Real Ruth Ellis, The (2025)

[bunniefuu]

RUTH ELLIS,

SINGING:

I can't begin to imagine

what was going on in her head.

AMANDA DREW: Brought up in poverty,

Ruth Ellis fought her way to a life

mixing with the elite

of 1950s London.

This was where she met

driver David Blakely.

He was delightful. He was charming.

The man she loved,

the man who would abuse her.

GLASS SMASHES

RUTH ON RECORDING:

And the man she would k*ll.

g*nshots

RADIO: 'Ruth Ellis, sentenced to

death in accordance with the law.'

He tried desperately hard to

make her say, in front of the jury,

that she didn't intend

to k*ll the man.

She was the last woman

to be hanged in Britain.

She came to me as though

she was just walking

the ordinary way,

walked right to me.

She just puckered her lips as though

she was trying to smile, you know.

She was a brave woman.

Seven decades on,

the controversy

and the tragic drama of her story

still has the power to captivate.

LUCY BOYNTON: This role is

definitely heavier than any other.

I'm really surprised by the way that

I'm so emotionally affected by it.

But did the mother of two

deserve to be sent to the gallows?

She'd endured such a huge amount

of physical and emotional abuse

by the time that she turned up

at The Magdala that Easter Sunday.

Two lives that didn't make it to 30,

and one of 'em didn't deserve it,

and the other

shouldn't have done it.

She accepted her fate.

RUTH ON RECORDING:

TWEE SWING MUSIC

PLAYS

I'll be your sunshine

If you say you'll be mine

And we'll spend our days together

In any kind of weather

There'll be blue skies above

I'll be your moonbeam

If you stay a true dream...

The 1950s were an incredibly

narrow time to be a woman.

You were really pushed

into two roles.

The prime role was that

of the happy housewife.

There was the other role,

which was more the one

that Ruth was pushed into.

Ruth's life was as far from that of

a 1950s housewife as you could get.

By 26, she was the manager of an

exclusive Knightsbridge nightclub.

The Little Club was owned

by Morrie Conley,

one of London's most notorious

gangsters and p*mps.

And he certainly had

a lot of connections

to the underworld in London

at the time,

which was thriving.

She had fallen into a world,

the world of clubland,

which, for many people,

would have been disreputable

and something

that a decent girl didn't do.

And was described

as a "nightclub hostess",

a pseudonym for a prost*tute.

She won his trust.

She really knew

what she was good at.

She was obviously

a very good people person.

She was, erm...

She was ahead of her time.

All that we dream of.

Ruth was born in Rhyl, North Wales,

in 1926, the fifth of six children.

Her father, Arthur Hornby,

was a musician,

and her mother, Bertha,

was a Belgian Jewish refugee.

When cinemas switched to talkies,

Arthur lost his job,

plunging the family

into extreme poverty.

They moved to London,

but home life was harsh and violent.

CAROL ANN LEE: I think life

must have been really hard

for Ruth as a young girl

because she was being constantly

moved about from school to school.

Ruth's father was very a*usive

to her mother,

and he eventually became a*usive

towards his children,

especially his daughters.

LAURA ENSTON: Her childhood

was pretty shambolic.

But I think the big thing

that sort of ran through her life

was that

she was incredibly independent,

and she was determined

to make something of herself.

At the height of the w*r,

aged just 16,

she fell in love

with a Canadian airman.

When she got pregnant,

he promised to marry her.

She'd got pregnant and had a baby

outside of marriage -

a source of great shame

at that time.

Having an illegitimate child

was really problematic.

Nine months after giving birth to

her son Andre, she'd been abandoned.

The man she thought she loved

already had a family back in Quebec.

By the end of the w*r,

Ruth was working as a waitress

in Central London.

She was determined

to become self-sufficient,

to make a proper life

for herself and her son.

She was chasing the bright lights

of London.

She wanted to be, er, a superstar.

She was obviously

a very good-looking lady

who had a lot of character.

Ruth got work as a model and

as a hostess in a Mayfair nightclub.

She was earning 5 per week

plus drinks commission,

more money

than she had ever made before.

RUTH: Good evening. Welcome!

WOMAN: Oh, Ruth, you look wonderful.

RUTH GIGGLES Thank you.

Vickie.

VICKIE GASPS

What do you think?

Bloody gorgeous!

Hello, Cooch.

Hi.

Champagne?

Oh, please.

But Ruth was desperate

for stability,

and hostessing would never

give her that.

In 1950, the now 24-year-old

married one of her regulars.

George Ellis was a dentist,

17 years her senior.

I don't think she was mad keen

on him when she first met him.

He, I think,

effectively wore her down.

You know, one of the things

that attracted her to George

was the fact

that he was a professional.

He was a professional man.

His social status was higher

than that of her own.

Ruth left London for Southampton

to give herself and her son

a better life.

It was not to be.

George was a chronic alcoholic.

CAROL ANN LEE:

And from the off, it wasn't good.

He was very jealous of her.

She was quite jealous of him.

And he was drinking

incredibly heavily.

It was just a terrible relationship

from then on

that got even worse because

he became more and more violent.

In the spring of 1951,

Ruth appeared in the film

Lady Godiva Rides Again

alongside Joan Collins.

She was four months pregnant,

and her marriage was on the rocks.

By October, they'd separated.

Ruth was back in London with Andre

and her new baby daughter Georgina.

The relationship Ruth had

with George Ellis

was... completely and utterly toxic.

There was no saving it.

Ruth had to return to her life

as a hostess

to support herself and her children.

Then, in 1953,

Conley made Ruth the manager

of The Little Club in Kensington.

STEPHEN BEARD: That was a place

where men frequented

and had alcohol,

and naturally

most of the relationships

were formed on the premise

of a similarity or a love of...

drink, smoke, music and a good time.

The job came with a large,

rent-free flat above the club.

Now her family had a home,

and she finally had the

financial independence she craved.

And I think Ruth definitely saw that

as a potential avenue

to help her and her children,

you know,

have more comfort and security.

But that success and stability

would be short-lived.

Within a year,

she'd met David Blakely,

the man who'd bring her world

crashing down.

Can I buy you a drink?

I run this place, Mr Blakely.

Let me get YOU one.

LAURA ENSTON:

Things were good for Ruth.

She was the youngest club manageress

in London.

She had her own apartment.

She was earning really well,

she was looking after her kids.

Considering the background

that she had,

it was when David really came

into her life

that things started to unravel.

AMANDA DREW: David Blakely was

a former public schoolboy

who wanted to be

a motor racing champion.

This is a 70-year-old... racing suit

that my uncle David wore.

These are David's trophies

from racing at Silverstone.

And here, "DM Blakely, number 593.

"The St John's Horsfall meeting,

"Silverstone, July 1951."

So, he's just 22 years old,

and he's coming in second...

..at Silverstone.

Incredibly dapper.

A guy I not only looked up to

but was charming,

fun, funny, caring.

David Blakely grew up in Sheffield.

When he was a teenager,

his family life was shattered

when his father, a Scottish doctor,

was accused

of murdering his pregnant lover.

David's father, Dr Blakely,

found himself on a m*rder charge

because this young woman

and her child both died,

and he was accused, basically,

of k*lling them both.

Er, giving her some sort

of medication

that would bring on a miscarriage

but which did so

in such a brutal way

that the young woman ended up

losing her life, too.

After a trial,

Dr Blakely was acquitted

and returned to being a GP.

David's parents divorced.

His mother married Humphrey Cook,

one of Britain's wealthiest men,

and David went to live

in Cook's country estate.

I would spend the summers at the

house in Penn in Buckinghamshire,

and that was

how I got to know David.

I have fond memories

of sitting in David's car

and bouncing round the outrageous

country roads in his 1946 MG.

Look, we call it The Emperor.

This car is gonna make my name.

You don't believe me.

Mm.

ENGINE REVS,

SHE SCREAMS

Ruth was 26 and David 24

when they met.

She saw a handsome,

dashing, elegant young man

who was different

from other people she had known.

Ruth saw a more vulnerable side

to David,

beyond the charming

and dapper racing driver.

It wasn't all sexually driven.

From Ruth's perspective, she felt

as though that she could help him.

She could see

he was extremely vulnerable,

even though he had

this facade of confidence.

This is Clive Gunnell

and Anthony Findlater. Hello.

Ant's been working

on the car with me.

He's the money, and I'm the brains.

Hello. Hello.

And this is Carole Findlater.

Carole, Ruth Ellis.

Ruth works at The Little Club.

CAROLE: Does she, now?

Manages it, actually.

We brought champagne.

Oh. Let's crack it open, shall we?

Unfortunately,

Ant and Carole were snobs, really.

They made it quite clear that

they thought she was beneath them

and very much beneath David too.

No matter how lovely she was,

they really couldn't really

understand what David saw in her.

Despite being looked down

on by his friends,

Ruth and David became firm fixtures

of the Chelsea and Kensington

party scene.

They seemed infatuated.

He moved in with her

and her children

within a few weeks of meeting.

She was a really fun person

to be around.

She was always the person

who would start a party,

the last person to end a party.

But having said that,

the things that he kind of fell for

with Ruth

are the things that,

in the end, he hated.

Ruth was given a tape recorder

as a gift.

And for the last months of her life,

she recorded herself and David.

DAVID ON RECORDING:

RUTH ON RECORDING:

DAVID:

David particularly disliked one

of Ruth's admirers Desmond Cussen,

a former RAF pilot

turned company director.

Desmond Cussen was

strongly infatuated with Ruth,

which really annoyed David Blakely.

And so there was

this love triangle, if you like,

which was always, you know,

doomed for disaster.

In May 1954,

George Ellis filed for divorce.

He accused Ruth

of being an unfit mother

and pressured her to allow

a childless couple he knew

to foster their daughter.

George Ellis hated the idea of his

daughter living above a nightclub,

saying he had a solution.

Ruth didn't want to,

so she clearly did have

love for her daughter.

But eventually,

there was an element of Ruth wanting

something better for Georgina.

Ruth finally agreed.

Georgina went to live

with her father's friends

in Cheshire, 200 miles away.

She didn't wanna give Georgina up.

I think she probably found it hard

having a younger child

around the house

with the lifestyle

that she was leading.

By that time, David was spending

less and less time at home,

putting his effort and money

into his racing car, The Emperor.

He was working 18-hour days

on this car,

so he had found his direction.

And, erm, as many of us have,

when you find something that

you love and you're so devoted to,

that changes your life.

David spent most of the year

away racing.

In June, he was at Le Mans

with the Bristol Racing Team.

While he was gone, Desmond Cussen

tried to break him and Ruth apart.

When David was away

on race circuits,

Desmond would have done

his damnedest to spread

as much ill will or ill feelings

about Uncle David.

In London, Ruth throws a surprise

party for David's 25th birthday.

PARTYGOERS: Surprise!

Oh! I'm so sorry, darling.

David asked me to let you know

he can't make it.

Look, David's engaged

to be married to Mary Dawson.

He's been living here with me

for months.

You've been a lovely friend to him.

Bless you.

That evening,

Ruth invites Desmond Cussen

to her flat and her bed.

She was furious. She was upset.

So what she did, in revenge,

was she slept with a man

she knew David did not like.

David broke off his engagement

and returned to London.

Once again, Ruth believed they could

have a happy future together.

But the relationship came

at a huge emotional

and financial cost for Ruth.

David continued having affairs,

all the while living off her money.

RUTH ON RECORDING:

MAN: Mm-hm.

Mm.

And things were about

to get much worse.

I wondered if I might get

an advance on my wages.

Been sponging again, has he?

I'm gonna have to start

charging you rent on the flat.

You can't do that.

As their relationship deteriorated,

it became more violent.

LUCY BOYNTON: The intensity

of all of that passion and love

was equal to then the intensity

of violence in that relationship,

which then segued into this kind

of mental violence and mental abuse.

The physical abuse often left Ruth

covered in bruises,

though she would try

to defend herself.

There are many instances

where she took a good hiding.

I know she was small in stature,

but I think she threw punches back.

Those who knew David

couldn't imagine him capable

of such physical violence.

There are a lot of people

of that age who do stupid things.

But to the degree that he's been

painted as such a monster,

it's just hard to imagine.

Fed up with David's freeloading,

Conley sacked Ruth,

throwing her out of the flat.

Desmond took her and Andre in.

RUTH ON RECORDING:

Ruth now had no job,

no money and no home of her own.

But despite everything,

she and David couldn't stay away

from each other,

even though

his violence was escalating.

RUTH ON RECORDING:

I think it was, when you're

in the centre of that storm,

it's really hard to see

the full picture

and the full... perspective.

And so it was playing it

with that in mind

and playing it

that close to the flame.

I'm awfully afraid

I'm falling in love with you.

RUTH ON RECORDING:

AMANDA DREW: Ruth and Andre, her

son, were now living with Desmond,

after she lost her job and home

because of her relationship

with David.

Desmond hoped this would lead

to him and Ruth becoming closer.

The only saving grace,

from her perspective at the time,

was Andre.

And Desmond's promises around,

you know, how he would help Andre.

In February 1955, Ruth told Desmond

she wanted to get her own flat.

Desmond lent Ruth the deposit,

unaware it would become a love nest

for her and David.

INTERVIEWER: It must have been

difficult for you.

Well, it was sort of

always the, er...

..question that, er,

their association would discontinue.

And, er, I was prepared to put up

with it, I think, at the time,

and... in the hopes that it would.

There was an element

of him being genuine

and genuinely caring about her,

wanting to protect her.

But the other was also around

this sense of jealousy that,

"Why can't she see that a world

with me is, you know,

"far more safe and secure?"

But whatever

Desmond Cussen was hoping for,

it wasn't happening.

Ruth was now two months pregnant

with David's baby.

It was one thing for him

to use her as a sexual object,

but for him to even consider

a child with her

would have been

deeply inappropriate.

Of the circles that he moved in,

this is not on.

I'm sure that that gave expression

in the violence

that he used against her.

David, I am pregnant.

I sw...

SHE GRUNTS

SHE GASPS

He punched her in her stomach.

She lost the baby.

The impact of that,

psychologically, on Ruth...

just... you can't even imagine it,

I don't think.

And that was really

the beginning of the end.

She was miscarrying.

Obviously the hormones,

the emotions that come with that.

Ruth was devastated.

She was struggling physically

and emotionally.

Then, just a few days

after the miscarriage,

David told her he loved her again.

A side of his behaviour

that became mental abuse,

of his disappearance and return,

so the constant anticipation

of his return,

I think

psychologically impacts someone

so that you can't find

any stability in your sanity

or in... or physically, either.

And I think that could drive

a person quite mad.

With promises of being

a changed man,

David said he'd be at Ruth's flat by

8pm to spend the weekend with her.

He didn't show,

having already told his family

he'd ended the relationship.

There is no doubt that

he believed he had ended it,

erm, that he didn't want

to go back.

And he was seeking the advice

and solace and company

of two of his best friends.

WOMAN: 'Findlaters' residence.'

Is David there?

'No.'

WOMAN LAUGHS,

DISCONNECT TONE

ANTHONY: 'Hello?'

And who was that girl?

'Look. David isn't here. All right?'

DISCONNECT TONE

She thought she heard

David in the house,

and she thought

he was probably with the nanny.

She was really,

really just distraught.

Ruth called the Findlaters

twice more

then asked Desmond

to drive her there.

When they arrived,

David's car was parked outside.

You threw her at him. David!

David!

He's left you, Ruth.

You won't see him ever again.

You're lying.

I have only ever told you the truth.

You've never wanted to hear it.

He can't just walk away

with everything in ruins.

CAROL ANN LEE: She said, you know,

"He's let me down.

"He's let my son down.

He promised he would do this.

"I've paid for everything,

I've lost everything.

"I'm entitled to show my anger."

RUTH ON RECORDING:

That anger was building,

that quiet anger that she felt.

She just couldn't see a way out.

Over the Easter weekend,

Desmond drove Ruth

between the Findlaters

in North London and Buckinghamshire

several times looking for David.

I just wish he was dead.

I wish he was dead.

I wish he would jump in a lake

and drown, and I could just be free.

It is now believed

that Desmond gave Ruth a g*n

and taught her how to sh**t it.

g*nshots,

BIRDS CAW

Her son, Andre,

later remembers seeing the weapon.

Desmond took Ruth to her flat,

where she put her son to bed.

It's thought he then drove her

back to the Findlaters

and left her there.

As David's car wasn't to be seen,

she walked to

the nearby Magdala pub.

On the Easter Sunday evening,

Ruth came down from Tanza Road,

behind me.

And she knew

that David and Clive had gone

into this pub here, The Magdala,

to get some more supplies

for their party.

She was looking

through the window here.

Two packs of cigarettes.

SHE INHALES,

EXHALES DEEPLY

Come on. Because we're having

a party round the corner.

Leave the poor guy alone.

'David and Clive came out

of the door there.'

Clive went across

to the passenger door.

Ruth shouted to David.

David!

'And he tried to ignore her.'

DAVID: Ruth, what are...?

'And she fired at him.'

g*nshots

'She fired two more shots.'

b*ll*ts puncture several

of David's major organs.

He died within minutes.

And while he collapsed

on the pavement completely,

she brought the g*n up

to her temple

and brought it right up,

and her hand started to shake.

It was a very, very brutal sh**ting.

It did come across

as being so cold-blooded.

She was so focused

on what she wanted to do,

what she felt she had to do.

Ruth was arrested and taken

to Hampstead Police Station,

where she confessed

to k*lling David.

Her solicitor was this man,

John Bickford,

who spoke about the case

20 years later.

On the face of it,

the phrase "an open and shut case"

is virtually irresistible.

It looked like it, and that was why

the police didn't bother too much

to trace the story about the g*n,

originally.

He was always very kind

and considerate.

Very focused, under...

Very, very keen on getting the facts

before he made any decisions.

Ruth told the police

she was given the g*n by a customer

at her club years earlier,

insisting no-one else was involved,

then asked Bickford to tell

Desmond that she'd forgotten

to mention the g*n had come

from a customer.

He said, "Well, um, the truth is

that I, in fact, gave her the g*n,

"but the police don't know that."

And on her own insistence,

he cleaned the g*n, oiled it,

cleaned all the b*ll*ts,

put them in the g*n,

and then they went in the car,

together with the g*n,

with the loaded g*n,

in search of Blakely.

In his statement to the police,

Desmond said he had never seen Ruth

with the g*n

and didn't know where it came from.

It was the story he stuck to

for the rest of his life.

Let me state quite clearly,

I did not give Ruth the g*n,

nor on that occasion

did I drive her up to Hampstead.

While Ruth insisted he had,

she refused to allow Bickford

to use that in her defence.

She wanted to protect Desmond

because he'd supported her and

her son over the last few months.

She accepted her fate.

An eye for an eye and the crime

would be, you know, repaid.

She believed it was a fair exchange

then to give her life for his life,

like a certain

equalising of justice.

And there was also

the peace that came with

knowing that that torment was over.

I think almost, you know, she...

thought she'd be reunited

with David.

In a letter to David's mother,

Ruth wrote,

"I shall die loving your son,

and you shall be content

"knowing that his death

has been repaid."

Very few women commit m*rder,

and so the idea

that she was charged with m*rder

would have fascinated the general

public and the media at that time.

She insisted on going into court

looking very well-dressed,

re-blonded her hair in prison,

so she came across to the jury

as quite a hard-bitten character.

AMANDA DREW: Ruth only had

a few defences available to her

under 1955 law -

self-defence, insanity, proving

her innocence, and provocation.

If David did something

so terrible to you

it caused you

to temporarily lose control,

that could be a defence.

Provocation caused by

David's increasing violence

and her subsequent miscarriage

seemed to be her best option,

but the odds weren't great.

The law then was that

in order to plead provocation,

you had to show

that the act that provoked you

came immediately before your action,

and that wasn't the case

in Ruth Ellis.

The actions had accumulated

over many months.

The trial judge was Cecil Havers,

whose actor grandson Nigel

would subsequently play him

in the drama about the case.

I have very fond memories

of my grandfather.

I adored him, really.

He was a kind-hearted man,

and I do know that he had

great sympathy for-for Ruth.

It was commonplace

for people to say,

"Well, you know,

she must have had it coming to her.

"He must have been pushed

to the edge."

The assumptions always were

that women had brought things

onto their own heads.

Her leading counsel was

a man called Melford Stevenson.

He wouldn't have understood

what a woman might be feeling with

this kind of level of rejection -

the violence

that displayed that rejection,

the idea that she was being told

that she was really a trollop

and that she was of no value,

the way in which

she was so physically hurt

that she loses her pregnancy.

Ruth's fate was sealed by

prosecution barrister

Christmas Humphreys's

cross-examination.

Mrs Ellis, when you fired

that revolver at close range

into the body of David Blakely,

what did you intend to do?

Her answer was, "It is obvious.

"I intended to k*ll him."

She said on every occasion, "No, no,

no, I intended to k*ll him."

And the more you say that,

I'm afraid,

the more the jury

will convict you of m*rder.

In John Bickford's discussions

of Ruth Ellis,

he said, "Of course,

the facts were totally against us.

"We had no real hope

of securing an acquittal for her."

He tried desperately hard

to make her say,

in front of the jury,

that she didn't intend

to k*ll the man,

she was just driven to sh**t him

because of provocation.

Sadly, she refused.

In the end, the defence

failed to convince the court

that Ruth had been provoked

as defined by the laws of the time.

The whole trial was a shambles.

Her defence was pitiful.

The trial lasted two days.

It really took no time at all for

the jury to decide on their verdict.

RECORDING: 'On June the 21st,

'Ruth Ellis was found guilty

of m*rder at the Old Bailey

'and sentenced to death

in accordance with the law.'

As Ruth waited in

Holloway Prison's condemned cell,

a public campaign began

to have her sentence commuted.

'During those three weeks,

while public controversy mounted,

'one man had

a terrible decision to make,

'Home Secretary Gwilym Lloyd George.

'He had to decide whether

or not to write the grim words,

' "the law must take its course." '

I know it upset my grandfather

enormously.

He wrote a letter

to the Home Secretary,

expressing she

did not deserve to be hanged.

Simple as that.

Others wrote to Home Secretary

Gwilym Lloyd George,

pleading him to show mercy,

while 50,000 people

from around the world signed

a petition asking for clemency.

People had realised

that this young woman,

with two young children,

who was just trying to make her way

in the world,

who was let down by so many men,

I think there was a sense of

everyone realising

that it was slightly inhumane.

Despite public pressure,

Lloyd George

refused to grant Ruth a reprieve.

I remember looking through

the little,

small Judas hole in the door,

and she was sat down at a table with

two wardresses at each side of her.

She tries to save herself

at the 11th hour.

She knew

a reprieve wasn't gonna happen,

she realised that Andy wasn't

going to be looked after by Desmond,

so she needed to be there

to look after Andy.

Ruth sacks

her solicitor John Bickford,

accusing him

of colluding with Desmond,

and replaces him

with Victor Mishcon,

her former divorce solicitor.

He wanted her to get clemency

so that she would serve her life

imprisonment but not be hanged.

Why has she fired you?

Been carrying a b*mb

in my briefcase,

and I didn't have the guts

to detonate it.

He looked at me and said,

"Try and get her to tell you

"who gave her the g*n."

Mishcon tells Ruth

to give a new statement

about where she got the g*n

and to tell the truth.

Didn't she owe it to her son,

that he should know the truth?

Ruth tells Mishcon that

Desmond loaded and oiled the g*n

before he drove her to Hampstead.

She said, "I haven't said any of

this before," and she used the word,

I remember so well,

"It would have been traitorous."

She was facing what she did,

why bring somebody else punishment

when it wasn't necessary?

I need the Permanent Undersecretary

of State.

He's at Ascot.

Well, get him bloody back

from Ascot.

What message should I give?

Tell him Ruth Ellis

isn't going to hang tomorrow.

Scotland Yard detectives

are tasked

to find Desmond

and question him about the g*n.

I think that a jury knowing

that someone had shown her

how to use a g*n,

had helped her in that way,

I think that Cussens might have

ended up being in the dock

as an accessory as well.

And once you have that, then

you start opening up the context.

I'm not sure that it would

have led to an acquittal,

but I think it probably

would have led to clemency,

and that's the important thing.

Victor Mishcon gets a call.

Desmond can't be found.

Ruth's last hope is gone.

RECORDING: 'All the hundreds

who waited at Holloway Jail

'on execution morning and for

the millions who stayed away,

'three questions remain -

should a woman hang?

'Should anyone hang at all? Or

should there be degrees of m*rder?'

Ruth wakes up, writes her final

letters and eats her last breakfast.

Then Holloway's governor

receives a call,

reportedly from the Home Office,

suggesting a last-minute reprieve

for Ruth.

One minute to, ma'am.

WOMAN: You can't make her wait.

It's t*rture.

I mean, it's got to be a hoax.

The call was a hoax.

The execution could carry on.

Follow me.

Pierrepoint steps up to the gallows.

She came to me as though she was

just walking in the ordinary way,

walked right to me.

And as soon as she hears

his feet stop moving,

she then probably knows that

the next sound she'll hear

is some form of lever,

a lever to death.

It's, er, yeah, quite a... Urgh!

..quite a horrible kind of thought.

Don't worry, lass, I won't hurt you.

I can't begin to imagine

what was going on in her head.

She maintained her composure,

though, um,

you know,

really right up till the very end.

She never spoke to me.

I can see her now.

Just flicked her eyes,

and she just puckered her lips

as though she was trying to smile,

you know.

She was a brave woman.

GASPING

Georgina was

only three years old,

and Andre was just ten

when their mother was ex*cuted.

My mum was a larger than life

character,

very similar to Ruth in some ways,

with the peroxide blonde hair.

She could turn a room immediately.

She could turn a man very quickly.

But she was ultimately very fun

and bubbly.

She found the desire

to move to London as well,

to also chase the bright lights.

You know, wanted to get onto films,

to be a singer.

I had a group of girlfriends

around, sort of, the age of 13, 14,

they would sit next to me in class

and-and draw the hangman game

and then sort of pass the paper

towards me.

It was, you know, very hard,

you know, Mum was so prolific.

She almost created this sort of

media circus around Ruth's name.

And I just didn't want to be

a part of that.

I lost my mother when I was

around 11 years old,

and I was always

trying to understand, you know,

what drove her,

what made her the woman she was.

You know, what was she seeking?

Which was, ultimately, her identity.

Georgina was eight

when she first learned the truth

about her mother's death.

I discovered the cuttings,

and there they were.

There the story was

all in front of me, so I-I realised.

I saw the picture of her

and remembered her as a small child.

Georgina passed away in 2001,

at the age of 50,

after a long battle with cancer.

The ripple effect

has affected all of us.

It's been a heavy burden.

It's almost felt like

I've been swimming in wet clothes.

I spent sort of 40-something years

avoiding the subject,

not talking about it.

The controversy

around Ruth's execution

led to major changes in law.

In 1957, the defence of diminished

responsibility was established,

a defence that could have

prevented Ruth's execution.

Her death

really gave the campaign

for abolition to stop execution,

it gave it its emotional spur.

She was very young.

She was in her 20s still,

but unfortunately,

she fell in love with David,

and I think she did die loving him.

It's very, very sad.

There are two lives

that-that didn't make it to 30.

And one of 'em didn't deserve it,

and the other

shouldn't have done it.

What her grandchildren, family,

have gone through,

I can certainly appreciate

and understand that side

of the tragedy.

She is a m*rder*r, but she didn't

deserve to be taken from the world

in the way that she was.

And equally,

you know, I have huge sympathy

for-for David Blakely's family.

He was a young man

who had the world ahead of him.

He equally didn't deserve to die,

which is why ultimately, you know,

the whole story is sadness.

Ruth was a trailblazer in life,

she was 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.