A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story

Cold-blooded killer or class victim?: ITV's new Ruth Ellis drama

A white woman in her 30s with blonde hair wears a red dress and smokes a cigarette in an old pub

On June 1955, a jury took just 14 minutes to convict Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain. Charged with murdering her lover, David Blakely, outside the Magdala pub in Hampstead, north London, Ellis was in the dock for little over a day, but the case sent shockwaves across the nation and contributed to the end of the death penalty.