Cause célèbre for abolitionists: in 1955, Ellis was in fact a wicked and brutal, cold-blooded killer and a long way from being the tragic victim of 'a wicked miscarriage of justice'.
This article rather brings into question all of the accusations made by Ellis alleging her mistreatment by Blakeley in order to justify her callous actions. (Was he really responsible for the loss of her unborn child?)
Her sourcing a gun from another lover rather changes all the criteria on which the hand-wringing opposition to her hanging was based. All the usual abolitionist suspects who virtually made a martyr out of her; the vile Timothy Evans; the Derek Bentley who acted in cold blood sourcing bullets for the handgun which killed a Police Officer and ordered the death as well as the guilty as hell, James Hanratty.
Four frauds which led to abolition of the death penalty in the UK and saw homicide rates rocket. I wonder if these people were able to sleep at night - protecting the guilty and removing protection from future innocent victims. Capital murders increased by 127% immediately after abolition.
The Daily Mail has recently become an abolitionist rag and irrationally reinterprets the new information from the death cell which has recently been released. It actually suggests that, had this information been known to the Home Secretary, it might have resulted in a reprieve.
What ignorance! - This extra information proved 'Joint enterprise' with a third party which actually enhances the seriousness of the offence. This was never a crime passionnel but nothing less than a calculated hit.
(The only injustice is that Desmond Cousins could not later be charged with supply of the murder weapon and also with 'Joint enterprise' as the evidence was insufficient.)
