The grandchildren of Ruth Ellis have told how she should never have been hanged for killing David Blakely, the man she loved despite his freeloading, violent outbursts and ultimately his rejection.
Laura Enston-Jones and her brother Stephen Beard believe their grandmother, who died in 1955 when their own mother, Georgina, was just three years old, should not have been executed for her crime. But they take comfort, 70 years on, from knowing that her death led to legal changes which meant no woman ever suffered the same fate again.
Speaking in ITV documentary The Real Ruth Ellis, the pair say that Ruth’s legal team let her down by not revealing to the jury that Desmond Cussen, who was “infatuated” with her, had provided the weapon, taught her how to use it and driven her to the scene of the crime. Laura says that the trial at the Old Bailey in which her grandmother was condemned to death was “a shambles” and branded her legal representation “pitiful”.
Ruth Ellis was a nightclub hostess with two young children who loved to party, which meant she was not seen as a “nice girl” in the 1950s ( Image:
ITV) In the documentary, which sits alongside the upcoming drama series starring Lucy Boynton and Toby Jones, viewers will learn how, at 26, Ruth was financially independent and running her own nightclub in Kensington. But two years later she was jobless, penniless and about to lose her life for shooting dead the person responsible for her downfall.
Ruth was born into extreme poverty in Rhyl, north Wales, in 1926, the fifth of six children. The family moved to London and aged 16 Ruth was pregnant, having fallen for a Canadian airman who disappeared back to Quebec soon after baby Andre was born. Desperate to provide for her son, by 1945 Ruth was working as a hostess in a Mayfair nightclub owned by notorious gangster Murray Conley, earning decent money but craving stability.
Laura Enston and her brother Stephen Beard pictured around the time of their mother Georgina’s death in 2001 Aged 24, she married regular customer George Ellis, a dentist 17 years her senior – who turned out to be a chronic alcoholic. They moved to Southampton but the relationship soon turned toxic and Ruth moved back to London after giving birth to a daughter, Georgina.
Conley took her back as a hostess and, in 1953, made her manager of The Little Club in Kensington, a role which came with a large flat above it. Laura says at this point things were going well for Ruth. “She was the youngest club manageress in London, she had her own apartment, she was earning really well, looking after her kids.
She was a very good people person – ahead of her time. Considering the background that she had, it was when David came into her life that things started to unravel.”
Laura Enston-Jones, pictured now, takes comfort from Ruth’s legacy being no woman was ever hanged again in the UK David Blakely was a public schoolboy from Sheffield who moved to Penn, Bucks, with his mother and stepfather with dreams of becoming a racing driver. When they met in Ruth’s club, she was 26, he was 24. Stephen says their relationship wasn’t just sexual chemistry. “From Ruth’s perspective she could see he was vulnerable even though he had this facade of confidence, and felt she could help him.”
His friends took against Ruth, not understanding what he saw in her. But despite this, he moved in within a few weeks of meeting her. Carol Ann Lee, author of A Fine Day for a Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, says he was attracted to her flirtatious ways and love of partying. “She was really fun. But the things he fell for, with Ruth, were the things that, in the end, he hated.”
David particularly disliked Desmond, an RAF pilot turned businessman, who made no secret of his admiration for Ruth. Stephen said that the love triangle that formed was always “doomed for disaster” because Desmond was “infatuated” with Ruth, while she was very much in love with David.
Stephen Beard firmly believes his grandmother deserved to have her life spared after the way she was used by the men in her life When David got engaged to someone else, encouraged by his snobbish friends and family, she ran to Desmond. David soon came back, breaking off his engagement, but continued to have affairs with other women, while living off her earnings. At some point the relationship turned violent. Stephen sighs: “There were many instances where she took a good hiding. She was small in stature but I think she threw a few punches back.”
Tiring of David’s constant freeloading from Ruth, Conley eventually sacked her. She moved in with Desmond, but later asked for a flat of her own – which he paid the deposit on – little knowing it would become a love nest for her and David. Speaking in 1977, Desmond told an interviewer he believed their relationship would eventually break down. “I was prepared to put up with it, at the time, in the hope that it would.” Stephen say he couldn’t understand why she didn’t want a “safe and secure” existence with him.
Ruth worked in nightclubs and was very glamorous and fun, always loving a party – but her life was always complicated A new low came when she discovered, in March 1955, that she was pregnant with David’s baby. Biographer Carol says this resulted in an explosion of violence. “He punched her in the stomach – she lost the baby.
The psychological impact of that you can’t even imagine. That was the beginning of the end.” But a few days later he was back saying he loved her and promising to spend a weekend with her, then failing to show. While he was telling his friends their relationship was over, he had failed to inform Ruth.
At the start of their romance they were happy, but David’s friends and family never approved of Ruth Growing furious at the way he had treated her she discovered he was with friends in Hampstead. Carol says at this point she was distraught and felt she was entitled to show her anger having paid for everything for a long time and having lost everything. “That anger was building, that quiet anger. She just couldn’t see a way out.” A recording from the time has Ruth saying simply: “When he said he loved me, I really believed it.”
Desmond is believed to have provided Ruth with the gun and taught her how to use it, although he denied this for the rest of his life. He dropped her off in Hampstead where she found David coming out of the Magdala Pub, shooting him dead on the pavement after he tried to ignore her. “It was a very brutal shooting, it came across as being very cold-blooded,” Carol says. “She was so focused on what she felt she had to do.”
Actors Lucy and Laurie capture the sexual chemistry between Ruth and the man she both loved and hated, racing driver David Blakely Once arrested, Ruth readily confessed to the killing. Her solicitor John Bickford said he couldn’t persuade her to tell the truth about the gun, with Ruth instead claiming she’d been given it years earlier by a customer at the club. She later told lawyer Victor Mishcon that it would’ve been “traitorous” to name Desmond after he’d supported her for several months.
Bickford says Desmond admitted to him that the gun was his, but told police in a statement that he’d never seen it before. Believing it to be an open and shut case they didn’t investigate where the gun had come from. Laura thinks Ruth just accepted her fate. “An eye for an eye and the crime would be repaid.
Nigel Havers played the judge, who was actually his real-life grandfather Cecil Havers “I think she almost thought she’d be reunited with David.” In a letter to his mother, Anne Cook, Ruth apologised for the “unpleasantness” she’d caused and told her: “I shall die loving your son and you shall be content knowing that his death has been repaid.”
In court Ruth’s lawyers attempted to show there had been provocation, down to David’s violent outbursts, one of which had ended her pregnancy, but they couldn’t convince the jury as it had happened weeks before the shooting. Laura says: “The whole trial was a shambles. Her defence was pitiful.”
The real Cecil Havers ( Image:
Getty Images) Helena Kennedy KC says Ruth’s chances were hampered because she was from a disreputable world where no “nice girl” would be found – a nightclub hostess was a pseudonym for a prostitute. Helena also believes that, had the jury heard that others were involved in planning the crime, there could have been a different outcome for Ruth.
In court, Ruth made no attempt to cover up her crime. Asked by the prosecution what her intentions were that night, she replied: “It is obvious. I intended to kill him.”
Actors playing Ruth and the man she loved, David Blakely, who would beat her and cause her to miscarry It took only two days for the jury to come to its guilty verdict, after which she was sentenced to death. Only the home secretary, Gwilym Lloyd George, had to power to grant clemency – and he decided against it. “I can’t begin to imagine what was going on in her head,” Laura says now. “She maintained her composure though, really right up til the very end.”
Stephen says it was obvious that legal change needed to happen when 50,000 people signed a petition begging for Ruth to be spared. “People had realised that this young woman with two young children, who was just trying to make her way in the world, had been let down by so many men. I think there was a sense of everyone realising that it was slightly inhumane. She is a murderer. But she didn’t deserve to be taken from the world in the way that she was.”
Real life Ruth Ellis and David Blakely ( Image:
ITV) Andre was ten when his mother died and later, having suffered with mental health problems for many years, tragically took his own life. Georgina created a “media circus” around Ruth’s name, according to Laura, who wanted no part of it. In 2001 Georgina died of cancer aged 50. Laura says her grandmother’s legacy lies with the legal changes that were made in the wake of her death – with “diminished responsibility” being added as a defence in 1957and the death penalty abolished in 1964. She concludes: “Ruth was a trailblazer in life and a trailblazer in death. Ultimately, this case triggered major judicial reform in the UK. She didn’t die in vain and I take some comfort from that.”
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