A Cruel Love’s ending answers two questions that everyone might be asking throughout the series. Firstly, why did Ruth Ellis kill her lover, David Blakely, in cold blood? And secondly, why didn’t she defend herself during the murder trial, protecting Desmond Cussen till the very end? The answers to these questions are pretty simple, yet one cannot completely comprehend unless they are a lover or a mother.
Spoiler Alert
Desmond Conspired to Kill David
Throughout the series, men in power kept repeating the phrase “jealousy is stronger in women than in men.” The irony here is, in Ruth’s case, it was one jealous man against another. After David hit Ruth in the stomach and killed the baby in her womb, Ruth was emotionally torn and mentally broken. She still was ready to forgive David, but the spoiled brat abandoned her without a confrontation. Ruth didn’t know what to do and arrived at Desmond’s house seeking support. This was the moment when Desmond, instead of giving any sane advice, handed a loaded gun to Ruth and provoked her to get rid of her lover, whom he despised the most. A jealous Desmond always wanted David out of Ruth’s life, but by now, he’d understood a pattern. Ruth had a thing for toxic men and kept going back to David, no matter how he assaulted her or took her for granted. It’s likely that Desmond believed that Ruth wouldn’t leave David until he breathed his last, and that’s why he conspired to have him killed on the night of 10th April 1955. I guess it was Desmond who had sent goons to thrash David so he would make an exit from Ruth’s life, but he didn’t. He stuck around like a leech.
Ruth’s only fault, except for pulling the trigger in a fit of rage, was that she always considered Desmond naive. I mean, we are talking about an RAF pilot who bombed people during the Second World War. There was blood on his hands, irrespective of whose blood it was. Desmond was never innocent. Like every man in her life, he too wanted to possess Ruth, but the moment he realized he couldn’t, he threw her under the bus to punish her for not loving him back. And because he was a war hero, the pride of the nation and a well-connected man, the entire English justice system made it its mission to pin the blame on a woman, refusing to investigate who handed her the murder weapon or who provoked her. I am not saying Ruth wasn’t responsible for the crime, but Desmond had a hand in the murder too, and both should have been tried equally, irrespective of their status or profession in society. The law shouldn’t discriminate among men or women, rich or poor, a war hero or a nightclub hostess. Like Ruth’s solicitor, John Bickford, told her in the end, “Justice isn’t real. It’s a story written by the winners.” And in Ruth’s case, it was Desmond who came out victorious.
Ruth Protected Desmond for Her Son’s Sake
Ruth’s solicitor, John Bickford, found it a tough pill to swallow that his client was protecting Desmond, the man who gave her the gun. I guess Desmond had promised to look after Ruth’s ten-year-old son, Clare Andre, after she was gone. After the murder, Ruth was certain that she wouldn’t be able to see the light of the day again, which was why she kept Desmond’s name away from the trial so he would see to Andre’s education and give him the life he deserved. But, after the trial, Ruth found out that Desmond had been lying through his teeth. He might have promised to pay Andre’s school fees, but he didn’t. He didn’t even take the kid to his house or pay a visit to Ruth in prison after her arrest. It was only after Desmond exacted his revenge on David that he showed his true colors, and even though Ruth wanted to expose his evil schemes, she couldn’t do anything. It was too late. DCI Leslie Davies Desmond wasn’t interested in investigating a war hero and took him for his word above a lowly nightclub hostess. The Home Secretary went too far, setting an example for the public that he refused to listen to any evidence or see the case from a different angle. After Ruth’s death, his office was presented with Andre’s testimony pointing out Desmond’s role in the murder, but they refused to read it. They knew they had made a blunder by hanging a person just 22 days after the trial, and entertaining the possibility of their innocence would open a can of worms. It’s better to be ignorant and arrogant than to be responsible, right? In A Cruel Love’s ending, Desmond fled from London and emigrated to Australia, where he lived a full life and died of natural causes in 1991.
Ruth Had An Abusive Childhood
During A Cruel Love’s ending, when Ruth’s older sister, Muriel, visited her in prison, she subtly hinted at the fact that she could understand Ruth’s tendency to get attached to abusive men. It had something to do with the sisters’ traumatic childhood, where their father, Arthur Hornby, used to sexually and physically assault his daughters. As per the real-life accounts, Muriel even got pregnant with her father’s child at the tender age of 14. This was the reason why Muriel, in order to protect her sister from his father’s abuse, kicked her out of the house and never let her come home. This wasn’t extensively explored in the tv show because in real-life, the sisters never openly talked about the abuse in their own house.
However, the real problem arises when a victim bottles up these feelings and refuses to take necessary help. They try to put a brave face in public, just like Ruth did, but subconsciously, she fell for the same trap which she couldn’t notice until it was too late. Both her husband, George Ellis, and her lover, David Blakely, had been equally abusive. Ruth could have left when she had the time. She had all the means to escape these men but she couldn’t. She was drawn to David like a moth to a flame, hoping the rich lad would change some day and eventually introduce her to his mother and marry her in front of the whole world, but David didn’t have any such intentions. Sitting in the dark prison cell, Ruth could only wonder whose fault it was. Did she drive those men jealous, violent, and abusive? Did she turn them into monsters?
Ruth’s Children Suffered In Her Absence
In the end, all Ruth wanted was to protect her children from falling into the same abyss, but she couldn’t. She didn’t put up a defense in the Crown Court or try to tell her side of the story, because she believed that Desmond would fulfill his end of the bargain and help Andre live a normal life. But nothing played out in Ruth’s favor, and it was her children who had to pay the price of their mother’s crime of passion. Growing up, Andre had witnessed the same horrors as his mother. His stepfather and later his mother’s lover kicked and punched her in front of the kids, and Andre couldn’t get those things out of his head. He was just 10 when his mother was hanged to death, and Andre lost the only family he had. There was no one to look after him. In 1982, some 27 years after her mother’s execution, Andre died by suicide. He was 38 years old. As for Ruth’s daughter, Georgina, whose custody Ruth had given to George, she was surrendered to foster care after her own biological father took his life in 1958. In 2001, Georgina died of cancer at the age of 50.
