Post by Taxigirl on Dec 8, 2003 9:55:28 GMT
Appeal court judges are to rule on Monday whether Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, should have gone to the gallows.
Lawyers acting for Ellis' sister, Muriel Jakubait, have asked the judges to quash the murder conviction.
They have argued that a verdict of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation was more appropriate because she suffered "battered woman syndrome".
Ellis, 28, was hanged in 1955 for killing her lover David Blakely at a north London pub.
Two shots were fired at the racing driver before he collapsed on the pavement outside the Magdala pub in Hampstead.
Nightclub hostess Ellis then fired the remaining four bullets into him.
Miscarriage suffered
The case was referred to the court by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the legal watchdog that reports on possible miscarriages of justice.
Ellis's son and daughter are no longer alive, but her grandchildren and her sister are fighting to establish that she should never have been hanged.
The three appeal judges were told at a September hearing that 10 days before the killing Ellis had suffered a miscarriage after Mr Blakely, the baby's father, punched her in the stomach.
Michael Mansfield QC, appearing for 81-year-old Mrs Jakubait, said that the judge in the original case barred the jury from considering whether Ellis had acted under provocation, and might therefore be guilty of manslaughter, rather than the capital offence of murder.
He said Ellis was suffering from "battered woman syndrome" when she shot her lover dead, and that the judge's direction was an incorrect interpretation of the law as it then stood.
Two years after Ellis's execution - and largely prompted by her case - Parliament changed the law to allow a defence of diminished responsibility.
The case was made into a film, Dance With A Stranger, starring Miranda Richardson.