Ruth Ellis: Last woman to be hanged in Britain finally granted pardon

Ruth Ellis: Last woman to be hanged in Britain finally granted pardon The King has accepted the government’s advice to grant Ms Ellis a conditional pardon - Bookmark Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom, has been given a conditional pardon, David Lammy has confirmed. Ellis shot Blakely dead outside The Magdala pub in Hampstead, London on 10 April 1955, following a tumultuous relationship involving infidelity on both sides, an aborted pregnancy, and physical abuse by Mr Blakely – including a punch in the stomach during an argument that led to a miscarriage. Under cross-examination, Ellis admitted that she intended to kill Blakely, and the jury took just 20 minutes to convict her of murder – a charge that carried a mandatory death sentence. She was later executed on 13 July 1955. Her family have been calling for a pardon, saying evidence that she was badly treated by her lover was never heard at her trial. The King has accepted the government’s advice to grant Ms Ellis a conditional pardon, Mr Lammy told MPs. Ellis’s legacy has been cemented in the world of film, television and theatre, with the most famous film being Mike Newell’s moving Dance with a Stranger (1985) with Miranda Richardson as Ruth Ellis. Lucy Boynton recently played Ms Ellis in the ITV drama A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, which also starred Toby Jones, Toby Stephens, Juliet Stevenson, and Laurie Davidson as Ellis’s partner, David Blakely. Ellis was trialled at the Number One Court at the Old Bailey on 20 June 1955. Prosecutor Christmas Humphreys asked her just one question: “When you fired the revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?” She replied: “It's obvious when I shot him I intended to kill him.” This confession was enough for the jury, who only spent 20 minutes deliberating, to find Ellis guilty and sentenced her to execution, which was the mandatory punishment for murder at the time. Ellis was executed at 9.01am on 13 July 1955 by the famed hangman Albert Pierrepoint. As was customary with British executions, Ellis was buried in an unmarked grave in Holloway Prison. She was 28. Her execution caused public outrage and contributed to growing support for the abolition of the death penalty, which was eventually suspended in 1965. A petition signed by 50,000 people called for Ellis’s pardon on the grounds she could have been tried for manslaughter, and was submitted to the Home Office. It was ultimately rejected. Further calls for her pardon, taking into account the abuse she had suffered, were brought forward in 2003 and 2007, but both failed to pass. Although it took a decade, the Ellis case did much to advance the abolition of the death penalty in Britain, which finally came to pass in 1965. More follows on this breaking news story. Subscribe here to get the latest updates from The Independent