Ruth Ellis, the last woman executed in Britain, has been posthumously granted conditional pardon, according to Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy.

LONDON (AP) — The last woman to be executed in Britain, for gunning down her abusive lover outside a London pub more than 70 years ago, has been posthumously granted a conditional pardon, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said Wednesday.

Ruth Ellis, a 28-year-old single mother and nightclub hostess, was hanged on July 13, 1955, for the murder of race-car driver David Blakely. She shot him outside the Magdala pub in the Hampstead neighborhood on April 10, 1955.

“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 recognize a profound injustice in this exceptional case,” Lammy said.

  • Th4tGuyII@fedia.io
    54·
    13 hours ago

    The pardon was sought by her grandchildren, who have long fought to reduce her conviction because the repeated sexual, emotional and physical abuse Ellis endured was not considered during the trial or afterward, when she could have been granted a reprieve from the death penalty.

    “Justice has finally been done,” Laura Enston, a granddaughter, said in a statement. “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 acknowledgment matters profoundly to our family.”

    While from the outside this feels like little more than a token gesture, it at least seems to have brought closure to her surviving grandchildren - to have this failure by the justice system acknowledged and apologised for in a official and public capacity.

    • someguy3@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      8 hours ago

      This is why no fault divorce is a good thing (I have no idea about UK law, I’m assuming.)