‘It haunted him for a very long time,’ the grandson of the judge who sentenced Ruth Ellis to death tells ITV News’ John Ray
The last woman hanged in the United Kingdom will be granted a conditional pardon, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has said.
Ruth Ellis was executed aged 28 on July 13, 1955, after being convicted of murdering her lover David Blakely.
Her family had long requested a conditional pardon, stating that she had been physically and emotionally abused by her victim.
“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,” Lammy told the Commons during PMQs on Wednesday.
“While the pardon does not claim she was innocent of killing David Blakely, it replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment to recognise a profound injustice in this exceptional case.”
Ellis, a nightclub hostess, shot Blakely dead outside The Magdala pub in Hampstead, London, in April 1955.
The couple had a tumultuous relationship and Blakely abused Ellis, at one point causing her to have a miscarriage by punching her in the stomach.
The jury took 20 minutes to convict her of the murder, and the charge carried a mandatory death sentence.
Laura Enston, granddaughter of Ruth Ellis, said “justice has finally been done” by the pardon in an emotional statement.
“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,” Enston said.
“But it says, formally and finally, that Ruth should not have been executed; that the justice system failed her. That acknowledgement matters profoundly to our family.
“Ruth was a victim of sustained and brutal abuse. 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.
“We are deeply grateful to the justice secretary for having the courage to act. We hope Ruth’s story serves as a lasting reminder that the justice system must reckon with the abuse that drives women to the edge – and must never be afraid to acknowledge when it has got things wrong.”
Ellis’ story has been depicted in film and TV, with actress Lucy Boynton playing her most recently in the ITV drama A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story.
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