The last woman hanged in the United Kingdom will be granted a conditional pardon but she will not be declared innocent, David Lammy has said.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the pardon will replace her death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment “to recognise a profound injustice in this exceptional case”.
He told the Commons: “We hope this brings a measure of peace to Ruth Ellis’s family, who have carried the weight of what happened to her for over 70 years.”
Ruth Ellis, a nightclub hostess, was executed on July 13 1955 after being convicted of murdering David Blakely.
The sentence was carried out at Holloway Prison.
Ellis shot Blakely dead outside The Magdala pub in Hampstead, London, in April 1955.
Mr Lammy made the announcement as he stood in for Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, while Sir Keir is at the Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey.
He said: “I have the honour to say that His Majesty the King has accepted our advice to grant Ruth Ellis a conditional pardon, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom.
“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.”
Mr Lammy also said her grandchildren Laura Enston and Stephen Beard were in Parliament to see him make the announcement.
Ms Enston said in a statement: “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.”
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