The final steps of Ruth Ellis, the last woman killed under the UK death penalty, are retraced around Islington and Camden

The final steps of Ruth Ellis, the last woman killed under the UK death penalty, are retraced around Islington and Camden in a new documentary starting on BBC Four on Tuesday 13th March.

The former HM Prison Holloway, where she was hanged and buried, is visited, along with the Hampstead pub outside which the murder took place, the Magdala on South Hill Park.

Over three episodes in The Ruth Ellis Files: A Very British Crime Story, filmmaker Gillian Pachter takes a forensic look at the case which shocked the UK in 1955.

FilmFixer manages the film officer service for both Islington and Camden. FilmFixer director Andrew Pavord says, “The production filmed quite extensively along the many Hampstead streets that featured in the crime.

“On Easter Sunday, April 10th 1955, Ruth Ellis arrived by taxi at 29 Tanza Road in Hampstead, the home of Anthony and Carole Findlater, where she thought she’d find her lover David Blakely. Blakely’s car drove off, as she arrived. So she walked to the Magdala pub about a quarter of a mile away.”

It was recorded at the time that when David Blakely and his friend Clive Gunnell left the pub, Blakely passed Ellis waiting on the pavement. He didn’t reply when she said “Hello, David,” and then shouted “David!” Ellis took a gun out of her handbag and fired five shots at Blakely. Ellis said to Gunnell, “Will you call the police, Clive?” She was arrested immediately by an off-duty policeman, Alan Thompson, who took the gun from her.