‘Ruth Ellis was a murderer, but her pardon means now she is just my grandmother’

Former Hollyoaks actor Stephen Beard was having dinner with friends when the call came through that his grandmother Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, had been posthumously pardoned. The 38-year-old father of four tells The Mirror it was an emotional moment and the culmination of a campaign for justice decades in the making. He says: “It was an amazing thing to hear. I lifted up my eyes to the sky and remembered Ruth and my mum. It has been such a long journey, but now at last it’s over. We can lay the burden down. The family has been carrying this weight for so long. Ruth’s death has had a multi generational impact. But that idea that we had ’bad blood’ in us, because of what happened, is over. It’s been put to bed.” The news of a posthumous conditional pardon for Ruth, who shot her abusive lover David Blakely dead in 1955, was granted by King Charles and announced by Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy in Parliament today. He told MPs that the death penalty originally handed down had been replaced with a sentence of life imprisonment. The move is an acknowledgement that if her case had been heard in today’s courts, a possible defence of loss of control or diminished responsibility could have been used. Welsh-born nightclub hostess Ruth was just 28 when she was hanged, after being convicted of the murder of her lover, David Blakely, outside The Magdala pub in Hampstead, north west London. Her family has long argued for the pardon given to Ruth, who had a three-year-old daughter, Georgina and a son Andy, ten, at the time, saying she had been a victim of emotional and physical abuse. David Blakely, a former public schoolboy and hard drinking racing driver, was violent towards her, at one point punching the mum, originally from Rhyl, North Wales, so hard during an argument it led to a miscarriage. He was also seeing other women. As he stepped out of The Magdala pub, Ruth took a revolver from her handbag and shot him five times. She was arrested immediately and an off duty police officer heard her say: “I am guilty, I’m a little confused.” She also later told the jury at her trial: “He only hit me with his fist or hands.” Stephen, who works for international clients in the data centres field and who now lives in Dubai, says he and his six siblings always believed Ruth’s trial was deeply flawed, with critical evidence about her abuse and state of mind not put forward. And while the case has maintained its grip on the public’s imagination, it has also cast a long shadow down the generations in Ruth’s family. Her former husband died by suicide in 1958. Her son, Andy, also took his own life in 1982; while Georgina - adopted after her mum’s death and who later had a high profile relationship with George Best - struggled with alcohol abuse and died from cancer in 2001, aged of 50. Stephen, too, says he has borne the weight of both his grandmother’s crime and the injustice she suffered. But, Ruth’s pardon means he has now finished what his mum started. He adds: “My mum had her problems - she had gone through childhood trauma. But years ago she tried to look into a pardon for Ruth; she was obsessed with it. It never quite happened, so this news brings a huge sense of achievement. It also shows that history can be re-written and will, hopefully, give confidence to others trying to right an injustice and fighting to be heard." After Ruth’s death, her executioner, Albert Pierrepoint, recalled how she “tried to smile” at the end but never spoke, noting: “She was a brave woman.” And, although Stephen says her death has had a multi generational impact, her resilience in her last moments has inspired him. He explains: “Being her grandson is a double edged sword. It has been a blight on the family history but personally, it’s made me not scared of anything. She was brave and stoic and it made me resolute. And I always knew what we were doing was worth fighting for.” Now he says he will go home and proudly hang a picture of his grandmother on his wall. He adds: "Before she was a murderer, called a cold blooded killer. Now she’s just my grandmother.”