Homicide, Gender and Responsibility

An International Perspective

Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Sandra Walklate, Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Sandra Walklate

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317550617
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Gender & The Law
• Index: Law

The crime of homicide has long animated academic debate, community concern and political attention. The discussion has often centered on the perceived (in)adequacy of legal responses to homicide, questions of culpability, and divergent representations of victims and offenders. Within this, notions of gender, responsibility and justice are pivotal. This edited collection builds on existing scholarship by examining these concerns not only in the context of the 'private' world of domestic murder but also in the more 'public' world of the state, the corporation, war, and genocide. In so doing this book draws from key frameworks of criminological thought, legal analysis and empirical evidence to critically examine the relationship between homicide, gender and responsibility.

Bringing together leading international criminology and legal scholars, this collection provides a unique contribution to the academic and policy engagement with what is, more often than not, an ordinary and mundane crime. Analysing the crime in a variety of different social contexts alongside an in-depth and critical analysis of the interconnections between the ordinary act of lethal violence, gender and notions of responsibility, this book will be of interest to students, scholars and policymakers working in criminology and socio-legal studies.

Part I

Making sense of the boundaries between homicide, gender and responsibility

1 A question of provocation or responsibility?

Revisiting the case of Ruth Ellis and David Blakely

Anette Ballinger

Despite having taken place in 1955, the execution of Ruth Ellis continues to occupy academic scholarship, true crime publications and other aspects of popular media (Ballinger, 1996, 2000, 2012; BBC1, 1999; Goodman and Pringle, 1974; Hancock, 1989; Rose, 1993). More specifically, it has remained a reference point for criminological and legal debates concerning murder and manslaughter both in England and Wales and elsewhere in the world operating within a similar criminal justice system. Not only was Ellis the last woman to be executed in England and Wales, but her case had a direct impact on the law in that it was central to the introduction of the defence of diminished responsibility as part of the reforms within the 1957 Homicide Act and has since acted as a benchmark against which understandings of provocation and responsibility have evolved.

However, there is another aspect of this case which has been less explored – the issue of responsibility and irresponsibility as opposed to diminished responsibility. This change of focus widens the scope for a more critical analysis to include not only Ruth Ellis, but also the man she killed, her lover, David Blakely. In this chapter I argue that this alternative focus allows the operation of legal and popular discourses in relation to gender to become visible, particularly through the defence of provocation. Ultimately, this reveals the taken-for-granted and hidden assumptions in respect of the gendered nature of irresponsibility and its relationship to what counts as provocation.

In order to facilitate this analysis, the chapter will explore how responsibility and irresponsibility were deeply implicated in this case through discourses and constructions of masculinity and femininity which gave meaning to – and underpinned – the legal proceedings that ensued. In so doing, this chapter offers a feminist analysis of responsibility/irresponsibility and their impact on courtroom proceedings. This will illustrate how, in the very act of under-emphasising irresponsibility in Blakely’s behaviour and over-emphasising the responsible behaviour of Ruth Ellis, the court played its part in marginalising social issues of power, reducing them to legal understandings of individual responsibility, ultimately leaving the wider questions of gender divisions and patriarchal control untouched and ignored. Despite an increased and renewed interest in the Ellis case forty-eight years after her execution in 2003, when her appeal was heard and dismissed, there has been little or no attempt to explore such questions.

Since the question of how the ‘reasonable man’ would act, and indeed re-act, both to and in certain circumstances was and remains a key concept within English law, descriptive details about Ruth and David’s relationship are necessary in order to document the exact circumstances that culminated in David’s death.

The case

After being involved in a volatile, violent and exploitative relationship with David Blakely for nineteen months, Ruth finally shot him outside a pub in Hampstead on Easter Sunday, 1955. Towards the end of their relationship, David’s erratic behaviour towards Ruth had intensified, increasingly relying on both psychological cruelty and physical violence (Ballinger, 1996, 2000; Goodman and Pringle, 1974). This culminated in Ruth suffering a miscarriage after what was to become her last beating, ten days prior to the shooting (Medical Report, 13 June 1955, DPP2/2430). As a direct consequence of their relationship, he had also left her homeless and penniless. To elaborate, at twenty-five years of age, David was three years younger than Ruth, and unlike her, came from a privileged, upper-middle-class background, evidenced, for example, by his public school education and private income. This ensured that he did not need to seek regular employment but instead was able to live a ‘playboy’ lifestyle, focusing his attention on motor racing, alcohol and women (see e.g. Ballinger, 2012: 447; Ellis with Taylor, 1995: 69; Hancock, 1989: 57). According to virtually all published accounts, David was regarded as a shallow, immature character (see e.g. Goodman and Pringle, 1974; Healey, 1985; Jakubait with Weller, 2005). Unwilling to hold down a permanent job, and permanently short of money as a result of having invested his personal allowance in building a racing car, David moved in with Ruth after only two weeks, letting her support him. This did not curtail his interest in other women. Apart from being officially engaged to Mary Dawson, a woman from his own social class, he was also involved in various affairs while sharing Ruth’s flat (Ballinger, 1996: 13, 2000). The last few weeks of their complex relationship were taken up by, on the one hand, David promising Ruth marriage in the light of Ruth’s pregnancy, and, on the other, his disappearance for days during which he would be involved in another sexual relationship (DPP2/2430).

Despite having promised to return to Ruth for the Easter holidays, he finally disappeared altogether – moving in with friends and refusing all contact with her. ‘In a state of nervous exhaustion and mentally drained for these uncertainties’ following this final ‘protracted period of contradictory and provocative behaviour’ which had left her ‘seething, furious and powerless for three days’, and having ‘suffered the additional humiliation of being removed’ by police officers outside the house of the friends where David was staying, Ruth shot him after eventually managing to locate him outside the Magdala pub in Hampstead (Ballinger, 2000: 298).

Coming from a lower social class than David, and described variously as ‘a model’, ‘a club-hostess’ and a ‘typical West End tart’ (Marks and Van den Bergh, 1990: 148), the implication was clear – Ruth was a particular ‘type’ of woman – ‘young, blonde, attractive and immoral’ (Farran, as cited in Ballinger, 1996: 13). Nonetheless, she was well paid as manager of the Little Club, which provided her with accommodation. Both were lost as a result of her relationship with David, who would visit the club during her working hours and frequently became inebriated and violent towards her, either in the bar or within earshot in the flat above. As their relationship deteriorated, so the extent of David’s financial exploitation increased, to the point where he let Ruth settle his bills (DPP2/2430: 46). Thus, upon her arrest, ‘the woman who once had pounds to waste had six-pence in copper in her bag … and nothing in the bank’ (Hancock, 1989: 185). She also had to rely on the charity of her friend, Desmond Cussen, to pay the rent for her flat.

On taking responsibility

To reiterate a point made above, the descriptive details regarding Ruth and David’s relationship presented here should not be interpreted as a moral judgement upon either of their characters – instead, it is intended to provide necessary context to the analysis that follows.

When analysing Ruth’s conduct following the shooting, it is scarcely possible to point to another case in which the perpetrator of a crime took more responsibility for her actions. Thus, immediately after the shooting, Ruth handed the gun over to Alan Thompson, an off-duty police officer, with the words: ‘Please take this gun and arrest me’ (Morton, 2015: 402). When, during her trial, she was asked by the prosecutor, Mr Humphreys: ‘Mrs Ellis, when you fired that revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?’ she replied: ‘It is obvious that when I shot him I intended to kill him’ (DPP2/2430). As noted by one jury member: ‘Mrs Ellis herself … admitted she meant to kill him’ (cited in Marks and Van den Bergh, 1990: 162).

She not only took full responsibility for her crime, she fully accepted her punishment to the point where she refused to plead for mercy or allow the instigation of an appeal on her behalf. Instead she wrote from her prison cell: ‘I say a Life for a Life’… . ‘I am quite happy with the verdict’ (letters reproduced in Goodman and Pringle, 1974: 74 and Daily Express, 14 July 1955). In short, while she had pleaded ‘not guilty’ due to provocation, she undoubtedly took full responsibility for her action. However, as the law stood in 1955, the provocation defence was ruled out due to the ‘trigger event’ having taken place several days earlier, hence, the presiding judge, Mr Justice Havers, ruled that ‘the whole doctrine relating to provocation depends on the fact that it causes … sudden and temporary loss of self-control (DPP2/2430: 68). In other words, no allowance could be made for a ‘cooling off’ period between the time of the provocation and the act carried out in response to it (Carline, 2005a: 16). With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that this ruling is a reflection of how the subject of the ‘reasonable man’ was constructed, requiring that retaliation must be immediate and in proportion to the level of provocation endured (Carline, 2005b: 217).

The question, however, remains why the appeal was dismissed forty-eight years later, during an era when the diminished responsibility defence is taken for granted and legal changes have become established, in an attempt to take account of women’s ‘slow burn’ experience of provocation (Munro, 2007: 134). In 2003 the appeal judges answered this question when they ruled that the appeal should be dismissed on the grounds that ‘we must apply the substantive law of murder as applicable at the time, disregarding the changes brought about by the Homicide Act 1957’ (Ellis v R, 2003: 9, emphasis added). The judges fully accepted there was ‘unchallenged evidence that over a significant period of time the deceased had subjected Mrs Ellis to violent conduct’, including the beating that preceded the miscarriage, and had she retaliated immediately, the judge would have been obliged to leave the issue of provocation to the jury (Ellis v R, 2003: 10–11).

Within a liberal system of law, where ‘facts speak for themselves’ (Inglis, 2003: 172), the judges’ reasoning that ‘it is not possible to take the purely statutory defence of diminished responsibility created [in] 1957 and apply it as if it had been enacted at the date of the killing or the date of the trial’ (Ellis v R, 2003: 9) appears self-explanatory and beyond common sense. To have ruled otherwise would have left the door open to innumerable future appeals of other cases tried prior to 1957. This point was further reinforced when the appellant’s barrister also argued that Ruth was suffering from BWS, a factor that would now be taken into consideration. Unsurprisingly, this argument was rejected, for it seems entirely unrealistic – inconceivable even – to expect a court to accept an appeal based on terms and concepts such as ‘domestic violence’ or BWS, neither of which had entered popular or legal discourse at the time of the trial. In short, the rationale behind rejecting the appeal appears entirely justifiable and correct – both legally and ethically.

Yet, the case continues to capture the popular imagination and to trouble commonsense notions of justice, mercy and fair play. How, therefore, can we explain the chasm between this logical and reasonable legal resolution of the case and the persistent, deeply felt notion that Ruth Ellis suffered an injustice at the hands of the criminal justice system, and thus ultimately at the hands of the state? It is to this question that the chapter now turns.

Neutral yet gendered – the legal versus the social: theoretical implications

The Ellis case remains troubling because it appears to provide firm evidence of the ‘mismatch between the normative expectations of state law and the endless plurality of social life’ (Davies, 2007: 152). Such a ‘mismatch’ forces us to consider, even conclude, that law is unable to fulfil its promise to deliver justice for all, which raises the question:

Are we to accept a position of compromise, which states … that law necessarily does violence to people’s lives by forcing complex narratives into simplified normative frames? (Davies, 2007: 156)

To elaborate, Weait (2007: 29) explains that the principles of neutrality and equality are inherent to, and form the basis of, formal law because the very foundation of liberal legal thought rests on the assumption that in matters concerned with establishing responsibility, ‘one’s sex, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, relationships with others – in short one’s lived identity – are irrelevant, and must be so’. Thus, by definition, the law cannot be ‘concerned with what it is to be a human being … nor can it be concerned with what a human-being-responsible actually means’ since, ultimately, to do so would undermine the very foundations on which it is built and which are ‘necessary for its continued functioning’ (ibid.: 30). In other words, ‘to seek substantive justice by particularising the legal subject [is] doomed to failure’ (ibid.: 44), since, to expect individual experiences and their social reality to be reflected through the adjudicative process would undermine the very rule of law. Thus, ‘the construction of subjectivity and responsibility through law can only provide an account of subjectivity and responsibility for law, and this account is one that will inevitably occlude the reality, and deny the relevance, of inequality, specificity and partiality’ (ibid.: 23, added emphasis). This must be so, since ‘factors by which “difference” is constructed are social in character, rather than legally recognised’ (Davies, 2007: 161).

Weait’s (2007) explanation of the inherent logic of liberal law, and how the legal subject and responsibility are constructed within it, makes perfect sense, even common sense, thereby eloquently demonstrating how our understanding of the criminal law is taken as a given – within post-Enlightenment culture it is diffic...