Research: Ruth Ellis

The trial and punishment of Ruth Ellis became notorious as she was the last woman in England to be executed.

The death penalty in the UK was suspended in 1965 and permanently removed in 1970. Ruth Ellis' family campaigned for her murder conviction to be reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation. Through the Criminal Cases Review Commission they brought the case to the Court of Appeal in September 2003. They argued Ellis was suffering "battered woman syndrome"*. She had suffered a miscarriage caused by Blakely just 10 days before the killing of him.

But 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. 

*The battered woman defense is a defense used in court that the person accused of an assault/murder was suffering from battered person syndrome at the material time. Because the defense is most commonly used by women, it is usually characterised in court as battered woman syndrome or battered wife syndrome.

Dance with a Stranger is a 1985 British drama film, directed by Mike Newell, telling the story of Ruth Ellis.

Plot - A former nude model and prostitute, Ruth is manageress of a London drinking club frequented by racing drivers, living in a flat above with her illegitimate son Andy. Another child is in the custody of her estranged husband's family. In the club she meets David, an immature young man from a well-off family who wants to succeed in motor racing but suffers from lack of money and overuse of alcohol. Ruth falls for his looks and charm, but it is a doomed relationship. Without a job he cannot afford to marry her and his family would never accept her. When he makes a drunken scene in the club, she is fired and made homeless. A wealthy admirer secures a flat for her and her son but she still sees David. When she tells him she is pregnant, he does nothing about it and she miscarries. Distraught, she goes to a house in Hampstead where she believes David is at a party. He comes out and goes with a girl to a pub. Ruth waits outside the pub and, when he emerges, kills him with five shots. She is arrested, tried and hanged.


As well as the film, I watched the documentary 'Ruth Ellis: A Life for a Life' which was produced in 1999.

Key Information

• Ruth murdered David Blakely with a revolver on Easter Sunday 1955 in Hampstead.
• Ruth and David were lovers for 18 months.
• She was a glamorous model from a poor background and he was an adulterous upper-class racing driver.
•  Ellis admitted to her barrister that she 'had always lived a bad life'.
• The court date was on the 14th of June.
• After the shooting, Ruth no longer bothered about her appearance. The blonde dye was fading out of her hair, no longer wore make up etc.
• Throughout the process, she was completely in control and matter-of fact.
• Wanted to be hung so that she could join him - "him" was never classified whether or not she was talking about David or about her unborn son.
• Ruth Ellis entered a plea of not guilty - the fact that she did actually want to be convicted shows how Ellis just wanted to put out her story that she was prepared to tell. She would let the world know the truth.
• The court was completely crowded.
• Reports say that she came in looking like a cold-blooded killer, not vulnerable how newspapers had previously portrayed her. The prison makeover was the defenses idea.
• The court decided to focus on the terrible way David had treated her.
• 'Mrs Ellis, when you fired that revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?' 'It was obvious when I shot him, I intended to kill him'
• In the eyes of the law, Blakely's abusive behavior was irrelevant, resulting in the Jury in just 14 minutes to decide that Ruth was in-fact guilty of murder.
• Ruth was the last woman to be hung in Britain.

• Ellis grew up surrounded by poverty in South London.
• She had 2 brothers, 3 sisters, a depressed mother and a father who had to give up his dreams of being a musician to gain more money.
• Ruth's father was an angry man and would take out his frustration of his daughters. 
• Ruth's older sister Muriel said that he began abusing her at the age of 10.
• Muriel - "While my mother was away he forced me to sleep in the same bed as him and I used to have my back towards the back of him. And when he got into bed, Id be asleep and I used to wake up because he used to put his urm, what can I say, urm his penis between my legs and press my legs down together tight and then he used to perform". Her father got her pregnant at the age of 14 by tying her to a chair and raping her.
• Muriel also remembers Ruth as a young child telling her accounts of her dad sexually abusing her.
• Muriel told the mother that her dad got her pregnant, however she didn't believe her and didn't step in to help.
• The abuse that Ruth encountered as a child could be a reason for her several encounters of abusive relationships when she was older

• A teenager were war broke out, Ruth enjoyed the arrival of allied troops in London.
• By the time Ruth was 17, she had a illegitimate son by a Canadian soldier.
• Her sister Muriel says that Ruth was in love with him however the soldier had to go back to Canada. From there he sent her 2 dozen roses and messages with I love you on them with promises of his return, however, he never came back to London. Ruth's mother later found out that the Canadian solider was married with 3 children.
• This along with the abuse from her father, probably made her feel like this is how relationships are going to be for her, and that she cant do any better.
• Money and the glamorous life was what Ruth wanted - she was eager for the show business lifestyle.
• To try and support her son, Aundre, she took a job at the OXO factory for a while but she quit after a while as it wasn't good enough for her.
• Ruth began to work at The Camera Club, which had a seedy reputation because it enabled groups of men to take glamorous photographs. Although the club didn't encourage pornography, it couldn't prevent private sessions between models and photographers. This was Ruth's first step towards prostitution.
• Ruth's dad himself owned a collection of her nude photographs.
• She then became a hostess, which was effectively prostitution, at a club called 'Mayfair' where she earned over £20 a week.
• At the club she met an older man, George Ellis. He was a dentist but also a drunk. Nevertheless, Ruth married him but unfortunately when he drank, he became violent.
• According to her sister Muriel, he used to lock her in a room where he would nearly beat her to death.
• George Ellis was treated for alcoholism at Wardingham Park Hospital.
• Ruth was convinced that he wasn't getting treated there and thought he was having an affair. At the hospital she confronted him and caused such a scene that they prescribed her anti-depressants that she continued to take for the rest of her life.
• By 1953 Ruth had left George Ellis.

• After her marriage, Ruth returned to London and took up her old ways of being a hostess but this time at Carroll's Club in 1953.
• David Blakely was a 24 year old ex-public schoolboy when he met Ruth who was now the manageress of the club. His only interests appeared to be women, drink and motor-racing.
• Blakely never won a race, but his wealthy step-father kept on providing him money for cars anyway.
• Muriel describes Blakely's face as being emotionless all the time and never showing any character.
• Before long David and Ruth became lovers and he moved into her flat but this didn't prevent Ruth from her activities with clients. Nevertheless, their affair was deeply passionate.
• They both used each other - she enjoyed him bringing the racing crowd down to the club and he enjoyed drinking for nothing.
• Blakely still chased other girls, a reason for the majority of the couples arguments. She chucked him out a few times but he always came back. David would apologise and say everything he would to get his way and then she would always forgive him.
• David was also domestically violent towards her.
• Extreme ups and downs in their relationships: he would hurt her, then apologise and be really nice and then hurt her again, each time making her hope and then breaking her heart.