Ruth Ellis. What are your thoughts?

Smileless2012

I don't see how she can possibly be pardoned, she killed him.

There are two degrees of murder and also manslaughter.
She acted under extreme provocation but it is as if she felt she needed to be punished and put ip no defence, despite the efforts of her lawyer.

This is an interesting thread even though I find it disturbing. Even though I was so young I never forgot her and never will . Thank you all .

The reason I think she should be pardoned is that she was a battered woman with a ten year old son. To be beaten and live in fear can you imagine how that is? In those days police turned there backs on battered wives and girl friends they were domestics.. I have never been hit by anyone, to be beaten up in a regular basis has to de humanise use you. How another person could hang someone because that's murder, I don't know either.

I'm playing devil's advocate here but I do believe she deliberately killed him so deserved the death penalty. It was law at that time
She could have left him when he first became violent
I do believe in the death penalty for people who rape and kill children, or abuse and kill children with confirmed DNA evidence. Also with murderers who do come out of jail and then go on to kill again. Too many 'mitigating circumstances' these days and our sentences are far too short.
Also Isis murderers who deliberately killed aid workers etc and put videos of it should face a death penalty.

I think they should bring back capital punishment.

There are some cold blooded killers languishing in our jails.
And why should we support and keep them.?

The morals of the 50’s and present times are so different.

Yield to the Night was not based on the Ruth Ellis case as it was written before she committed the murder of Blakeley.

My family were really upset when Ruth Ellus was hanged .
Her story was heartbreaking.
If she had been upper class it would not have happened .
Nigel Haver's grandfather was distressed by it and made an unsuccessful appeal .
He supported her son financially .

Many years ago the Crucible did a play about her and her daughter came to the Press Night. She was the epitome of old fashioned glamour: a long fur coat and a long cigarette holder. She was funny and charming.

www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/ruth.html

This website gives a clear, and I think unbiased, account of the case and trial of Ruth Ellis and explains how several people attempted to save her from the death penalty but she did not appear to want a reprieve.

I am against execution in any shape or form - I don’t consent to the state murdering in my name.
Ruth Ellis was treated according to the standards of the day which are very different to today’s and she almost certainly wouldn’t be convicted of murder today.

Haven't watched it yet but seen plenty documentaries over the years. She did not deserve to hang.

We know what her defence has told us , we do not know if it’s true

Esmay

My family were really upset when Ruth Ellus was hanged .
Her story was heartbreaking.
If she had been upper class it would not have happened .
Nigel Haver's grandfather was distressed by it and made an unsuccessful appeal .
He supported her son financially .

Nigel Haver's grandfather was distressed by it and made an unsuccessful appeal
I suppose he had no choice at the time, with the evidence as presented and without her wanting to defend herself but to deliver that verdict and sentence.
He wrote to the Home Secretary asking for a reprieve on the grounds of crime of passion but it was refused.

I knew he'd supported Ruth Ellis's son for years.

Her granddaughter was interviewed on morning TV yesterday. She wants a pardon for Ruth. She herself was taunted as a child because of her DGM.

A pardon for declaring her guilty or for the hanging ?

Ruth Ellis was guilty of murder and condemned herself by her own words in response to the prosecuting counsel's question:
"It was obvious that when I shot him I intended to kill him." There was no other verdict to be found, and she consistently refused to use possible mitigating circumstances for a reprieve. It was her family and friends who were seeking an appeal.
And a defence is based on the defendant's information given to her counsel.

Yes, armed with a gun she approached Blakely, it was the 50’s,
she was single, was free to leave him

This may be of interest

November 2004, with the judges saying that the cost and resources of quashing the conviction could not be justified, as there is no "tangible benefit" when "the convicted person has been executed and there are no other penalties ensuing", although they believe "Timothy Evans should indeed be regarded as having been innocent of the charge of which he was convicted."[31]

eazybee

Ruth Ellis was guilty of murder and condemned herself by her own words in response to the prosecuting counsel's question:
"It was obvious that when I shot him I intended to kill him." There was no other verdict to be found, and she consistently refused to use possible mitigating circumstances for a reprieve. It was her family and friends who were seeking an appeal.
And a defence is based on the defendant's information given to her counsel.

It was her family and friends who were seeking an appeal

The judge himself, Cecil Havers, sought a reprieve.

He obviously felt uneasy about the verdict and the sentence although he had no alternative but to deliver both.

Ruth Ellis pleaded guilty, did the law allow for not guilty after the jury found her guilty, the judge had no choice the Home Office did

I am against the death penalty but i question what of the many who were hanged ?

I don't know the intricacies of the law in 1955, I was a child, although I do remember the case.

Ruth Ellis was obsessively in love with, and emotionally addicted to the love-and-abuse behaviours of the very handsome racing driver, David Blakely. (Her abuse addiction was formed by the childhood sexual abuse from her father.) It is said that Ruth, as a very damaged person, could be equally cruel to David. They were both deeply dysfunctional.

Ruth killed her lover David due to his ultimate rejection of her. He promised to marry her, then without telling her she heard from someone else that he was planning to marry another woman. She did not want anyone else to have him, if she couldn't.

In a way, Ruth killed David in cold blood. It would have been a crime of passion if she had shot him with a gun already in her possession, and in the heat of a terrible row - or very shortly afterwards while still in a heightened state of distress.

However, her aquisition of the gun was premeditated. She appeared shockingly cold and calm at the later date when she deliberately riddled David Blakely with 5 bullets. (There were several witnesses.) Apparently, she had planned the sixth bullet for herself, but as she held the gun to her own head - the barrel jammed. She most definitely wanted to die with him. She did not want anyone else to have David.

As Ruth was the generation brought up with much stronger Christian values than later generations, she totally accepted the Biblical Old and New Testament "An Eye for an Eye" theory. Furthermore, she may have also powerfully believed that she would be re-united with David in the afterlife - which is why she was genuinely happy to die with him. In her twisted logic, this was a way she could have David entirely to herself - and for eternity!!! In these particular circumstances, if there hadn't been a death penalty, I think there is a strong chance Ruth would have found another way to kill herself, so she could join her beloved David in the "afterlife".

It is absolutely right the death penalty was abolished shortly after that. There have been many cruelly abused women over the years who have ended up killing their partner either in self defence, or from a genuine crime of passion.

Definitely an obsession, lost her apartment, gave up her daughter, she was free to break from him but couldn’t, different to women trapped in an abusive marriage/ relationship with no means of escape. Poor woman,

I remember watching a feature film about her in the 70's or early 80's. It was much less sympathetic & although it's ages ago I think it portrayed her as manipulative, and a callous mother.
As John Bickford said, she did threaten the status quo by her life choices, at a time when no-one could foresee the subsequent changing attitudes that would sweep the status quo away.
She was very proud & she had incredible courage if the story is real. She was certainly a victim but refused to see herself as one. At 28, she'd lost a boyfriend in the war, her best friend in a car smash, had several abortions, survived child sexual abuse and then domestic violence, before that cruel episode with her pregnancy with David & the whole abusive relationship.

At the time the death penalty was in force. We cannot change the outcome. Murder is murder.

^ It has been stated by Nigel Havers (the actor and grandson of Mr. Justice Havers) that as trial judge, his grandfather had recommended a reprieve for Ruth in his post trial report to the Home Office but, unusually this recommendation was rejected.^