King Charles III has granted a posthumous conditional pardon to Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom. The announcement was made in the House of Commons by Justice Secretary David Lammy.

Ellis was executed at the age of 28 at Holloway Prison in July 1955, after shooting her lover, David Blakely, outside a pub in Hampstead. The pardon, granted on the advice of the government, does not claim innocence but acknowledges that the justice system failed her, replacing the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment. The Ministry of Justice stated the decision reflects evidence of domestic abuse and coercive behavior that might be viewed differently today.

Ellis's grandchildren, who campaigned for the pardon, argued that she would be able to plead diminished responsibility under modern legal understanding of domestic abuse and trauma. Her granddaughter, Laura Enston, described the trial as a disgrace, stating Ellis was made an example of and was on trial for morality as much as for murder.

At her Old Bailey trial in June 1955, the judge instructed the jury to disregard mistreatment by her lover as a defense. Ellis admitted intending to kill Blakely, and the jury convicted her of murder within 20 minutes. The mandatory sentence at the time was death.

Ellis's family has long maintained she was a victim of physical and emotional abuse by Blakely. Their tumultuous relationship reportedly involved infidelity, an aborted pregnancy, and violence, including an incident where Blakely punched her in the stomach, leading to a miscarriage. Enston noted that her grandmother's demeanor in court, appearing stoic, may have inadvertently reinforced the portrayal of a "cold-blooded killer," but suggested she was traumatized and typical of domestic abuse victims, a concept poorly understood at the time.

Following the pardon, Enston has urged Madame Tussauds to remove a figure of Ellis from its 'Chamber of Horrors' exhibition, where she is displayed alongside serial killers. Ellis's execution occurred shortly after Styllou Christofi was sentenced for murder; both women committed their crimes on the same street in Hampstead in the 1950s. Ellis and Christofi were buried in unmarked graves and exhumed in 1971 along with other female murderers, though Ellis's remains were returned to her family.

The case of Ruth Ellis has garnered significant public attention over the decades, inspiring films and television dramas, including the 1985 movie "Dance With A Stranger" and a recent ITV docudrama series. The death penalty for murder was permanently abolished in the UK in 1969, and two years later, diminished responsibility was introduced as a defense for murder.