver at him, four bullets going into his body, one hitting a bystander in the hand, and the sixth going we know not where.”

Ruth’s defence counsel, Melford Stevenson, stated categorically that Ruth was guilty. “Let me make this abundantly plain: there is no question here but this woman shot this man….You will not hear one word from me – or from the lady herself – questioning that.”

Looking at the transcript of the trial released over forty years after Ruth’s death it’s clear how Ruth Ellis, who pleaded not guilty, was given scant help by our judicial system. Her trial for murder was pushed through in just over a day. The jury taking 23 minutes to find her guilty.

It appeared to be an open-and-shut case of cold- blooded murder. There was no need for forensics on Ruth or her possessions or for investigating the case properly. Apparently nobody else was involved.

Ruth had a gun hanging from her hand. She was pointing it towards Blakely’s dead body. In the press she had already been portrayed as a peroxide blonde tart. Therefore she was guilty.

There was no need to consider if 28 year-old Ruth, the 5’2,” 7-stone woman with tiny bird-like hands, one gnarled as a result of rheumatic fever, with poor eyesight and suffering the after effects of a recent miscarriage, was physically capable of shooting anyone. Let alone repeatedly pull the trigger on a heavy man-size .38 Smith and Wesson gun that required a 10lb pull for each shot fired; it would have been impossibly large in her hand, its recoil would have knocked her backwards. All these aspects were left unsaid at the trial.

In a Prison Service file, recently opened for public scrutiny, I read that Ruth told the medical officer at Holloway prison hospital that her left hand and ankle had been affected by rheumatic fever. Nothing was made of this at her trial.

Ruth lied in court. She calmly admitted murdering Blakely. She had been brainwashed and “shielded those people who’d picked her…..The ones who promised her she wouldn’t die.”

According to their police statements, Cussen dropped Ruth and her son Andre at her flat in Kensington at 7.30 pm on the evening of the shooting and didn’t see her again until she was in prison. We now know it was a pack of lies.

Cussen was not arrested. It all went according to plan. It’s clear to me he had some sort of immunity.He was no ordinary tobacconist businessman.Cussen and Co microfiches led to another vital discovery, more proof of Ruth’s connection with Dr Stephen Ward, who was a key player in the Profumo affair in the 1960’s, and circumstantial evidence of Cussen’s connection to the secret service. One month and thirty phone calls after beginning my detective work I traced Cussen’s accountant. He told me on the telephone that Cussen had told him in the early 1960’s [at the time of the Profumo scandal] of Ruth Ellis’s friendship with Dr Stephen Ward.By early June 2002 I had pieced together quite a dossier of first hand evidence about Cussen; a bigger picture was developing.The impression of the “ineffective drip” was quite misleading.

Quite by chance, in December 2003 I made another major discovery. I met Mr Wallis, a retired Leatherhead dentist with an interesting story to tell about the very private Paddock Club at the end of a long gravel drive in the Surrey village of Ashtead. He was a member from the late 1940’s until 1955. So too were Desmond Cussen and David Blakely.At the magistrate’s court in 1955 Cussen stated he’d known Blakely, “Just over two years, maybe three.” He lied again at Ruth’s trial when he said on oath that he’d known Blakely “Approximately three years.”I now have evidence of Cussen’s long term friendship with David Blakely. They’d actually enjoyed each other’s company for approximately six years; something that has never been made public. The pair frequently visited the Paddock Club, which was a mile or so from Cussen’s Leatherhead family home, since the late 1940’s. It was a place where the best people from London secretly congregated when there were parties on.It’s obvious now; Cussen lied about their friendship to cover the secret world they’d actually been part of for several years; a world that Ruth could have blown wide open if she had lived.From small beginnings about Cussen’s family home in Leatherhead, combined with solid research another side to Ruth’s alternative lover was emerging. Everything pointed to undercover operations and the British Secret Service.Somewhere hidden in books written about the Cold War, Cussen’s other identity is waiting to be uncovered.

*****

* Eleanor Hogg was the policewoman who guarded Ruth all night in her cell at Hampstead police station, following her arrest. In January 2006 I managed to make contact with Mrs Hogg. She said Ruth was wearing spotlessly clean, pale coloured clothing that night. “She was clean, smart, and certainly did not have stains down her clothes. I would have remembered.”

*****

PART SIX

‘The Hanging’

On 7^th July 2005, the day RUTH ELLIS MY SISTER’S SECRET LIFE was published, bombings in London shattered the heart of the capital.

From my point of view publication of the book was just the beginning. The next few months were busy.

I contacted anyone who might spread the word about new findings in our book, from editors of parish magazines and village newsletters to local newspapers in areas connected with the story.

Three years of detective work has taught me there will always be more to discover. The Sevenoaks Chronicle, Warrington-Worldwide, Cornish Guardian and Northumberland Gazette are just a few of the local papers that published reports about the book. Some appealed to readers with first hand evidence of Ruth Ellis in the early 1950’s, to come forward.

I have become even more fascinated by information that I’d not found before. More witnesses from 50 years ago had revealing things to say. New leads and new evidence has emerged, with precise details of Ruth’s movements in the late 1940s and early 1950s, all contradicting the ‘accepted’ Ruth Ellis story that’s been repeated for fifty years.

During the Christmas of 2005 I sorted through information that kept coming in.

Statements from new witnesses had one thing in common. All said Ruth had certain characteristics that had made a deep impression on them: she was a lovely, kind person with grace and style. She was not looked upon as the common peroxide blonde prostitute as she’s been portrayed over the years. That impression was untrue.

Evelyn Galilee was the warder who guarded Ruth in the condemned cell for three weeks before her execution. She remembers Ruth as a “first class woman” whom she liked and says she was not the “troublesome blonde” that warders at Holloway had strangely been told to expect.She told me about Ruth’s last few minutes before her execution.

“Prior to the drop Ruth wanted to go to the toilet. I took her in. These thick padded calico knickers were brought and I was told they had to be put on her. It was against a woman’s dignity. I said, “I’m sorry Ruth but I’ve got to do this.” They had tapes back and front to pull. I blinded my eyes from them as she put them on. “Is that all right?” she said to me. She was very calm. “Would you pull these tapes Evelyn, I’ll pull the others,” They had to be tight. It was in case anything came out. Ruth asked what they were for. I couldn’t tell her.”

So the question of their stay near Westerham remains a mystery.However as we know now that Ruth lied at her trial from start to finish, it would be fair to assume she lied when she claimed she’d only known Blakely for two years.

Interestingly on 19^th March 1952 a passport, number N9584, was issued to Ruth Ellis. At the time she was employed as a hostess at Carroll’s Club in Duke Street in Mayfair. She was hard up, with two children to support. Bear in mind foreign travel then was fairly limited apart from business matters. I have no information to indicate what Ruth was up to. Where she was travelling to is another mystery. I wrote to the Home Office for further details about the passport but after “thorough searches” nothing could be found. They said, “The Home Office does not hold the information that you have requested.”

When I began ghost writing Muriel Jakubait’s autobiography I intended to find the truth about her sister Ruth. I hope in these articles and in our book I have at least begun to set the record straight.

There is a final post script to the Ruth Ellis story. On 21 May 2005 The Mirror newspaper published an exclusive story, NO PARDON FOR ELLIS. “Fifty years on, government turn down reprieve for hanged Ruth Ellis. Hanged killer Ruth Ellis has been secretly denied a pardon by the Government, documents reveal. The decision has been kept under wraps for fear of unleashing protests which could embarrass ministers.” I wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair for a reaction about the Home Secretary’s decision; and to HM the Queen. Sir Paul Beresford MP wrote to Home Secretary Charles Clarke on my behalf.My enquiries were met with assurances that nobody knew anything.