His Majesty the King has granted Ruth Ellis a conditional pardon following the Deputy Prime Minister\u2019s advice.
\n The decision reflects the exceptional circumstances of the case, including evidence of domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour that may have been understood differently today.
\n The pardon recognises that, under modern law and understanding, the outcome may have been different.<\/p>\n
Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in United Kingdom, has been granted a conditional pardon by His Majesty the King following the Deputy Prime Minister\u2019s advice \u2013 an act of mercy recognising the historic injustice of the death penalty in this exceptional case.<\/p>\n
Ruth Ellis shot and killed David Blakely on 10 April 1955. She was convicted of murder after a trial and executed on 13 July 1955. No reprieve was granted, and no appeal was lodged at the time.<\/p>\n
The application for a pardon was brought by four of Ruth Ellis\u2019s grandchildren. The application presented that her responsibility was profoundly shaped by domestic abuse, trauma and circumstances that were never properly recognised at her trial.<\/p>\n
Under modern law, it is possible that Ruth Ellis could have argued the partial defences of loss of control or diminished responsibility applied to her – defences that might have reduced her conviction from murder to manslaughter, and which could have been considered by a jury had the case been heard today.<\/p>\n
As the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, Ruth Ellis\u2019s sentence is an exceptional case \u2013 and replacing it with one of life imprisonment takes into account the historic injustice of the death penalty in this particular instance. The government hopes today\u2019s decision brings a measure of peace to her family.<\/p>\n
Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy said:<\/p>\n
For 70 years, the family of Ruth Ellis have fought for her story to be heard.<\/p>\n
We cannot change what happened seventy years ago. But we can recognise that this was an exceptional case.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s conditional pardon is an act of mercy. We hope it brings some measure of peace to Ruth\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
Laura\u00a0Enston, Granddaughter\u00a0of Ruth Ellis, said:<\/p>\n
Today, justice has finally been done for our grandmother, Ruth Ellis\u00a0\u2013 the last woman to be hanged in England in 1955.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This\u00a0pardon does not undo what happened\u00a071 years ago. It does not restore the lives that were broken\u00a0–\u00a0the\u00a0children left behind, the years lost. But it says, formally and finally, that Ruth should not have been executed; that\u00a0the justice system failed her.\u00a0That\u00a0acknowledgement matters profoundly to our family.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ruth was a victim of sustained\u00a0and\u00a0brutal abuse.\u00a0Her children\u00a0–\u00a0our\u00a0mother and uncle\u00a0–\u00a0never recovered. My uncle took his own life;\u00a0my mother\u2019s trauma left her unable to be the parent we needed.\u00a0The\u00a0shadow of Ruth\u2019s execution\u00a0has fallen\u00a0across two generations. We have\u00a0carried\u00a0shame that was never ours to\u00a0bear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We are\u00a0deeply\u00a0grateful to the Justice Secretary for\u00a0having the courage to act.\u00a0We hope Ruth\u2019s story\u00a0serves\u00a0as a\u00a0lasting\u00a0reminder that the justice system must reckon with the abuse that drives women to the edge\u00a0–\u00a0and\u00a0must\u00a0never be afraid to\u00a0acknowledge\u00a0when it\u00a0has got\u00a0things wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The law has changed over the decades and now better reflects our improved understanding of the impact of intimate partner violence, including coercive and controlling behaviour, on individual\u2019s subsequent actions \u2013 abuse that is disproportionately suffered by women.<\/p>\n
Minister for Victims and Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Catherine Atkinson said:<\/p>\n
For seventy years, Ruth Ellis\u2019s family have carried the weight of what happened to her. Today we recognise the exceptional circumstances surrounding her case and the impact they had on her life.<\/p>\n
I want to thank her grandchildren for their determination in bringing this case forward, and for making sure her story was finally heard.<\/p>\n
Further information:<\/p>\n
The Royal Prerogative of Mercy is one of the historic prerogative powers of the Crown and is exercised by His Majesty the King on ministerial advice. A conditional pardon does not affect the conviction itself but substitutes the sentence imposed by the court with a lesser penalty. In this case, it replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment.
\n The government reached the decision that a conditional pardon to Ruth Ellis is exceptional and justified because of the circumstances of the case and that imposition of the death penalty would not have been sustained under modern law.
\n The application was submitted by four of Ruth Ellis\u2019s grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His Majesty the King has granted Ruth Ellis a conditional pardon following the Deputy Prime Minister\u2019s advice. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-680341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}