Evening News article 12th July 1955
In our book RUTH ELLIS MY SISTER’S SECRET LIFE, Muriel Jakubait (Ruth Ellis’s sister) blamed her brother Granville Neilson for giving Desmond Cussen (Ruth’s so-called alternative lover) the chance to vanish the day before Ruth’s death when the police wanted to question him about the gun used to shoot racing driver David Blakely. Granville had actually called on Cussen at his Goodwood Court flat in Marylebone on 11th July 1955, armed with a petition containing thousands of names begging the Home Secretary for a reprieve, and informed him that Ruth had dismissed her solicitor Mr Bickford who had represented her during her trial and was recalling her original solicitor Mr Mishcon and his clerk Mr Simmons. In effect Granville forewarned Cussen that Ruth might blow his cover.
However I have discovered an article published in the Evening News on 12th July 1955, after Mishcon and Simmons’ 90-minute interview with Ruth Ellis in the condemned cell. It was probably this that actually sent Desmond Cussen into hiding. The article confirmed that Ruth Ellis had revealed new facts to her solicitors about the shooting of 25 year-old David Blakely which, “might even lead to a last minute postponement of the execution to give time to examine new facts.”
Mishcon and Simmons then went immediately to the Home Office and spoke to [Sir] Philip Allen, a senior civil servant about the new evidence of Desmond Cussen’s involvement on the night of the shooting of David Blakely. The Permanent Under Secretary, Sir Frank Newsam was not available – he was at Ascot racecourse.
Ruth Ellis was hanged the next day.
Ruth Ellis’s statement to Mishcon was not published. And everything to do with the case was kept underwraps for nearly 50 years.
In 2002 I discovered a secret Home Office memo signed by a W. Millar on 20th March 1973 which referred to a request from solicitors acting for the parents of Ruth Ellis in 1955 asking for a copy of Ruth’s (12th July 1955) statement for publication. It was refused on the grounds that:
“1. Ellis herself never intended the statement for publication
2. The statement would be unfair to Desmond Cussen
3. Disclosure would be wrong in general
4. The statement formed part of the official Home Office records.”
The Home Office document continued:
“Even though Cussen is not identified by name, I think all these objections also apply to the disclosure of the note in question…”
The note in question was Ruth’s signed statement given to Mishcon on 12th July which clearly stated that Desmond Cussen gave Ruth Ellis a gun and that he drove her to Hampstead on the night of the shooting.
Why did Mr Millar in 1973 blatantly lie about the content of the note in question? What was going on?
Returning to Desmond Cussen on the 12th July 1955, the night before Ruth Ellis was hanged. Where was he when the police were searching for him? Apparently he was being interviewed by journalist Duggie Howell, author of the Ruth Ellis lifestory which was being serialised in the Woman’s Sunday Mirror. On close inspection Howell’s interpretion of the story bears little resemblance to the truth.
Read more about Duggie Howell on PAGE (right)
Monica Weller
