The story of the last woman hanged in the UK

It may come as a surprise to some that the last woman executed in the UK was hanged just 56 years ago on this day in 1955. Ruth Ellis was a minor celebrity and society hostess in London who was prosecuted for the murder of her lover David Blakely, who she shot five times at point blank range as he left The Magdala public house with a friend. There is no question over her guilt, she was arrested at the scene still holding the murder weapon by an off duty policeman. She was examined by psychologists for both the prosecution and defence councils and was declared to be sane and fit to stand trial, and she made no attempt to deny the act, other than to say that she felt that she was remote from her body at the time, although this is a common psychological position when one commits an act of this type.

So, a clear cut case, ending in the only way it could based on the prevalent law of the time, and yet it was this case, amongst others that led to the abolition of the death penalty in the UK. There were, subsequent to this case, other women sentenced to death before the death penalty was finally abolished, but they all had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. So why was this case, which had no significant controversy at the time, cited as a key reason for abolishion? I suspect that it may have been looked at in terms of the ramifications for the people around the case, particularly the family of Ruth Ellis. Her husband, following her execution descended in alcoholism and committed suicide. Her son entered a chronic depressive episode and also commited suicide having first destroyed his mothers headstone. There was also subsequent debate around the implication that Ruth Ellis was denied a reprieve at least in part because she, as a society hostess, had come into contact with senior society figures and her actions in this case had caused concern about her mental stability and the risk she posed.

The issue of the death penalty is one that is fraught with ethical and moral implications, and it is almost impossible to engage in rational debate with so many radically disparate viewpoints, and so many cases at the extreme ends of the spectrum for and against. I would question if it is possible for a populous to think rationally about such widely seperated cases as say Myra Hindley or Dennis Nielsen on one hand, and Derek Bentley and Timothy Evans on the other. I believe that one can only give ones own opinion, and for me the reason that I oppose the death penalty is the inherent difficulty in defining where the lines are drawn in terms of how the death penalty is applied and for which crimes....