Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs Before his tragic death, Ruth Ellis’ son Andre ‘Andy’ Neilson made a recording which shed a completely different light on the case, corroborating a story Ellis herself told shortly before her execution21:54, 19 Mar 2025Updated 21:57, 19 Mar 2025Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story – Judge delivers sentenceITV viewers have been gripped by the new four-part drama A Cruel Love, which tells the harrowing true story of Ruth Ellis.Ellis has gone down in history as the last woman in Britain to be hanged, having been found guilty of killing her motor-racer lover, David Blakely, on Easter Sunday, 1955.The court heard how, in a fit of lover’s vengeance, glamorous model and nightclub hostess Ellis gunned down philandering Blakely outside the Magdala pub in Hampstead, north London.However, her story, which sparked controversy at the time, was far more complicated and continues to be discussed and debated to this day.Now, fresh evidence casts doubt on the sentence that resulted in mum-of-two Ellis being hanged at the age of just 28, with her son’s testimony suggesting she’d had an armed accomplice.READ MORE: ITV A Cruel Love: Ruth Ellis’ single-word response after murder chargeThe mother of two was found guilty of shooting her lover David Blakely outside of a Hampstead pub(Image: ITV)As detailed in new BBC Four documentary The Ruth Ellis Files: a Very British Crime Story, a newly recovered recording hears Ellis’ son Andre ‘Andy’ Neilson, recall how, on the day of the fatal shooting, his mother had left the house accompanied by new partner Desmond Cussen.According to Andy, who was only 10 years old at the time of the murder, both Ellis and Cussen had guns, while former RAF pilot Cussen owned a taxi.It’s understood that Ellis had travelled to the pub in the back of a taxi, however officers never tracked down the driver. It’s believed troubled Andy, who lived a tormented life in the years that followed his mother’s death, made the tape shortly before his 1982 suicide.American film-maker Gillian Pachter, who interviewed surviving family members for the doc, told The Times: “Here is a witness, a key witness, who was not asked for what he knew, but when you listen to him, he backs up the fact of Cussen’s involvement.”On July 12, 1955, the day she was executed at HMP Holloway, Ellis told her solicitor that Cussen was the one who gave her the gun and taught her how to wield it. However, the Home Office did not grant a reprieve. Andy’s tape backs up this account while supporting the theory that Cussen had wanted Blakely out of the way.The case sparked a public outcryAs is also explored in this eye-opening doc, there is also new evidence of the violence wealthy socialite Blakely inflicted on working-class Ellis, whose jurors were not permitted to consider provocation as a defence.Ellis’ death sentence sparked a wave of public opinion and media interest, with many condemning the grave and by then widely controversial punishment. Indeed, Mirror columnist Cassandra wrote at the time: “The one thing that brings stature and dignity to mankind and raises us above the beasts will have been denied her — pity and the hope of ultimate redemption.”In the midst of the outcry, Ellis accepted her fate, and was not involved in the petition to free her. In her final letter addressed to Blakely’s parents, Ellis wrote: “I have always loved your son, and I shall die still loving him.”The Ruth Ellis Files: a Very British Crime Story can be streamed on BBC iPlayer. You can also stream A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story on ITV Player now.Do you have a story to share? Email me at [email protected] MORE: Cult Beauty’s jam-packed fragrance box gives you a Jo Loves perfume for £4
