British TV legend plays own relative in ITV drama about tragic execution

A British actor plays his grandfather in a new true crime series about the last woman who received the death penalty in the UK (Picture: ITV/ Des Willie/ Shutterstock)

A new series about the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom also sees one of the stars play his relative who was involved in the real-life case.

A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story premieres this week and tells the story of Ellis (played by Lucy Boynton), a Welsh nightclub hostess who was sentenced to death in 1955 following the fatal shooting of her lover, David Blakely.

After a tumultuous upbringing, during which she and her sister were subjected to abuse from their father, Ellis moved to London and became an escort but also found herself involved with men who carried out shocking acts of violence against her.

One of them was racing driver David Blakely, to whom she became pregnant despite him already being engaged to another woman.

However, she then started seeing Desmond Cussen and soon after moved in with him. But Ellis continued seeing Blakely, with the pair then agreeing to marry before he caused her to have a miscarriage after punching her in the stomach.

Then, seeking revenge, on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1955, Ellis took a taxi to a home in Hampstead where she suspected he might be.

Lucy Boynton stars in A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story (Picture: ITV/ Des Willie/ Shutterstock)

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She then followed Blakely to a pub where she waited and shot him five times when he left later that night.

Arrested immediately by an off-duty policeman, Ellis appeared in court for the first time the next day, eventually appearing before Justice Cecil Havers at the Old Bailey on June 20.

The only question she was asked by prosecutor Christmas Humphreys was: ‘When you fired the revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?.’

After she answered, ‘it’s obvious when I shot him I intended to kill him’, the jury took just 20 minutes to find her guilty and she was given the mandatory death sentence.

Despite a campaign for clemency (which garnered 50,000 signatures), Ellis took no part, bthe day before her execution she revealed Cussen had given her the gun and taught her how to use it. The admission only proved the murder was premeditated and didn’t alter the ruling.

The Welsh nightclub manageress was sentenced to death in 1955 for murdering her lover (Picture: Hulton Archive/ Getty Images)

The mother-of-two, then aged 28, was hanged on July 13 at Holloway Prison.

Ahead of the four-part series, ITV said Ruth’s story was a ‘deeply intimate one which touched the world at the time and long after’.

The case was presided over by Justice Cecil Havers, who is played in the series by his own grandson – Nigel Havers.

During the trial, Justice Havers wanted Ellis to be spared execution and even went so far as to campaign on her behalf.

Ellis sought revenge after David Blakely caused her to have a miscarriage (Picture: Daily Mirror/ Mirrorpix via Getty Images) The day before her execution she revealed her other lover Desmond Cussen had given her the gun (Picture: Mirrorpix via Getty Images)

In 2010 the actor, now 73, told the BBC his grandfather had written to the home secretary asking for Ellis to avoid a death penalty, but his pleas were ignored. After Ellis’ death, the judge sent money every year to help care for Ellis’ son.

‘He just felt devastated that she would no longer be there and that they needed some help,’ he told This Morning.

Nigel, best known for roles in films and television shows including Chariots of Fire, Empire of the Sun, A Passage to India, Don’t Wait Up and Coronation Street jumped at the chance appear in the series despite producer’s believing he might turn it down.

‘We had lots of conversations going, “Oh, do you think he might?”  And he leapt at it. We couldn’t quite believe it. So, it was just amazing that he was playing his grandfather, it was extraordinary,’ executive producer Kate Bartlett told OK!

Judge Cecil Havers presided over the case and appealed against the death penalty (Picture: Evening Standard/ Hulton Archive/ Getty Images)

Meanwhile director Lee Haven Jones said Havers was ‘full of little observations about what his grandfather would do’.

‘Apparently his grandfather used to write all the time, he’d constantly be taking notes, and he liked to bet on the horses as well. So, there were all of these little details and while we didn’t include all of them, it was nice to know that the role was imbued with a sense of authenticity.’

Havers, who had been appointed a High Court judge in 1951, retired in 1967 and died in 1977.

In a documentary about the case, Havers said he had ‘very fond memories of my grandfather’. ‘I adored him really. He was a kind-hearted man, and I do know he had great sympathy for Ruth.’

In a recent interview with The Telegraph, he credited his grandfather for ‘encouraging him to act and work hard’.

He is played in the series by his grandson Nigel Havers (Picture: Ken McKay/ ITV/ Rex)

‘On the set of this, wearing exactly the costume that he would wear in court, following exactly the words that he spoke, I did feel that Grandpa tried his hardest to get Ruth Ellis off but there was nothing he could do. I hope I’ve done him justice,’ he added.

At the time of her death Ellis had two young children – 10-year-old son Andy, whom she gave birth to age 17 and three-year-old daughter Georgina. Tragically her children also died young, with Andy taking his own life in 1982 and Georgina dying of cancer in 2001 at age 50.

Following Ellis’ case – which was marred by misogyny and classism – there was increased support for the end of the death penalty, which was abolished a decade later while the case also led to the introduction of diminished responsibility as a defence.

A Cruel Love also stars Toby Jones as John Bickford, the solicitor representing Ellis, Laurie Davidson as Blakely and Mark Stanley as Cussen.

A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story airs Wednesday at 9pm on ITV1.

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