Exclusive:
TV exec said she had ‘shivers’ handling the gun used by notorious female killer Ruth Ellis
A pioneering female TV crime executive revealed how she still gets the ‘shivers’ after handling the gun used by Ruth Ellis – the last woman hanged in Britain.
On the eve of the screening of the new ITV drama on Ellis, Sandy Kaye may be the only other woman in history to ever hold the notorious weapon. She recalled how she was shocked by the weight of the gun. Kaye was speaking ahead of this week’s highly anticipated TV series which stars Lucy Boynton and Nigel Havers. She was given special permission to visit the then so-called ‘Black Museum’ to view the Ellis gun in connection with a TV documentary series – members of the public are banned from entering.
Kaye, who was executive producer on the documentary, said: “The only two women that I know for a fact who have handled that gun are Ruth Ellis … and me. It could be I’m the only other female to have ever held the gun. That’s really quite a shocking and chilling thing to think about. All the officers working on the case at the time would have been men of course. I still get shivers when I think about it- it was much heavier than I anticipated.”
It is her hand holding the weapon in the documentary – ‘Museum of Crime (Inside the Black Museum)’ – which was screened in the 1980s. Her documentary series was approved by the Metropolitan Police. Kaye, a former member of BAFTA, was given access to the museum’s artefacts and allowed to choose which crimes to focus us. She said: “Being female and inquisitive I obviously wanted to include Ellis’s story as one that I featured. I wanted a totally different selection of crimes. The .35 Smith and Wesson she used was on display in the museum.
“I asked if I could touch the revolver. It was openly handed to me – it was the first time I’d held a real weapon and one that actually had killed a person. I’ve never forgotten the feeling of holding a real revolver that had been used in a murder, heavy and bulky as my hands are small.” The programme was narrated by Shaw Taylor.
Later in her career, Kaye became a respected speaker. She said: “When I was lecturing on the QE2, Americans were particularly fascinated with the Ruth Ellis story – more than others as it was the first female to be hanged. It was such a big story world wide.” Kaye, now 80, has retired to Spain where she is a part-time volunteer for Age Concern. She was producer on the ITV how Police 5, and the Managing Director of the company which produced Crimestoppers.
Last year she disclosed she had the only photo of the murder weapon used by Lord Lucan in 1974. It was taken on Friday 25th March 1983 – which Kaye noted in her diary – and the slide has been locked up in a safe since before she allowed the Mirror to publish it.
‘A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story’ airs on ITV on Wednesday at 9pm. Told across four episodes and adapted by Kelly Jones from Carol Ann Lee’s biography A Fine Day for a Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, the series explores the events that led Ellis to fatally shoot her abusive boyfriend, racing driver David Blakely.