On July 8, 2026, King Charles, following the advice of Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, granted a posthumous conditional pardon to Ruth Ellis, converting her death sentence to a term of life imprisonment. Ms. Ellis was originally sentenced to death for the April 10, 1955 murder of her romantic partner David Blakely, and she was the last woman hanged in the United Kingdom on July 13, 1955. A press release from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice explains that this decision represents “an act of mercy recognising (sic) the historic injustice of the death penalty in this exceptional case.”
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.
The pardon application was submitted by Ms. Ellis’ grandchildren — Stephen Beard, Laura Enston, James Enston, and Chloe Beard — with legal assistance from Mishcon de Reya LLP in October 2025. The application explains that Ms. Ellis was a “victim of long-term, systematic emotional, sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her partner and others” that was not adequately considered during trial. The application also provides evidence of prejudice amongst police and the then-Home Secretary, who had the authority to grant reprieve. On July 8, 2026, parliament member Pam Cox asked Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy for the pardon on behalf of the grandchildren, explaining that Ms. Ellis’ case “serves as a haunting reminder of a time when our justice system ignored the realities of domestic abuse and coercive control.” Deputy Prime Minister Lammy explains that following their advice, the King decided to grant a conditional pardon, but notes that “the pardon does not claim she was innocent.”
The Ministry of Justice’s press release acknowledges evidence of domestic abuse in Ms. Ellis’ case might have resulted in a different outcome under current law, whereby legal defenses of loss of control or diminished responsibility may have applied, potentially reducing her conviction from murder to manslaughter. The pardon application explains that Ms. Ellis, who likely suffered from battered woman syndrome, was abused by Mr. Blakely. Corroborated by friends, doctors, and other witnesses, evidence of Mr. Blakely’s abuse included publicly assaulting Ms. Ellis, pushing her down the stairs, striking her ear resulting in brief deafness, punching her in the stomach resulting in a miscarriage, and threatening her with murder. Recent research by Cornell Law School Professor Sandra Babcock and others has shown that court systems often disregard the histories of gender-based violence, which affects at least 96% of women on U.S. death rows.
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 (sic) the impact of that abuse.
A 2016 study by Penal Reform International titled “Women who kill in response to domestic violence: How do criminal justice systems respond?” reviewed laws in nine countries (Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Spain and the United States). The study found that in a majority of countries reviewed there was no specified legislative basis for a history of abuse to be considered as mitigation, thus increasing the risk that such evidence is “considered or treated inconsistently between cases.” Women with a history of abuse must instead rely on existing legal defenses, such as self-defense, which the study characterized as “ill‑adapted to the situation of a woman suffering from battered woman syndrome or the slow burn reaction.”
Kate Arthur, Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom, granted a posthumous pardon, The Death Penalty Project, July 10, 2026; Jennifer McKiernan, Conditional pardon granted for Ruth Ellis, last woman executed in UK, BBC, July 8, 2026; Press Release, Last woman to be hanged in the UK pardoned 70 years on, UK Government, July 8, 2026; Government to review death sentence for last woman hanged in Britain, Mishcon de Reya LLP, October 21, 2025; Babcock, Sandra and Greenfield, Nathalie, Gender, Violence, and the Death Penalty (April 10, 2023). California Western International Law Journal, Vol. 53 (2023); Linklaters LLP, Women who kill in response to domestic violence: How do criminal justice systems respond?, Penal Reform International, 2016;
