Hanged Ruth Ellis loses murder appeal

Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, has had her conviction upheld by the Court of Appeal.

Three judges in London announced that they had "dismissed" an appeal against conviction brought on her behalf.

Ellis's case was referred to the court by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the legal watchdog which reports on possible miscarriages of justice.

Lawyers acting for Ellis's sister, Muriel Jakubait, had asked judges to quash the murder conviction and substitute a verdict of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation and/or diminished responsibility.

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

Two shots were fired at Blakely before he collapsed on the pavement. Ellis then fired the remaining four bullets into him.

The case went down in legal annals and was made into a film, Dance With A Stranger, which starred Miranda Richardson.

Ellis's son and daughter are no longer alive, but her grandchildren and her sister are continuing the family's fight to establish she should never have gone to the gallows.

Appeal judges Lord Justice Kay, Mr Justice Silber and Mr Justice Leveson were told at a hearing in September that 10 days before the killing, Ellis had suffered a miscarriage after Blakely, the baby's father, punched her in the stomach.

The Old Bailey judge who sentenced her to death deprived her of her only line of defence, the appeal judges were told.

Most watched News videos