'No evidence' Ruth Ellis was provoked

A claim that Ruth Ellis was provoked into shooting her lover dead and should never have been convicted of murder at her 1955 trial could not be upheld under the law as it stood at the time, Crown counsel argued in the Court of Appeal.

Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, had calmly carried out a deliberate killing after travelling from Knightsbridge to Hampstead armed with a revolver, said David Perry.

At the time of her Old Bailey Trial, there was no such defence as diminished responsibility, and the defence of provocation required evidence of a sudden loss of self-control in immediate response to a provocative act.

In Ellis's case, although she had been violently ill-treated by her lover in the past, the only provocation on the day of the killing was his breaking off their affair by failing to contact her even though he had promised to do so.

Even if that amounted to provocation, her response to it was wholly disproportionate, he said.

Mr Perry was contesting an appeal by Ellis's sister, Muriel Jakubait, 83, who is seeking a reduction of the murder conviction to manslaughter.

Surviving members of Ellis's family - her sister and six grandchildren - could be in line for compensation if the appeal succeeds.

The 28-year-old nightclub hostess was hanged in 1955 for killing racing driver David Blakely as he emerged from the Magdala pub in South Hill Park, Hampstead, north London.

At her Old Bailey trial, Ellis said under cross-examination: "It was obvious that when I shot him I intended to kill him."

That admission of intent sealed her fate. The trial judge ruled that, in law, she had no defence of provocation which could have led to a manslaughter verdict. The jury took just 14 minutes to convict her of murder. Ellis did not appeal and was hanged three weeks later at Holloway prison.

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