Ruth Ellis, the last woman executed in Britain, has been posthumously granted a conditional pardon. Ellis was a 28-year-old single mother and nightclub hostess when she was hanged in 1955 for the murder of her abusive lover, David Blakely.
Background
Ellis shot Blakely outside the Magdala pub in the Hampstead neighborhood on April 10, 1955. The trial lasted just over a day, and the jury reached its verdict in less than half an hour. Ellis was not allowed to argue that she acted because of the emotional impact of abuse, but two years after the hanging, Parliament passed a law allowing a diminished responsibility defense.
The pardon was sought by Ellis’ grandchildren, who have long fought to reduce her conviction because the repeated sexual, emotional, and physical abuse Ellis endured was not considered during the trial or afterward, when she could have been granted a reprieve from the death penalty.
Reaction
Laura Enston, a granddaughter of Ellis, said in a statement, ‘Justice has finally been done… 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.’
Pam Cox, a Labour member of Parliament, said, ‘Her case serves as a haunting reminder of a time when our justice system ignored the realities of domestic abuse and coercive control.’
Original reporting: 40/29 / KHBS (NW Arkansas) — read the source article.
