20th January 2026 - Murderous Women!

​We had a good turnout for our first meeting of the year, when we heard former Surrey Police Officer David Chave talk about female murderers and the criminal justice system.  Typically around 6% of convicted murderers are women, and David spoke in detail about three of them.  
Ruth Ellis was the last woman hanged in Britain, after she was convicted of murdering a male friend.  There was no doubt that she shot him and had intended to do so, but David gave us fresh insight into her troubled background, including domestic abuse from her victim and coercion from another boyfriend, and pointed out that today she would have been treated more sympathetically in court.  
David had worked on the other two cases he described, and we learned how police officers had tracked down the perpetrators.  It made for a really interesting evening from a competent speaker, and a great start to the year!

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