The last woman hanged in the United Kingdom will be granted a conditional pardon, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has said.
Ruth Ellis was executed on July 13, 1955, after being convicted of murdering David Blakely.
Mr Lammy shared the news in the Commons today (Wednesday, July 8), saying that King Charles III had accepted the Labour Party's recommendation for a conditional pardon.
He added: "While the pardon does not claim she was innocent of killing David Blakely, it replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment to recognise a profound injustice in this exceptional case.”
In a statement, Laura Enston, granddaughter of Ruth Ellis, said: “Today, justice has finally been done for our grandmother, Ruth Ellis – the last woman to be hanged in England in 1955.
“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.
"That acknowledgement matters profoundly to our family.
“Ruth was a victim of sustained and brutal abuse.
"Her children – our mother and uncle – never recovered.
"My uncle took his own life; my mother’s trauma left her unable to be the parent we needed.
"The shadow of Ruth’s execution has fallen across two generations.
"We have carried shame that was never ours to bear."
Ruth Ellis' story was chronicled in the ITV drama series A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, which aired in 2025.
Who was Ruth Ellis?
Ruth Ellis was born Ruth Neilson on October 9, 1926, in the town of Rhyl in Wales, and was the fifth of six children to Bertha Goethals and Arthur Hornby.
She moved to Basingstoke with her family during her childhood, with her upbringing being blighted by sexual abuse at the hands of her father.
Towards the end of the 1940s, she became a nightclub hostess in Hampstead, and by the early 1950s, Ruth was making money as a full-service escort.
She then married George Johnston Ellis, a 41-year-old divorced dentist.
George was an alcoholic, and the relationship became violent, with George being convinced that Ruth was cheating on him.
When their daughter Georgina was born in 1951, he refused to acknowledge her as his own, with the pair splitting up shortly after.
🚨 NEW: The last woman to be hanged in the UK has been given a conditional pardon by the King on Government advice
Ruth Ellis shot and killed her abusive husband on 10 April 1955, but as an "act of mercy", her hanging has been replaced with life imprisonment pic.twitter.com/d1TPDeoUfx— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) July 8, 2026
Ruth returned to sex work, but by 1953 she had started working at the Little Club, a Knightsbridge hotspot.
She was promoted to manager, and it was here she met the racing driver David Blakely.
Their relationship eventually became violent, with Blakely often attacking Ruth after he had been drinking.
This culminated in an incident in January 1955, where he punched Ruth in the stomach so hard that she miscarried.
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A few months later, Ruth shot Blakely outside the Magdala Tavern in Hampstead, where she was quickly arrested.
When the murder verdict was passed and Ruth was sentenced, there was a public outcry, and almost immediately, calls for a reprieve began.
Despite this, the decision was not reversed and Ruth was hanged in Holloway Prison on July 13, 1955.
She was buried in an unmarked grave on the grounds of the prison but later reburied at St Mary's Church in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
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