Should Ruth Ellis have hanged?

THE trial lasted just a day and the jury took less than 15 minutes to find Ruth Ellis guilty of murder. Standing in the dock at the Old Bailey, the platinum blonde nightclub manager listened calmly as the judge donned his black cap and announced her fate. Three weeks later, on July 13, 1955, she became the last woman to be hanged in Britain.

On the face of it, the evidence against the 28-year-old was overwhelming. Ellis shot her lover, racing driver David Blakely, outside a pub in Hampstead on Easter Sunday, 1955. She had been lying in wait and when he emerged, pumped five bullets into him, the last at point blank range as he lay bleeding on the ground. She was arrested by an off-duty policeman, the smoking gun still in her hand. She offered no resistance.

But was Ellis a cold-blooded killer or was she herself a victim, driven to drastic action by an abusive boyfriend?

Her family have been fighting to have her conviction overturned for almost 50 years and her case will be re-opened tomorrow at the Court of Appeal in London. Lawyers are to ask three appeal judges in London to substitute a verdict of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation or of diminished responsibility.

Ellis' children are both dead, but her sister, Muriel Jakubait, now 83, believes Ellis' mental state meant she should never have been convicted of murder. She says the jury was never told that David Blakely treated Ellis violently and caused her to miscarry by punching her in the stomach - just ten days before she shot him. Nor were they told that she had been sexually abused by her father as a child and was addicted to anti-depressants. At the time of the trial, provocation had a narrow definition and applied only to killers who reacted in "hot blood" to something that happened immediately before the killing. It was later widened to include battered women and others whose self-control was affected by despair or depression.

Lawyers are expected to argue that this applies to Ellis, who they claim was suffering from post-traumatic stress following the miscarriage.

The legal team will also explore the role of Desmond Cussen, another lover, who gave her the gun and taught her to use it, before driving her to the pub. Although Cussen's involvement did not emerge at the trial, they will argue that he plied Ellis with alcohol and talked her into killing Blakely because he wanted to marry her himself.

If Ellis had been found guilty of manslaughter, she would probably have received a prison sentence instead of the capital punishment of hanging and could have been free in as little as 12 years.

Ruth Ellis had a history of troubled relationships. When she was 17, she fell in love with a Canadian soldier and became pregnant, but despite promises to marry her, he returned to Canada where he already had a wife and four children.

Her son, Andy was born in 1944 but, by the time she was 20, Ellis was working as a club hostess in the West End of London. It was there she met George Ellis, an alcoholic dentist whom she later married. He regularly beat her but the couple had a daughter, Georgina, before they separated.

Ellis later became manager of the Little Club in Knightsbridge, where she formed a formed a passionate and tempestuous relationship with Blakely. A heavy drinker, he was also violent, and carried on a string of public affairs, which made her madly jealous. In the days leading up to the shooting, Blakely was staying with friends, a couple called the Findlaters. Ellis believed he was having an affair with the Findlaters' nanny but he refused to talk to her despite several phone calls and visits to the house. By the end of the weekend, he was dead.

Ellis' trial opened on Monday, June 20, 1955 in the Old Bailey's Number One Court. Her hair freshly dyed platinum, she wore a black two-piece suit, trimmed with astrakhan and gave the impression of a woman cool under pressure.

Her counsel, Melford Stevenson, had wanted to argue provocation as a defence. This would have opened the way for manslaughter but the judge, Sir Cecil Havers ruled it out, leaving the jury no choice but to convict her of murder.

She pleaded not guilty, but when prosecuting counsel asked her: "When you fired that revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?", she replied: "It was obvious that when I shot him, I intended to kill him."

Her fate was sealed andthe jury deliberated for just 14 minutes before finding her guilty. She was taken back to Holloway Prison and placed in the condemned unit.

She decided against an appeal but her case provoked a huge outpouring of public sympathy. Much was made in the papers about her recent miscarriage and the violence she suffered at Blakely's hands and petitions containing several thousand signatures were sent to the Home Office requesting a reprieve. The final decision lay with Home Secretary, Major Gwilym Lloyd George, but despite pressure from both the public and the press, he decided against her.

On the day before her execution, the governor of Holloway was forced to call for police reinforcements because a crowd of more than 500 had gathered outside the prison gates, singing and chanting. Some broke through the police cordon and began banging on the gates. Inside, Ruth was visited by her mother and sister. Muriel remembers there was no mention of her imminent death, only small talk.

On the morning of the execution, Ruth wrote a letter to Blakely's mother, apologising for killing him. The prison doctor gave her a brandy to steady her nerves and she saw a Catholic priest. At nine o'clock, executioner Albert Pierrepoint entered her cell, tied her hands behind her back with a leather strap and led her to the gallows.

She was the 60th and last woman to be executed in Britain in the 20th century and her case was instrumental in the abolition of the death penalty. In 1957, Parliament passed the Homicide Act, following growing disquiet over the hangings of Timothy Evans in 1950, Derek Bentley in 1953 and Ellis two years later. The act was a compromise, making the distinction between capital and non-capital murder, but MPs then voted to suspend the death penalty entirely as a five-year experiment. This was made permanent in 1970.

Whatever the outcome of the appeal this week, the macabre glamour of Ellis' case will continue to fascinate: it has already inspired dozens of books and the 1985 film, Dance With a Stranger.

For her sister and the six grandchildren she never saw, it will be a chance to put her side of the of story and an opportunity to prove that although she killed David Blakely, Ruth Ellis should have been spared the gallows.