Constance Kent | |
|---|---|
 Contemporary portrait of Constance Kent | |
| Born | Constance Emily Kent 6 February 1844 Sidmouth, England |
| Died | 10 April 1944 (aged 100) Strathfield, New South Wales, Australia |
| Other names | Ruth Emilie Kaye |
Constance Emily Kent (1844–1944) was an English woman who confessed to the murder of her half-brother, Francis Saville Kent, in 1860, when she was aged 16 and he aged three. The case led to high-level pronouncements that there was no longer any ancient priest-penitent privilege in England and Wales. Kent's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and she was released after serving twenty years. In later life, she changed her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye, became a nurse and for twenty years was matron of a nurses' home in East Maitland, New South Wales. She died at the age of 100.