UK's last woman hanged will be pardoned - replacing her death penalty

Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, is set to posthumously receive a conditional pardon for her crime.

The nightclub hostess fatally shot David Blakely, a racing driver and her lover, outside The Magdala pub in Hampstead on 10 April 1955.

Ellis, who was 28 when she died, was arrested by an off-duty policeman, whom she reportedly told at the time: "I am guilty, I'm a little confused."

During a subsequent trial, she was asked by prosecutors, 'When you fired the revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?', to which she replied, 'It's obvious when I shot him I intended to kill him'.

Ellis has now been granted a conditional pardon (PA)

She was found guilty of premeditated murder by a jury following a 20-minute deliberation and, following her conviction, executed at Holloway Prison, London, via hanging on 13 June 1955.

Her family have since argued that Ellis was physically and emotionally abused by Blakely, but the judge at her trial instructed the jury to ignore the fact she had been 'badly treated by her lover'.

In an unexpected new announcement made earlier today (7 July), however, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, revealed that Ellis would be granted a conditional pardon for Blakely's murder.

The pardon will replace her capital punishment with a sentence of life imprisonment, 'to recognise a profound injustice in this exceptional case'.

Blakely was Ellis' victim (PA)

Appearing in the Commons for Prime Minister's Questions - where he stood in for UK PM, Sir Keir Starmer, who is currently attending a NATO summit in Turkey - Lammy was asked by MP Pam Cox about Ellis' case.

Cox said: "Her case serves as a haunting reminder of a time when our justice system ignored the realities of domestic abuse and coercive control.

"In the decades since, members of Ruth's family and supporters have campaigned unwaveringly for her to receive a posthumous pardon.

"Will the deputy prime minister agree with me that their courageous campaign, and the terrible lessons of Ruth's case, must strengthen the government's resolve to free women from devastating cycles of abuse?"

Lammy responded: "I have the honour to say that His Majesty the King has accepted our advice to grant Ruth Ellis a conditional pardon, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom.

"We hope this brings a measure of peace to Ruth Ellis’ family, who have carried the weight of what happened to her for over 70 years."

Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in the UK (PA)

Lammy emphasised, however, that the pardon 'does not claim' that Ellis 'was innocent of killing' Blakely, just that the death penalty has been replaced.

Ellis' grandchildren, Laura Enston and Stephen Beard, had been present in Parliament when Lammy broke the news.

"Today, justice has finally been done for our grandmother, Ruth Ellis – the last woman to be hanged in England in 1955," Enston noted.

She added, however: "This pardon does not undo what happened 71 years ago. It does not restore the lives that were broken – the children left behind, the years lost. But it says, formally and finally, that Ruth should not have been executed, that the justice system failed her.

Ellis' family have spoken out (PA)

"That acknowledgement matters profoundly to our family. Ruth was a victim of sustained and brutal abuse."

Enston continued: "Her children, our mother and uncle, never recovered. My uncle took his own life; my mother’s trauma left her unable to be the parent we needed. The shadow of Ruth’s execution has fallen across two generations.

"We have carried shame that was never ours to bear."

Capital punishment for murder was suspended in the UK in 1965 before being finally abolished in 1969.