The king has granted a conditional pardon to Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK - described by lord chancellor David Lammy as ‘an act of mercy recognising the historic injustice of the death penalty in this exceptional case’.
Ellis, a nightclub hostess, was hanged in July 1955 after being convicted of murdering her partner, David Blakely. Her family, with the support of law firm Mishcon de Reya, campaigned for a conditional pardon, arguing that evidence of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Blakely was never heard at trial.
The king granted a pardon following advice from Lammy. The Royal Prerogative of Mercy is an historic prerogative power of the Crown and exercised by 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.
The Ministry of Justice said that under modern law, Ellis could have argued partial defences of loss of control or diminished responsibility - defences that might have reduced her conviction from murder to manslaughter, which could have been considered by a jury had the case been heard today.
Lammy said: ‘For 70 years, the family of Ruth Ellis have fought for her story to be heard. We cannot change what happened 70 years ago. But we can recognise that this was an exceptional case. Today's conditional pardon is an act of mercy. We hope it brings some measure of peace to Ruth’s family.’
Laura Enston, Ellis’ granddaughter, said justice had finally been done for her grandmother but the pardon '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. That acknowledgement matters profoundly to our family,'.
Mishcon associate Grace Houghton, who represented the grandchildren, said the application demonstrated, on the evidence, ‘that Ruth suffered from what is now understood as battered woman syndrome, and that the cumulative impact of the abuse she sustained would, under the law as it stands today, have supported defences of both diminished responsibility and loss of control’. Had Ellis been tried two years later, when the Homicide Act 1957 was introduced, ‘the outcome would have been very different’.
Lord Mishcon, who founded the law firm, was instructed by Ellis shortly before her execution to seek a reprieve. Katy Colton, Mishcon’s head of politics and law, said Lord Mishcon would have been ‘immensely proud’.
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