When Cussen signed the business document in London in 1964, he was still a free man. On 7th July 2005, the day RUTH ELLIS MY SISTERS SECRET LIFE was published, bombings in London shattered the heart of the capital. Desmond accompanied her, and he provided her with the gun. She had been brainwashed and "shielded those people whod picked her..The ones who promised her she wouldnt die. The Sevenoaks Chronicle, Warrington-Worldwide, Cornish Guardian and Northumberland Gazette are just a few of the local papers that published reports about the book. The story about spying and the shadowy characters in Ruth's circle continued to unravel by an extraordinary twist of fate. Garlands Road is less than two miles from my home. In 1955, at the age of 28, Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in the UK after she shot her lover dead outside a pub in Hampstead two months earlier. She was very calm. During one of many visits to the Public Record Office (PRO) I was surprised to find buried in a Home Office document, that Ruths lover was actually homosexual. Bear in mind foreign travel then was fairly limited apart from business matters. Even I could see that the gun would have been far too large in Ruths tiny hands one of which was gnarled as a result of contracting rheumatic fever at age 15. I should have demanded to hear the defence if I was the jury. The next few months were busy. He looked like a spiv with dark, greased back hair; with a round boyish face and an unnatural looking thin moustache. He was the marksman that killed Blakely - and got away with it. Desmond Miles was born into the Assassin Order, but he ran away from the lifestyle, hoping to pursue his own dreams. 1 Practice area Intellectual property 100% Licensed for 32 years StateCA StatusActive Acquired1991 Updated12/01/2022 At the time of the trial, provocation was narrowly interpreted, applying only to killers who reacted "in hot blood" to something happening immediately before the killing. For the third time he emphasised that the gun broke during testing. She offered no resistance. CB Rank (Hub) West Coast Communities Female Founded Companies . Its worth mentioning here that Peter Rawlinson (now Lord Rawlinson) Ruths junior defence counsel, met Ruth at the Old Bailey on 11th May one month after her arrest. She read something about Cussen and the murder in a national paper but dismissed it as "ill-informed." There are 5 other people named Desmond Cussen on AllPeople. He was Blakelys drinking companion at the Magdala on the night of the shooting. He added, "He was a cut above the rest of us, well spoken and well educated, a gentleman" and lived next door at Dapdune. Although appearing to fire shots at Blakely she did not fire the gun which killed him. . This could have been a turning point in the trial yet Ruths defence gave the prosecution an easy ride. Her daughter, Georgina, then a toddler, child of her estranged husband, George Ellis, an alcoholic dentist, was adopted and died, aged 50, of cancer. There are many unanswered questions about who Cussen really was; very little is known about him. I took her in. But it was not. Nothing about Cussen was quite what it seemed. At a time when she needed support her close make friend Desmond Cussen gave her a gun and showed her how to use it. At the time she was employed as a hostess at Carrolls Club in Duke Street in Mayfair. Stevenson had a golden opportunity to get to the truth. Again Ruths barrister had no questions. He was usually portrayed as Blakely's scathing rival for Ruth's affections. what happened to janelle on all of us; faith hedgepeth crime scene photos; why does spawn have one big boot. The latter, 31, was a bachelor. At the magistrates court, when asked how long hed known Blakely, Cussen lied saying just over two years. Andre, who was nearly 11 years old, added quite innocently that Uncle Desmond that same day, "drove him and his mother (who was in a state) to a forest to teach his mummy how to shoot. So the question of their stay near Westerham remains a mystery. Desmond Cussen works as a General Counsel at Fandom, which is a Broadcasting company with an estimated 200 employees; and founded in 1999. "She was very calm. The statement was changed to read "The accused was firing the gun into his back," not the same. There are 5 other people named Desmond Cussen on AllPeople. The so-called crime of passion, for which Ruth hanged, was cleverly crafted to appear that way though. I told him that Muriel Jakubait wished to handle the gun (displayed in the Museum) that was retrieved at the scene of the shooting. One London address in Kensington stood out. Contact info: dcussen@nextdoor.com Find more info on AllPeople about Desmond Cussen and XENEFOX Media Corporation, as well as people who work for similar businesses nearby, colleagues for other branches, and more people with a similar name. If not, why not?". Christmas Humphreys opened the case for the prosecution. What is even more interesting is an important discovery I made in a Metropolitan Police document recently released at the Public Record Office and has never been made public: the gun broke during testing. He failed to raise any of these discrepancies.The more I read the transcript, comparing it to witness statements prior to the trial, the more I saw the skulduggery that took place. All have spoken out for the first time.One gentleman from Penn in Buckinghamshire casually mentioned to me that the family of Donald Maclean had lived in the village for thirty years. One bullet was fired at close range, therefore the other three bullet wounds in Blakelys body, had been fired accurately from a distance, out of arms reach. A firearms expert advised me that accuracy with a .38 Smith and Wesson would have been hopeless except in trained hands. But she was certain about what happened. Jakubait remembers no mention of her sister's imminent death, only small talk. She went round to the flat on Good Friday and made a scene, only leaving when he phoned the police. The list certainly existed. A professional would know that and hold it with two hands at arms length. I have evidence of their long-term friendship. The only way to find out about RAF personnel is to call up their service record. Jakubait revealed only four years ago that their father had raped her at the age of 14, producing a son who was brought up as her brother, and had abused Ellis as well. Sylvia thought the couple rented a cottage in Ide Hill or Brasted Chart, adjacent hamlets east of Westerham and a short distance from Fort Halstead. She was executed by hanging in July 1955, and indeed, was the last woman executed in Britain. As soon as I read these two sentences in Ruths police statement I knew she was lying and protecting someone: "I took a taxi and as I arrived, Davids car drove away from Findlaters [Blakelys car mechanic friend] address. Explore the latest videos from hashtags: #desmond, #desmonddoss, #desmondcroes, #desmondoss, #desmonddennis . She calmly admitted murdering Blakely. (Features) by "Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales)"; News, opinion and commentary General interest . Yesterday Wednesday 4th July 2007, at 2.18 pm, I received the following email from 10 Downing Street: 10 Downing Street - Petition to the Prime Minister has been Approved. Hanged killer Ruth Ellis has been secretly denied a pardon by the Government, documents reveal. "This was the opinion that Christmas Humphreys, the prosecuting counsel at Ruth Elliss murder trial, was still vehemently defending twenty-seven years later when he spoke to Ruths son Andre McCallum. Desmond Cussen is the General Counsel at Fandom. What is more, Cussen was not the docile character wed been led to believe even as a young man he was a crack shot. She claimed at the time to have been given the gun by an American serviceman as security for a nightclub debt, and to have taken a taxi to the pub. Desmond Cussen died a lonely alcoholic, as did her solicitor John Bickford, who remained haunted by the case for the rest of his life. They regularly practised shooting 303 rifles on a local rifle range. The business address is 130 Sutter St Fl 4, San Francisco, CA 94104-4003. I can confirm that an application for a posthumous free pardon, limited to sentence, was considered and rejected earlier this year.". I dug deeper into Public Record Office (PRO) documents. The authorities considered prosecuting Cussen, who later died in Australia, as an accessory, but decided it would be impossible without Ellis as a witness. Although she survives on the state pension, she insists that she hasn't persevered all these years for the money, "though if there is any money, I don't see why I shouldn't get my share". Melford Stevenson QC, assisted by Mr Sebag Shaw and Mr Peter Rawlinson instructed by Messrs Cardew-Smith and Ross appeared on behalf of the prisoner Ruth Ellis. Over the years, Desmond Cussen, Ruth's so-called alternative lover, has been described as a bit of a drip, an unassuming, docile, father figure. Edit Related Hubs Section. "He looked like a rat and was an extremely jealous person, " she says. This was Cussens one and only trail left anywhere since 1955. Mark Frost threw fans a bone and expounded on Annie's fate in his new canon novel Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier, although her ending isn't exactly a cheery one. Cussen was not arrested. Reluctantly, at midday on 12 July 1955, the day before her execution, Ellis, having dismissed Bickford, the solicitor chosen for her by her friend Desmond Cussen, made a statement to the solicitor Victor Mishcon (whose law firm had previously represented her in her divorce proceedings but not in the murder trial) and his clerk, Leon Simmons. I wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair for a reaction about the Home Secretarys decision; and to HM the Queen. "The killing was a true crime of passion," says de Maid, the Ellis family solicitor. Two days before the hanging, Ellis's lawyers had submitted evidence, including the testimony of witnesses that Blakely had inflicted repeated beatings on her and that she believed he had caused the miscarriage she suffered just 10 days before the shooting with a punch to the stomach. Ruth with her beau Desmond Cussen. Contact info: dcussen@gracenote.com, desmondcussen@yahoo.com Find more info on AllPeople about Desmond Cussen and Gracenote, as well as people who work for similar businesses nearby, colleagues for other branches, and more people with a similar name. Firstly he joined the RAF aged seventeen, trained mainly in South Africa, was a bomber pilot, throughout the war, flying Lancasters and was demobbed in 1946. With many theories about what really happened, this account attempts to lay out the facts, rather than speculating on hearsay and unprovable notions. Her counsel, Melford Stevenson, had wanted to argue provocation as a defence. 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