On Monday 15 September 2003 the night before the Ruth Ellis Appeal was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, London, the Evening Standard newspaper published a short article about the case, the Appeal and an eye witness account on the evening of the shooting in Hampstead in 1955. A copy of the article is included here.
The third paragraph reads: “Former nurse Maureen Gleeson claims she met an emotional Ellis before the shooting who told her she had a gun and was planning to use it on Blakely.”
This is not a true account of Moreen Gleeson’s statement.
In our book RUTH ELLIS MY SISTER’S SECRET LIFE we included the ACTUAL statement that Moreen Gleeson (who saw Ruth Ellis on the night she allegedly shot David Blakely) made in writing to Ruth’s sister Muriel Jakubait. I include the relevant section here:
“When Ruth showed me the gun I was shaken. After all it was before television and we were not so blase in those days. I tried to pursuade her to come home with me as I thought she was going to kill herself.”
How therefore did the article saying something totally different get into the Evening Standard? Who changed the contents of the statement? And why?
