The Cypriot woman hanged by Britain

70 years on from the hanging of Styllou Pantopiou Christofi, a new true-crime novel exposes the facts and fictions of a truly monstrous murder. ALIX NORMAN asks whether death was deserved

On December 15, 1954 Styllou Pantopiou Christofi was the penultimate woman in Britain to be hanged. She was Cypriot.

Unlike Ruth Ellis (the last woman in the UK to die on the gallows), Styllou never admitted her guilt. Until the very end, she continued to profess her innocence. But to this day,...