Ruth Ellis Pardon: Last Executed Woman in UK 2026

Key Points

• His Majesty the King has accepted government advice to grant a conditional pardon to Ruth Ellis, the last woman executed in the United Kingdom.
• The pardon replaces Ellis’s death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment, “to recognise a profound injustice in this exceptional case”, according to Deputy Prime Minister Remi Lammy’s statement to the House of Commons.
• Ellis, a nightclub hostess, was executed on 13 July 1955 at Holloway Prison after being convicted of murdering David Blakely.
• The shooting that led to Ellis’s conviction happened outside The Magdala pub in Hampstead, London, in April 1955.
• Deputy Prime Minister Remi Lammy made the announcement at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, standing in for Sir Keir Starmer, who is attending the Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey.
• Ellis’s grandchildren, Laura Enston and Stephen Beard, were in Parliament to hear the announcement.
• Laura Enston said the pardon does not undo what happened 71 years ago, but formally acknowledges that “Ruth should not have been executed, that the justice system failed her”.
• Enston described Ellis as “a victim of sustained and brutal abuse” and said the shadow of her execution has affected two generations, including trauma that led her uncle to take his own life.
• Lammy said the pardon is hoped to bring “a measure of peace to Ruth Ellis’s family, who have carried the weight of what happened to her for over 70 years”.
• The government does not claim Ellis was innocent of killing Blakely; the pardon is about the injustice of the execution, not the facts of the murder.

UK (Liverpool standard) July 08, 2026 – In a historic parliamentary announcement, the UK government has secured a conditional pardon for Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, replacing her 1955 death sentence with life imprisonment to acknowledge a “profound injustice” in her case.

Deputy Prime Minister Remi Lammy informed the House of Commons that His Majesty the King has accepted the government’s advice to grant Ellis a conditional pardon, making her the last woman hanged in the UK to receive such recognition. Lammy said the measure does not assert Ellis was innocent of killing David Blakely, but instead replaces the death penalty with life imprisonment to recognise that the justice system failed her and that execution was disproportionate and unjust in the circumstances.

The announcement came during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, with Lammy standing in for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who is attending the Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey. Lammy 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”.

He added: “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”.

Why is this pardon being granted now, 71 years after Ellis’s execution?

Ruth Ellis, a nightclub hostess, was executed on 13 July 1955 after being convicted of murdering David Blakely. The sentence was carried out at Holloway Prison, and the case became one of the most famous capital punishment cases in British history.

Ellis shot Blakely dead outside The Magdala pub in Hampstead, London, in April 1955. Her conviction and execution sparked ongoing debate about the fairness of the trial, the role of gender and abuse in the case, and the broader morality of capital punishment in the UK.

Ms Lammy said the pardon is intended to recognise that, even if Ellis was guilty of killing Blakely, the decision to execute her was unjust, and that the family has carried the weight of that outcome for more than 70 years. 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”.

What did Ruth Ellis’s family say about the pardon?

Ellis’s grandchildren, Laura Enston and Stephen Beard, were present in Parliament to hear the announcement.

In a statement, Laura Enston said:

“Today, justice has finally been done for our grandmother, Ruth Ellis – the last woman to be hanged in England in 1955”.

She acknowledged that the pardon does not undo what happened 71 years ago, nor restore the lives that were broken, including the children left behind and the years lost.

Enston said the pardon formally and finally acknowledges that “Ruth should not have been executed, that the justice system failed her” and that this acknowledgement matters profoundly to the family. She described Ellis as “a victim of sustained and brutal abuse” and said her children, including Enston’s mother and uncle, never recovered from the trauma.

Enston added:

“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”.

How does a conditional pardon work in UK law?

A conditional pardon in this context does not erase the conviction or declare Ellis innocent of the murder. Instead, it replaces the original death sentence with a sentence of life imprisonment, effectively acknowledging that execution was unjust while leaving the underlying finding of guilt in place.

The government has described the pardon as a recognition of a “profound injustice in this exceptional case”, rather than a re-examination of the facts of the murder itself. This approach allows the state to address the historical injustice of the execution without overturning the original conviction or reopening the criminal case.

What background led to this development?

Ruth Ellis was a nightclub hostess in London who became the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom. She was convicted of murdering David Blakely after shooting him outside The Magdala pub in Hampstead in April 1955.

Ellis was sentenced to death and executed at Holloway Prison on 13 July 1955. Her case became emblematic of debates about capital punishment, gender, and the treatment of women in the criminal justice system, and has been revisited in historical and legal discussions for decades.

Over the years, Ellis’s family and supporters have argued that the trial and sentencing failed to properly account for the context of abuse and trauma in Ellis’s life, and that execution was a disproportionate response. The government’s decision in 2026 to seek a conditional pardon represents a formal acknowledgment of those concerns, even though it does not overturn the conviction itself.

What could this pardon mean for victims’ families and the wider debate on capital punishment?

This development could have significant implications for families affected by historical capital cases and for ongoing discussions about the legacy of the death penalty in the UK.

For families of those executed in the past, a conditional pardon may offer a form of official recognition that the state acknowledges flaws or injustices in how the case was handled, which can be important for long-standing grief and trauma. Laura Enston’s statement illustrates how such recognition can help families feel that their suffering and the broader injustice are finally acknowledged by the state.

For the wider public debate, the pardon highlights how the UK continues to reckon with the moral and legal legacy of capital punishment, even decades after its abolition. While the pardon does not declare Ellis innocent, it reinforces the view that execution in her case was unjust, which may influence how future historical cases are reviewed and how the state approaches symbolic remedies for past injustices.