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Ruth Ellis

Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain. She was convicted of killing her boyfriend after she admitted shooting him to death in 1955. She was hanged days later, resulting in public outrage. Her death, and the controversy surrounding her conviction, together helped abolish the death penalty in Britain.

I am studying this case and hope to make contact with Ruth's sister.

S. C. Lomax reviews Ruth Ellis: My Sister’s Secret Life.

Ruth Ellis is arguably known as much for the image created for her by journalists and writers as she is known for being the last woman to be hanged in Britain. She was a “peroxide tart”, it has been claimed, a part-time hooker and her cold demeanour following the shooting of her lover, David Blakely, showed she was an cold, evil murderer, journalists and writers have led the public to believe. Many journalists and writers have a habit of distorting the truth to sell newspapers and books and criminal history has allowed the popular view of Ellis to continue to exist. Muriel Jakubait, Ellis’ sister, however, has spent the last fifty years fighting to clear her sister’s name and her argument for Ellis’ innocence has been presented, for the first time, in this fascinating book which discusses the life and death of one of the most notorious names in British criminal history, conclusively destroying many of the misconceptions that are part and parcel of notoriety.

It was on the night of 10 April 1955 that David Blakely, a popular man who enjoyed motorcar racing, was shot dead outside the Magdala Public House in Hampstead, north London where he had called to buy some alcohol with a friend, Clive Gunnell. Ellis was promptly arrested and immediately admitted having killed her lover but later, at trial, pleaded “not guilty” to murder. Her defence team, led by Melford Stevenson, argued that she had shot Blakely as a result of provocation. There was no doubt he was a highly violent man who had beaten her on countless occasions, once hospitalising her. On another occasion, whilst Ellis was pregnant, he kicked her in the stomach. She miscarried as a result. Due to the miscarriage, which occurred in the month before the shooting, Ruth began drinking heavily and took tranquillisers. She was still emotionally disturbed in April 1955. The trial judge, Mr Justice Havers, refused to allow provocation to be a defence and so the jury had little choice, given the admission of having fired the fatal shots, but to find the defendant guilty. After a trial lasting only a day and a half the jury deliberated for twenty-three minutes before they convicted Ruth Ellis and Havers donned his black cap. No appeal took place and all attempts for a reprieve failed. On 13 July 1955 she took to the scaffold at Holloway Prison where she was hung by the neck until she was dead.

Her execution caused outrage among the public at how a woman beaten by her boyfriend could be executed for having killed him. In this book we learn that Mr Justice Havers and even the prosecution barrister, Christmas Humphreys, felt guilty about condemning Ellis to death. Havers, gave Ellis’ son, Andre, money each Christmas, until Andre killed himself, at which point Humphreys paid for the funeral.

What was not known at the time of the execution was that just hours before she was due to be killed, when it was too late, Ellis revealed the identity of the man who supplied the weapon to her and, allegedly, assisted her in killing Blakely whilst she was drunk. The following day she was hanged, with her statement not being released for another two decades. It has been argued that if this information had been known Ruth Ellis might still be alive today.

“It was never in issue that Mrs Ellis had shot Mr Blakely.”, judges at the Court of Appeal announced in 2003 before dismissing an appeal on behalf of Ellis, “Indeed her statement under caution made to the police soon after the shooting included within its first few words Mrs Ellis saying ‘I am guilty’. … However at trial she pleaded not guilty and her very experienced defence team sought to persuade the jury that the proper verdict was one of guilty of manslaughter by reason of provocation rather than guilty of murder.”

This well written book offers a differing view of the incident which led to Blakely’s death, drawing upon Muriel Jakubait’s knowledge of her sister and detailed research she has conducted, which has revealed what she believes to be startling evidence that Ellis was not guilty of manslaughter, but that she did not Blakely at all. Instead, it is argued, she hanged for another person’s crime, having lied to protect him, with the truth having been concealed by a carefully constructed conspiracy involving the British secret services during the Cold War.

I tend to be cynical when it comes to conspiracy theories, having been presented with too many ridiculous claims about the murder of Jill Dando, and on first sight Jakubait’s theory sounds rather farfetched and the wishful thinking of a woman who is unwilling to believe her sister was a callous murderer. However, her argument contains substance and demonstrates, definitively, that the plot is much thicker than was believed in 1955. It is not possible to briefly explain Muriel’s theory. That Ellis was in some way caught up in a world of espionage, with her having links with the likes of Stephen Ward (the secret service agent involved with Christine Keeler and John Profumo, in a well-known scandal of the early 1960s), can no longer realistically be denied, however, but does her association with the secret service show that some other individual was responsible for Blakely’s death?

Muriel Jakubait has no doubt that her sister found herself out of her depth in a world she could not fully understand, and was framed in order to prevent her from exposing sensitive information that she picked up from spending time as a prostitute and hostess, entertaining influential figures in society. It remains to be proven that the man discussed in this book murdered David Blakely but what cannot be dismissed easily is the very conceivable possibility that at least one other individual was directly involved in the tragic shooting, just as Ellis claimed before her death, and that a conspiracy occurred in a bid to ensure the full truth was never revealed.

The reader might not agree with the argument presented but, even so, this book is a valuable contribution to all the studies of this infamous case and a must read for anyone interested in crime and justice; especially those who believe that capital punishment is a just form of punishment. Ruth Ellis: My Sister’s Secret Life shows executions to be the barbaric actions that they are. The devastating effect of Ellis’ execution on her family, with the fear of being intimidated by members of the public, the ordeal of having to identify the executed woman’s misshapen body and the suicide of Ellis’ son as a result of his grief, can hardly fail to move the reader.

The previously unquestioned assumption that Ellis pulled the trigger of the gun which ended Blakely’s life has now had doubt cast upon it, but what is certain is that fifty years after Ellis took to the gallows the disquiet and controversy surrounding her death will continue to exist for many years to come. No amount of research and arguing will reverse the cruel act that needlessly took the life of a daughter, sister and mother, but with this book Muriel Jakubait has got so much closer to the truth than Ruth Ellis’ defence team were able to half a century ago.

Ruth Ellis: My Sister’s Secret Life was written by Muriel Jakubait, with Monica Weller. It is published by Robinson and is priced £8.99. ISBN 1-84529-119-0




Message from the author:
On Monday 21st November at the Magdala pub in South Hill Park, Hampstead, Muriel Jakubait, Ruth Ellis’s sister and I will be signing copies of our paperback ‘Ruth Ellis My Sister’s Secret Life.’ These special events, between 11 am and 4 pm are organised in collaboration with Ottakar’s in Basingstoke and Daunt’s bookshop of Hampstead.

Ruth Ellis was hanged, after being found guilty of shooting dead her playboy lover David Blakely outside the Magdala on Easter Day 1955.

It was described as an open-and-shut case of cold-blooded murder. Yet the authorities still keep files on the matter closed until 2031.

In our book we set out evidence that the court in 1955 never got to hear.

It has taken considerable effort to strip fact from fiction surrounding Ruth’s life. We will probably never know the full truth but I believe our book has come very close to it.

We very much look forward to seeing everyone on 21st November

Monica Weller
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