Britain’s most recent woman to face execution will receive a conditional pardon, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has confirmed.
Ruth Ellis met her death through hanging on July 13, 1955, after being found guilty of killing David Blakely.
Mr Lammy disclosed the development in the House of Commons on Wednesday, stating that King Charles III had agreed to the Labour Party’s proposal for a conditional pardon.
He clarified that while the pardon does not assert she was not responsible for David Blakely’s death, it converts her capital sentence to life imprisonment in acknowledgment of a serious miscarriage of justice in this particular case.
Ruth Ellis held the distinction of being the final woman executed in Britain in 1955.
In comments attributed to her granddaughter Laura Enston, she stated that her grandmother’s case had finally received appropriate recognition after decades.
She noted that the pardon cannot erase events from seven decades past, nor return the lives that were destroyed or the years that were lost. However, it formally declares that Ruth should not have received the death penalty and that the justice system let her down. The family emphasized that this acknowledgment carries immense significance to them.
She described her grandmother as having endured prolonged and severe mistreatment. Her children were never able to move past the trauma, with her uncle ultimately taking his own life and her mother’s psychological wounds preventing her from being the parent her own children required. The consequences of Ruth’s execution affected two generations, leaving the family carrying a burden of disgrace that was never theirs to bear.
Ruth Ellis’s life was depicted in the ITV production titled A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, which premiered in 2025.
Background information
Ruth Ellis entered the world as Ruth Neilson on October 9, 1926, in Rhyl, a Welsh coastal town, and was the second youngest of six siblings born to Bertha Goethals and Arthur Hornby.
Her family relocated to Basingstoke during her formative years, where she suffered sexual abuse perpetrated by her father throughout her upbringing.
In the late 1940s, she pursued work as a hostess at a London nightclub in Hampstead, and by the early 1950s, she had begun earning income as an escort providing comprehensive services.
She subsequently entered into marriage with George Johnston Ellis, a 41-year-old dental professional who had previously been married.
George suffered from alcoholism, and the marriage descended into violence, with George harbouring suspicions of infidelity on Ruth’s part.
When their daughter Georgina arrived in 1951, he refused to accept paternity, and the marriage ended shortly afterward.
Ruth resumed working in the sex industry, and by 1953 she had secured a position at the Little Club, a fashionable venue in Knightsbridge.
She ascended to a managerial role, and it was during this period that she encountered racing driver David Blakely.
Their involvement grew increasingly abusive, with Blakely frequently assaulting Ruth following alcohol consumption.
This pattern of violence reached a tragic peak in January 1955, when he struck her abdomen with such force that she suffered a miscarriage.
Several months thereafter, Ruth discharged a firearm at Blakely outside the Magdala Tavern in Hampstead, and authorities took her into custody at the scene.
When the jury delivered its verdict of murder and sentencing was pronounced, significant public protest emerged, with demands for clemency emerging almost instantly.
Nevertheless, the sentence stood and Ruth was put to death at Holloway Prison on July 13, 1955.
Interment initially occurred in an unmarked plot within the prison grounds, though subsequent reburial took place at St Mary’s Church in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.