Ellis’ granddaughter Laura Enston said that although the impact of the sentence on her family could not be undone, she felt justice had been done after 70 years.<\/p>\n
“Ruth was a victim of sustained and brutal abuse. Her children – our mother and uncle – never recovered,” she said.<\/p>\n
“My uncle took his own life. My mother’s trauma left her unable to be the parent we needed. <\/p>\n
“The shadow of Ruth’s execution has fallen across two generations. We have carried shame that was never ours to bear.”<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
In interviews last year, Enson said the impact of domestic abuse was poorly understand at the time of Ellis’ conviction and, had the trial happened now, her grandmother would have been treated very differently by the justice system.<\/p>\n
Part of the issue had been Ellis’ appearance, Enson told AFP last year, because the glamorous single mother showed no emotion during her trial, at which the jury took just 14 minutes to find her guilty.<\/p>\n
“She inadvertently played up to that sort of cold-blooded killer persona that she’d been portrayed to be, but knowing what we know now about trauma and slow-burn provocation, Ruth was traumatised… and typical of domestic abuse victims,” Enston said.<\/p>\n
The abuse included an incident 10 days before the killing in April 1955 when Ellis suffered a miscarriage after Blakely, the baby’s father, punched her in the stomach.<\/p>\n
Minister for Victims and Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Catherine Atkinson said: “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
Katy Colton, a partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya, who acted for Ellis’ grandchildren, called the pardon a landmark moment.<\/p>\n
“Today’s decision does not only right a wrong done over 70 years ago. <\/p>\n
“It sends a clear signal about the aspirations of our justice system. Violence against women and girls remains a national emergency. <\/p>\n
“The government’s public acknowledgement that the abuse Ruth Ellis endured should have impacted the outcome of her case reflects an important principle: that survivors of domestic abuse today deserve a justice system that properly understands and recognises the impact of that abuse.”<\/p>\n
The death penalty was abolished as the punishment for murder in 1965 and the last executions took place in 1964, when two men were hanged for murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ellis’ granddaughter Laura Enston said that although the impact of the sentence on her family could not be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-680786","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\/680786","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=680786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}