12-07-2025
Historic London pub marks 70th anniversary of Ruth Ellis becoming UK's last woman hanged for murder, after she gunned lover down outside saloon bar - amid calls for a pardon and ITV drama
Exactly 70 years after the last woman in Britain was hanged, the pub where she gunned down her abusive boyfriend will mark the occasion with a live show telling her tragic story.
Ruth Ellis was put to death aged just 28 for shooting dead her violent lover, racing driver David Blakely.
She was executed by hangman Albert Pierrepoint after a trial at the Old Bailey, where the jury took just 14 minutes to convict her.
Pierrepoint would later describe her stoicism in the face of death, saying: 'I have seen some brave men die, but nobody braver than her.'
Ellis's execution led to a worldwide uproar and played a significant role in the decision to abolish capital punishment in Britain in 1969, four years after it was suspended.
The Magdala Tavern, the north London pub where Ellis shot her boyfriend, will mark the 70-year anniversary of the execution on Sunday with a live screening of a recent sold-out show about her ordeal from the Glade Theatre.
The penultimate woman to be executed for murder in the UK, Styllie Christofi, had also committed the killings in the very same road, South Hill Park in upmarket Hampstead.
This is also is not the first time the Magdala Tavern has hosted a performance about Ellis.
In 1999 - on the anniversary then of Ellis's hanging - a week-long show about the execution was performed in the upstairs of the pub.
Now Elizabeth Love, who plays Ellis in this latest show, said: 'Ruth's story shines a light on the perpetuation of trauma and abuse.'
The show's producer and Glade Theatre founder Stefan Simanowitz added: 'Exactly seventy years ago, the execution of Ruth Ellis became a turning point in the movement for the abolition of the death penalty,'
'Rather being macabre, this is poignant, powerful and life-affirming piece which takes the audience on a powerful journey. '
A new ITV drama has also recently been produced exploring Ellis's tragic story, where she was portrayed by Lucy Boynton, as her family now seek a pardon for her.
Her grandson, former Hollyoaks star Stephen Beard, 36, said the judge had other options besides condemning Ellis to death.
He said the conclusion should have been that the case was of 'both battered woman syndrome and diminished responsibility' and has suggested that her case could be looked at again in court.
Mr Beard told The Times: 'I'm not saying that Ruth should be reprieved because she did murder a man but the fact that the judge decided that the only sentence he could impose because of the admittance of premeditated murder was hanging was incorrect.'
Mr Beard starred in Hollyoaks as Archie Carpenter from 2008 until 2010
He added: 'There was such a severe miscarriage of justice, which will be explained through the series, that I wonder whether there is a KC who believes there's enough substance and weight here for Ruth's case to be taken back to the courts.
'If handled professionally and mercifully, the conclusion would have been that this was a case of both battered woman syndrome and diminished responsibility.'
He also pointed out that Ellis's lifestyle counted against her. She worked as a nightclub hostess, a role in which she was expected to have sex with customers if required.
And she dyed her hair peroxide blonde, meaning she looked like a 'woman of the night' when in court, Mr Beard added.
His mother, Georgina, was adopted after Ellis's execution. She died aged 50 in 2001. She discovered aged eight that she had been adopted.
In attempting to follow in the footsteps of her real mother, she became an alcoholic and 'flirted' with the sex trade, Mr Beard said.
He also pointed to a similar case of a woman who had been condemned to death after killing her neighbour with a spade, but was reprieved at the last minute.
Ellis's accomplice in Blakely's killing was RAF officer Desmond Cussen, who had competed with the murder victim for her affections.
Cussen gave Ellis the murder weapon and showed her how to use it.
Born the fourth of five children to mother Bertha in Rhyl, North Wales, in 1926, Ellis's first misfortune was to have to fend off the sordid sexual advances of her own father.
He had already abused her sister Muriel but Ellis defiantly insisted that he would not be allowed to do the same to her.
By the time of the Second World War, the family had moved to London.
Author Carol Ann Lee's 2012 biography of Ellis told how, in 1943, Ellis met French Canadian serviceman Clare Andrew McCallum.
The couple enjoyed a brief but passionate romance that resulted in Ellis getting pregnant in early 1944.
McCallum had asked his young girlfriend to marry him, and, after he had been posted to France, she gave birth to a baby boy.
Ellis then discovered that her beau - who never returned - was already married with a wife and children back in Canada.
She recalled a the heartbreak a decade later, saying: 'I no longer felt any emotion about men. Outwardly I was cheerful and gay. Inwardly I was cold and spent.'
Ellis then set about trying to support herself and her son, Andre, financially.
Ms Lee revealed in her book how Ellis 'took great pride in her appearance and would not set foot outside unless fully made up with heavy foundation, rouge and lipstick.'
One evening, after being taken for a drink at one of London's new nightclubs, she met pimp and convicted fraudster Morris Conley, who offered her a job as a hostess.
It was after taking on the role that Ellis, who was expected to offer both drinks and sex to customers, met her future husband, dentist George Ellis.
The depressive drinker promised that he would seek help for his troubles and that vow was enough for Ellis to agree to marry him.
When they tied the knot in November 1950, she shed her maiden name - Neilson - and became Ruth Ellis.
However, he soon began beating his new wife. One one occasion, her mother recalled, he repeatedly banged her head against a wall.
By the winter of 1951 - by which time their marriage was over - Ellis had given birth to daughter Georgina.
Needing to support herself and her children, Ellis went to Conley to ask for her job back.
He made her the manager of his new club in Knightsbridge and even provided her with a flat and generous salary.
On the Little Club's opening night, Ellis met David Blakely for the first time.
Blakely repeatedly returned and the pair became romantically involved. Within a fortnight they were living together in her flat.
At the time, Blakeley's efforts were focused on his MG racing car and his passion for motor racing.
Ellis was besotted with him. She said later: 'I thought the world of him; I put him on the highest of pedestals. He could do nothing wrong and I trusted him implicitly.'
Her love extended to the point where she even agreed to a request by her ex-husband to give up her daughter to a wealthy childless couple he knew.
However, the hostess now had another admirer in the form of Cussen, who was a regular at the Little Club.
His presence on the scene likely contributed to the furious rows that broke out between Ellis and Blakely.
The arguments would end with Blakely viscously beating his girlfriend.
With knowledge about the love triangle now swirling around the club, Ellis was warned by Conley that she had to treat all customers equally.
However, when the club's takings fell, Conley fired her.
She moved in with Cussen but was then met with a marriage proposal from Blakely.
Ellis became pregnant with his child, only to lose the baby after another beating.
The final straw came on Good Friday in 1955, when Blakely failed to turn up to meet Ellis as he had promised.
Suspecting that he was at the home of his friends Ant Findlater and his wife Carole - who was said to have hated Ellis - she asked Cussen to drive her there, where she saw his car outside.
Having tried and failed to get through to him on the phone that day and the following night, she returned home humiliated.
When she kissed her son goodnight the following evening, Easter Sunday, it would be the last time she saw him.
She later told jurors about her feelings towards Blakley that night. 'I was very upset. I had a peculiar feeling I wanted to kill him,' she said.
Meanwhile, Blakley was with Findlaters, having yet another party. When Carole ran out of cigarettes, Blakely drove to the Magdala pub near their home to get some.
Taking friend Clive Gunnell, he went for a quick drink inside the pub. The pair emerged at 9.20pm.
Ellis was waiting for them. When Blakley saw her he started to run. She fired an initial two shots and then chased her lover around his car before firing again.
He 'fell forward flat on his face', she recalled later. Witnesses Donald and Gladys Yule - as well as Gunnell - were watching on in horror.
Mrs Yule then saw Blakely lying on the pavement as Ellis fired two more shots into him.
She said years later: 'I shall never forget the look of appeal in his eyes. She put two more bullets into him, deliberately. I was petrified.'
Ellis then tried to take her own life with the gun, but it initially failed to fire. When it finally did - after she had brought it away from her temple - the bullet went through Mrs Yule's hand.
After being arrested, Ellis insisted that she was guilty but initially protected Cussen. Instead, she said she had been given the gun by a man in a club three years earlier.
When Cussen was questioned, he insisted that he had dropped her off at her rented room at 7.30pm on the night of the murder and had not seen her since.
He failed to tell detectives that he had given Ellis the gun, shown her how to use it and then driven her to the murder scene.
Although Cussen confessed this fact to Ellis solicitor, it was not brought up at trial over fears that it would affect her chances of being convicted of manslaughter rather than murder.
Ellis rejected her lawyer's request to plead insanity. She said: 'I took David's life and I don't ask you to save mine. I don't want to live.'
The mother-of-two also wrote to Blakley's mother to apologise for killing him.
She said: 'The two people I blame for David's death, and my own, are the Findlayters (sic).
'No dought (sic) you will not understand this, but perhaps before I hang you will know what I mean. Please excuse my writing, but the pen is shocking.
'I implore you to try to forgive David for living with me, but we were very much in love with one and other (sic).
'Unfortunately, David was not satisfied with one woman in his life. I have forgiven David, I only wish I could have found it in my heart to have forgiven when he was alive.
'Once again, I say I am very sorry to have caused you this misery and heartache. I shall die loving your son. And you should feel content that his death has been repaid.
'Goodbye. Ruth Ellis.'
With her blonde hair having faded in prison, Ellis insisted on dying it ahead of her court appearance.
Despite her legal team's fears that her bleached hair would not fair well with the jury, Ellis got her wish.
Judge Mr Justice Havers later described the murderess's defence as being 'so weak... it was non-existent.'
He was also not convinced by Ellis's story about how she got the gun. But because her legal team had not mentioned it, the matter was not brought up in court.
Much of the physical and emotional abuse she had suffered throughout her life was not even mentioned to jurors.
And Judge Havers told them to ignore Blakely's own violent outbursts. He said: 'A young woman, you may think, badly treated by the deceased man.
'Nothing of that sort must enter into your consideration . . . according to our law it is no defence . . . to prove that she was a jealous woman and had been badly treated by her lover and was in ill-health.'
On July 12, Ellis finally confessed to her former solicitor about Cussen's involvement.
However, after a failed attempt to track down the former RAF man, the home secretary Gwilym Lloyd George refused to delay the execution.
At 9am on the morning of her execution, a huge crowd was massed outside HMP Holloway, held back by a police cordon.
Ellis, who the night before had read from her Bible one last time, refused breakfast and instead accepted a glass of brandy.
She was hanged by the man who had put to death some of Britain's most notorious criminals, including serial killer John Christie and Nazi collaborator William Joyce.
The Daily Mail's report said: 'In Holloway Prison last night the staff were saying that Ruth Ellis was the bravest woman ever to go to the gallows in Britain.
'For the 28-year-old mother who, eight hours before her execution, had broken down and pleaded for life, died calmly.'
Some of her final words were revealed a few months after her death. She told The Right Reverend Joost de Blank, the Bishop of Stepney: 'It is quite clear to me that I was not the person who shot him.
'If he had cut his finger I would have come from the other end of the earth to bind it up.
'When I saw myself with that revolver in my hand shooting him five times, I knew that I was another person from the person I am.'
Andre, Ellis's son, became a schizophrenic and drug addict and took his own life in 1982 - his funeral was paid for by Christopher Humphreys, the prosecuting lawyer at Ruth's trial.
The new ITV drama aired in four parts, starring Laurie Davidson as Blakely, Mark Stanley as Cussen and Toby Jones as John Bickford, Ellis's solicitor.
Her lawyer, Melford Stevenson, was portrayed by Toby Stephens.
