Review call for infamous murderer of Bucks man (From Bucks Free Press)

Review call for infamous murderer of Bucks man

2:49pm Wednesday 4th June 2008 in

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RESIDENTS are being urged to back a call for a review into the case of the last woman to be hanged in Britain for the killing of a Penn man.

The sister of Ruth Ellis is backing an online petition calling on prime minister Gordon Brown to review her case.

Ellis was sent to the gallows in 1955 aged 28 for the murder of boyfriend David Blakely at a pub in Hampstead, north London.

He was buried in Penn churchyard. Ellis' family wanted her to be buried next to Blakely but could not find the space and she was interred at St Mary's Church, Amersham.

Ellis was arrested at the scene of the murder at the Magdala pub on April 10, Easter Sunday and infamously told her trial "it's obvious when I shot him I intended to kill him".

Yet her elder sister Muriel Jakubait and writer Monica Weller allege in a book that a friend of Ellis', Desmond Cussen, pulled the trigger and have launched the campaign for justice.

So far 175 people have signed the petition and Mrs Weller said the year-long plea for support, to close on July 4, had been hit by a lack of publicity.

Mrs Weller told the Bucks Free Press: "I hope that people who are interested in justice will support the petition and request the prime minister to look again."

She said she had uncovered new evidence which demanded a review of Ellis' case.

Mrs Weller, of Bookham, Surrey, said Ellis, her hands crippled by rheumatic fever, would not have been able to fire the gun, a .38mm Smith and Wesson revolver.

And she said she tracked the police officer who attended the scene and was told Ellis did not have blood on her clothing - disputing the claim she fired one shot at point blank range.

In 2003 the Court of Appeal rejected a review of the case, which helped further opposition to the death penalty, finally abolished in 1964.

The petition is at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/RuthEllis55/