The story of Ruth Ellis is a tragic one. Aged 28, she became the last woman to be executed in Britain in 1955, for the crime of shooting her lover, David Blakely, dead in the street. Her case sparked controversy – so much so that it helped bring an end to the death penalty – and has now been made into an ITV series.
In it, Nigel Havers plays Judge Cecil Havers, who presided over the case when it went to trial. And the fact that they share a surname is no coincidence: Nigel is Cecil’s real-life grandson.
Cecil is the person who passed the sentence of hanging on Ruth. In the case, the jury took just two days to find Ruth guilty of murder, which meant a mandatory death sentence.
See also: The real story of Ruth Ellis
However, he was deeply troubled by the decision – especially when it came to light that Ruth had been given the murder weapon by her lover, Desmond Cussen.
Cussen had given Ruth a lesson in how to use it the week before the shooting, and to try and protect him from legal action, Ruth refused to implicate him in David Blakely’s death.
“She said on every occasion ‘no, no I intended to kill him’. And the more you say that, I’m afraid, the more at the jury will convict you of murder,” the younger Havers said in a documentary accompanying the show.
Despite this, Ruth’s defence lawyer, Melford Stevenson, tried to get her to save herself. “He tried desperately hard to get her to say, in front of the jury, that she didn’t intend to kill the man,” Havers said. “That she was driven to shoot him because of provocation. Sadly, she refused.”
“I know it upset my grandfather enormously,” he added. “He wrote a letter to the home secretary expressing she did not deserve to be hanged. Simple as that.” In a 2010 interview, he also explained that Cecil Havers believed Ruth’s shooting to be a crime of passion – which would have received a manslaughter sentence – rather than the mandatory death sentence that came with murder.
In response, Sir Cecil Havers is said to have received a “blunt refusal”. The actor adds: “I have very fond memories of my grandfather. I adored him really. He was a kind-hearted man and I do know he had great sympathy for Ruth.”
So much so, in fact that he sent money to Ruth’s son Andy every year until his death in 1977. Andy himself took his own life in 1982 after years of struggling with his mental health.
It was only the latest tragedy to befall the Ellis family: David Ellis hanged himself a few years after Ruth’s execution, and her mother, Bertha, was found unconscious in a gas-filled flat in 1969. Though she didn’t die, she never spoke coherently again.
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story is streaming on ITV from March 5
