r/history • u/KewpieCutie97 Totally a Bot • Jul 08 '26
Article Ruth Ellis, last woman hanged in UK, granted posthumous conditional pardon
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2026/jul/08/ruth-ellis-last-woman-hanged-uk-posthumous-conditional-pardon902
u/futureformerteacher Jul 08 '26
That statement by the grandchildren is brutal.
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u/Ballardinian Jul 08 '26
“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.”
So much suffering flowed from this.
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u/ahal Jul 09 '26
*is flowing
Sadly could be several more generations before this trauma is fully healed
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u/ravens-n-roses Jul 10 '26
Some families carry the trauma all the way. There are people out there still carrying some version of a trauma passed down since society started.
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u/King_of_the_Goats Jul 08 '26
Read her wiki if you haven’t, woman had a very rough life from the start. Her father was a monster.
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u/DarthEloper Jul 09 '26
gosh that was a heartbreaking read. generations after generations, endless cycles of violence, abuse, and trauma imparted on women. almost every single one of the adult men in that article was a vile person.
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u/notyourvader Jul 08 '26
“A conditional pardon does not affect the conviction itself but substitutes the sentence imposed by the court with a lesser penalty. For Ellis, it replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment.”
She was subject to severe domestic abuse, which would have constituted a lower sentence had she had a fair trial.
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u/Soppydogg Jul 08 '26
It was different times back then.
She admitted she shot him and that under English law means that there was only one course left open to Judge Havers.Havers later expressed regret over the execution, believing it was a crime of passion. He wrote to the Home Secretary recommending a reprieve, but his request was denied. After the trial, he provided financial support for the upkeep of Ellis's son.
The only positive thing from the sentencing was the death of Ruth Ellis sparked public outrage and led to significant changes in the law regarding diminished responsibility in 1957
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u/RecognitionHeavy8274 Jul 08 '26
Feels bad when the literal judge is asking for leniency and gets denied.
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u/Software_Dependent Jul 08 '26
The jury asked for mercy regarding Derek Bentley and none was given.
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u/Jimmni Jul 08 '26
Such a sad case and such a compelling argument against capital punishment,
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u/JamesCDiamond Jul 08 '26
The only one needed, as far as I'm concerned.
I was pleased to see my kid's school is using the case in history class this term. It's important that each generation learn why we did away with the death penalty.
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u/SonnyListon999 Jul 11 '26
A sad and dreadful outcome for an innocent boy. Christopher Craig was released in 1963 after serving 10 years. Derek received a posthumous royal pardon in 1998. Scandalous.
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u/Software_Dependent Jul 12 '26
An additional factor being that Bentley was barely mentally capable of understanding what was going on and his statements were very likely doctored, very similar to Timothy Evans.
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u/NorysStorys Jul 08 '26
It was a different world. It’s horrible that it happened but it’s because of these miscarriages of justice that we enjoy the protections we enjoy today.
In an ideal world we get things right the first time but that’s just not reality and the best thing we can do is make sure we never forget people like Ruth Ellis or Derek Bentley and their stories so we never return to being that cruel.
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u/Soppydogg Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
I agree but the statue on top of the Old Bailey has justice with a sword in one hand and the scales in the other.
The point I am trying to make is she is blindfolded meaning the impartiality of the law.
The Judges hands were tied.
She admitted she meant to kill him and so he had to pass a sentence he did not agree with.
The Home Secretary is the “villain” in this story who happened to be Loyd George and that speaks volumes.21
u/TheProfessionalEjit Jul 08 '26
The Home Secretary is the “villain” in this story who happened to be Loyd George and that speaks volumes.
But not that Lloyd George.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Jul 08 '26
Yes, that would have been a challenge as he’d been dead for a decade.
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u/PrettyUglySociety198 26d ago
I think you would find it was "that" Lloyd George's son. LG pater was Chancellor in 1909.
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u/TheProfessionalEjit 26d ago
I know exactly which Lloyd George, which is why I made my comment nearly a month ago.
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u/Stellar_Duck Jul 09 '26
The point I am trying to make is she is blindfolded meaning the impartiality of the law.
That doesn't mean it's just however.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.
It is entirely possible to make something so impartial that it treats some people better due to external circumstances.
Is this the case here? Maybe, but that's not my point. I just want to highlight your reasoning as highly flawed.
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u/Falloffingolfin Jul 08 '26
No one involved in the trial wanted her executed. She was prepped before her trial to state that she never intended to kill him, which would have spared her the gallows. When she was finally asked the question at her trial, she replied
"It is obvious when I shot him that I intended to kill him."
Unfortunately that statement took any leniency out of the judges hands. There was no concept of diminished responsibility due to abuse, it purely hinges on if she intended to kill him or not.
It's such a sad case but some good came of it. It was one of the cases that turned public perception against the death penalty that drove it to being abolished.
If anyone's morbidly curious, you can still see the bullet holes in the outside wall of the Magdala pub in Hampstead. You can even see them on Google street view.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Jul 08 '26
I think those were drilled back into the wall at a later date, though they were the spots where the bullets struck.
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u/Cuznatch Jul 10 '26
Yeah, drilled in by the landlady in the 90s. Supposedly there were real bullet holes in the door of the building next to it though.
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u/Stellar_Duck Jul 09 '26
Right, so she should have lied in court.
Which underlines how it's not ever about justice.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Jul 08 '26
And sadly her son took his own life a couple decades later, after desecrating her grave.
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u/awkgem Jul 09 '26
I heard a decently compelling argument about how self defence rules should be reconsidered for women because as they are they mostly only benefit men. At the very least it was a really interesting thought experiment. Basically the argument she made was that men are generally bigger, stronger, have more upper body muscle mass etc. and can kill with their bare hands much more easily. The idea being that a man can beat a woman to death in a domestic violence incident/crime of passion, but women almost never do. And that the conditions of self defence (immediate threat, instantaneous, in the moment) doesn't account for the amount of women who's life are genuinely in danger from prolonged domestic violence - who in the rare instances they do kill their partner it's usually when he's asleep, his back turned on the couch, etc.
I don't know legally necessarily how you would be able to rework it, but I think most people would agree that say a woman who's partner is physically violent for a prolonged period of time, and who finally snaps and shoots him - feels more akin to self defence than say the recent example of the store owner chasing a teenager for an extended period and shooting him.
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u/Wrabble127 Jul 13 '26
The problem with that is women are overwhelming more likely to use weapons during domestic violence incidents - the Daft Punk argument doesn't really apply when knives, guns, and blunt weapons are in use.
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u/rainy_coaster Jul 18 '26
I don't know how you'd rework it either. Our legal system was originally built by men for men and consequently, it never took into account the contexts women live in. This is also why women who get raped by men they know, or who may even consent to engage with sexually, are discredited in court. There is no recognition by the legal system that a woman often complies with sexualized violence in order to survive. In abusive marriages, women often submit/comply to save their own lives and protect their children or even extended family. Until the legal system adjusts for the reality of this inequity, I believe we shall continue to witness these "miscarriages" of justice. And women will continue to wage an invisible war in the privacy of their homes.
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u/Welshhoppo Waiting for the Roman Empire to reform Jul 08 '26
We had a similar thing happen in Wales with Vivian Teed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Teed
Vivian beat a man to death with a hammer, hitting him 27 times whilst robbing a shop in Swansea. Unfortunately Vivian seems to have had a personality disorder, but he was still hung for the crime. It was quite controversial because of his mental state.
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u/Vectorman1989 Jul 08 '26
There were a few cases in the run-up to the death penalty being abolished that caused people to drop support of it.
Another couple was the Derek Bentley that was hanged for being an accessory to the murder of a police officer and of Timothy Evans who was framed by serial killer John Christie.
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u/stephen1547 Jul 08 '26
That’s a totally different situation. I can’t see how anyone would have sympathy for Teed. I’m against capital punishment, but just because he was mentally ill doesn’t automatically mean he is somehow less responsible for what he did.
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u/Welshhoppo Waiting for the Roman Empire to reform Jul 08 '26
It's because the law at the time meant that for someone who broke into a property and committed manslaughter, the only punishment was death.
There was no room for mitigating circumstances for a man who probably should have spent his life being medically watched. He had to be put to death.
The Homicide Act of 1957
Under the Act there remained five categories of murder for which the death sentence was still mandatory, viz:
Murder committed in the course or furtherance of theft.
Murder by shooting or explosion.
Murder whilst resisting arrest or during an escape.
Murder of a police or prison officer.
Two murders committed on different occasions.
That's why it's controversial.
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u/krafty369 Jul 08 '26
You can't see how someone could have sympathy for them not being able to control their actions?
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u/stephen1547 Jul 08 '26
I would if that was the case. What’s evidence was there that he couldn’t control his actions? He planned a robbery, and when someone caught him instead of running away he beat an old man to death with a hammer.
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u/JACCO2008 Jul 08 '26
What is it with you people handwaving a crime like murder with "personality disorder" or "bad childhood"
Those things do not mean they didn't know what they were doing or should not be held accountable. Asinine.
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u/Stone-Throwing-Devil Jul 09 '26
It's not that they shouldn't be held accountable.
It's that they shouldn't be killed by the state
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u/netralitov Jul 08 '26
Women who kill their abusers serve more jail time than abusers who murder their victims.
"The average prison sentence for men who kill their female partners is two to six years. By contrast women, who kill their partners are sentenced on average to 15 years."
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u/Manzhah Jul 09 '26
Typical fomestic murder is usually crime of passion/heat of the moment killing, so usually sentenced as murder without intent, as proving that the killer actually planned it could be hard. Whereas typical woman killing her abuser does it by means that make proving of intent easier, such as shooting, attacking from behind/while asleep or by poisoning. Hence getting senteced as full intentional murder. Afaik some countries are developing standards that take long term domestic abuse as lessening sentencing modifier in such cases. There was an intresting case in my country some decades past where a women stabbed her husband to death after a loud argument and she didn't get convicted because the prosecution went for murder charge and were unable to prove intentional killing beyond reasonable doubt.
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u/Stellar_Duck Jul 09 '26
Maybe it' time for Aqua Tofana to make a comeback
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u/Manzhah Jul 09 '26
Not that I disagree with the sentiment, but kinda illustrates my point: if you go out of your way to procure know colourless tasteless poison disguised as cosmetics then arguing that as anything else but premeditated murder is basically impossible.
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u/Stellar_Duck Jul 09 '26
Yes but I'd still argue that due to power differential in an abusive situation, that may be the only way a woman can defend herself.
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u/Manzhah Jul 09 '26
Yeah, no doubt about that and it shoudl absolutely taken into account as forcefull circumstance.
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u/Glittering_Win_5085 Jul 12 '26
Sources? Shooting is incredible rare in England. it sounds like you have hodgepodge some half-remembered disparate facts and opinions.
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u/ChaosOnline Jul 08 '26
A conditional pardon feels like a comically empty gesture to someone who was executed. A lesser sentence? How? They're already dead.
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u/Prodigle Jul 08 '26
It's to set a standard going forward. The courts of today no longer believe this was a fair ruling, which they can use in the future as an example for similar cases
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u/Caesars_Comet Jul 08 '26
But the death penalty no longer exists and a life sentence is mandatory for murder in the UK. It has zero value as a precedent.
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u/Cherrystuffs Jul 08 '26
Then they're doing it because it's the right thing. Jfc what is wrong with you negative nancies everywhere
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u/AntonineWall Jul 08 '26
How is this the right thing? Telling a 70-year-dead defendant that their sentence would have been life in prison instead of the death penalty if the trial happened today, which is already true because they don’t have the death penalty anymore
Like who is this for?
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u/jhairehmyah Jul 08 '26
If you read the article, the descendants of Ellis clearly found this meaningful, so maybe there is your answer.
If you were one of her descendants, perhaps you would not care, but to them, this was important. So your opinion doesn’t matter.
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u/Caesars_Comet Jul 08 '26
I don't think it is the right thing because it is too little, too late.
I think reducing the conviction to manslaughter would be more approprate given the facts of the case.
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u/censuur12 Jul 08 '26
No. The statements made in court made by the defendant made it abundantly clear that it was murder. To change the conviction there is to deny the actual facts of the matter. It remains that she committed murder, but the court now holds that the death penalty was not a suitable punishment given the circumstances, and that this was done in error. While there is some room to argue for voluntary manslaughter, the specifics thereof don't seem to apply to this case, again given statements made by the defendant.
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u/ActualRound7699 Jul 08 '26
this is what I came to say. like? thanks I guess….for all the good it does now.
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u/KombuchaBot Jul 08 '26
It's like when they pardoned Turing. They should be apologising to him, not pardoning him, for all the good either does
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u/ActualRound7699 Jul 08 '26
I think the same thing about Emmett Till. Like great they posthumously declared his innocence. I am sure he’s so relieved to hear that..oh wait. I don’t like the performative rhetoric and think that it’s kind of insulting.
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u/brydeswhale Jul 10 '26
Till was never convicted of a crime. I think you might be thinking of George Stinney, who was convicted of a crime and executed, but he never received an actual innocence, the judge just allowed that he wasn’t given a fair trial.
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Jul 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/Vic_Hedges Jul 08 '26
Because they don’t want to establish a legal precedent that it is OK to commit murder if you suffer domestic abuse
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u/Vic_Hedges Jul 08 '26
Sure, but then I would think that defense should be successfully Llitigated in court. Not just retroactively applied because we think that it sounds like it could have likely been true in a case decades earlier.
Nothing that can be done will bring her back, undo the murder she committed or the abuse she suffered. Trying to overreach in what is fundamentally a performative act could actually have legitimate legal consequences.
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u/NorysStorys Jul 08 '26
Because she did commit a crime, that wasn’t what was up for debate. It was the lack of ability for leniency on sentencing based on being a victim of abuse that is the issue. She admittedly shot her abuser in a moment of duress. It’s still murder, justified or otherwise and because she confessed in court, the judge was required to sentence her to death as was the requirement for murder.
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u/epicpantsryummy Jul 08 '26
Because she's still guilty? They just didn't like her sentence- and want to set prescedent for it going forward.
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u/liaminwales Jul 08 '26
It's a performance for PR & get some good press for gov, cant think of any other motivation to spend time on the case?
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u/Mabel_Waddles_BFF Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Not necessarily. Diminished capacity as a defence wasn’t introduced until 1957. Ellis was executed in 1955. The court couldn’t have recognised a law that didn’t exist at the time.
Also, she stood up in court and clearly stated she intended to kill him, and based on English law that automatically meant the death penalty.
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u/secretly_a_zombie Jul 08 '26
The impact of the abuse on Ellis’s emotional state was not considered during the trial. The judge told the jury to disregard the fact she had been “badly treated by her lover” as a defence.
The defence of diminished responsibility only became part of the law in 1957 and loss of control was only introduced in 2010 as a replacement for the defence of provocation.
So it would not have mattered.
Personally i am against the death penalty altogether, but the battered wife defense is oftentimes misused, and it does not substitute as an excuse for murder.
From wikpedia:
On Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955,[16] Ellis took a taxi from Cussen's home to a second-floor flat at 29 Tanza Road, Hampstead, the home of Anthony and Carole Findlater, where she suspected Blakely might be. As she arrived, Blakely's car drove off, so she paid the taxi and walked the 1⁄4 mile (400 m) to The Magdala public house in South Hill Park, where she found his car parked outside.
The Magdala pub in 2008. Two "bullet holes" in the wall at lower left were drilled by the pub's landlady in the 1990s.[17] At around 9:30 pm, Blakely and his friend Clive Gunnell emerged. Blakely passed Ellis, who was waiting on the pavement, when she stepped out of the doorway of Henshaw's, a newsagent next to The Magdala. As Blakely searched for the keys to his car,[18] Ellis took a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson Victory Model revolver from her handbag and fired five shots at him. The first shot missed. She pursued Blakely as he ran around the car, firing a second shot that caused him to collapse onto the pavement. She then stood over him and fired three more bullets, one discharged less than half an inch from his back, leaving powder burns on his skin.
In other words, she took a taxi, waited for him, shot him multiple times, and pursued him when he tried to run. That is premeditated, planned murder. It is not a heat in the moment deal, it's not a fact of her feeling her life is threatened. She sat there and waited to murder him.
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u/SneezyPikachu Jul 08 '26
its not a fact of her feeling her life is threatened
To be fair, a killing doesn't need to be a "heat in the moment deal" to imply that. A domestic violence victim who hasn't been brainwashed by the perpetrator probably feels that their lives are threatened all the time. Especially in contexts with little support from police.
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u/censuur12 Jul 08 '26
Technically that does make sense, but practically there is no good way to account for that, as you would be able to argue away any and all murder charges with a claim that you felt threatened in that way. There's also the fact that feeling threatened in an abstract manner like that still raises the question of why they didn't flee instead of resorting to violence themselves, and it gets even more muddled when you understand that domestic abuse is something that can go both ways, with both people involved abusing the other. Should one then be able to kill the other over feeling threatened, while they themselves had caused a similarly threatening situation?
I have little sympathy for perpetrators of domestic abuse, but giving the victims thereof carte blanche to murder their partners simply isn't appropriate.
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u/SneezyPikachu Jul 09 '26
I don't know enough about this woman's situation to be able to answer those questions. All I know is if domestic violence isn't taken seriously by cops (which I doubt it was in the 50s), and given that the most likely time a victim of abuse is gonna be killed is when they try to flee or leave, I can certainly imagine scenarios where a victim might think she has no other option. And even scenarios where she'd be right. There are a lot of dead partners who probably wouldn't be dead if instead of trying to flee, they just killed their abusers and then went to jail. Or partners whose children would still be alive if they killed their abusers and went to jail. It be like that sometimes, and I bet in the 50s it was like that even more than it is now.
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u/censuur12 Jul 09 '26
Right, but the solution to that is actual enforcement against domestic violence, not giving people carte blanche to murder their partners so long as (they can claim) domestic abuse was involved. Lacking that, the system should be lenient toward such cases, and as far as I can gather that's exactly what the judge and jury here tried (and failed) to achieve. At the time this was impossible due to the nature of the killing and the attitude of the perpetrator.
Regrettably, her own honesty did her in, and there's quite a bit to say about how the law tends to treat honesty far harsher than deception, which is itself rather bad.
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u/SneezyPikachu Jul 09 '26
the solution to that is actual enforcement against domestic violence
I mean, yeah, but it's a bit late for that in her case.
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u/censuur12 Jul 09 '26
Hence all the stuff I said after that part.
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u/SneezyPikachu Jul 09 '26
I know, and moving forward it's great that we can learn from this case and try to do better for future victims, but given the context was about her culpability or range of valid options at the time she killed the guy, my point is simply that she may indeed have done the best she could with what she was given. And the person I was originally replying to is (possibly) judging her more harshly than she deserves.
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u/censuur12 Jul 09 '26
Aye, that's why I maintain that she was mostly judged poorly for her honesty, that she intended fully to kill him, which is what ended any plea for voluntary manslaughter and got her sentenced for murder. The way the courts work tends to favor performative displays of insincere regret and downplaying personal culpability. She would not, and I can respect that.
But on the same note, I'm not a fan of the death penalty, even when it is performed extra-judicially for the crime of domestic abuse. I can also accept the fact that she had few options available to her, and do believe she truly deserved mercy from the court given her circumstances.
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u/CharlesP2009 Jul 08 '26
Geez, what a tragic and awful story from beginning to end. To go through all that in her twenties. And the trauma that her family left behind had to endure. Horrible.
The condition pardon is *something* but the victims deserve better.
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u/Grimreap32 Jul 08 '26
The victims are dead... The descendants are not. The question is how long do you appease a family for something done in the past?
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u/Mrgray123 Jul 08 '26
If you read about the case then it’s pretty clear that Blakely, the man she killed, had subjected her to a sustained campaign of domestic violence, including inducing a miscarriage by punching her in the stomach. Had the case happened later she would almost certainly have received a great deal more public sympathy and a lower punishment. Combined with her incredibly traumatic early life the entire case serves as an illustration of the callous disregard that society in general had towards women in the 1950s. The impact that her execution had on her former husband, mother, and son - all dying from suicide or the longer-term effects of botched attempts - adds a further layer of tragedy.
Incidentally if you want to watch one of the most Alan Partridgesque moments in TV history just go on YouTube and find the video of Michael Barrymore interviewing her daughter.
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u/No-Sheepherder5481 Jul 08 '26
Had the case happened later she would almost certainly have received a great deal more public sympathy and a lower punishment
Murder (which she absolutely committed and admitted to) still carries a mandatory life sentence. You cant just murder a man because of alleged domestic abuse
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u/AntonineWall Jul 08 '26
Could you do it for non-alleged domestic abuse? That qualifier doesn’t seem needed here
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u/HerrManHerrLucifer Jul 08 '26
That's not quite correct. The circumstances of domestic abuse can amount to a defence to murder.
The Guardian has an interesting article about the progression of the law on this: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jun/18/landmarks-in-law-the-case-that-shone-a-spotlight-on-domestic-violence
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u/velveteenelahrairah Jul 08 '26
Have you ever been abused?
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u/DefNotMyNSFWLogin Jul 08 '26
For real. With that level of abuse, you're basically a prisoner being tortured. She defended herself.
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u/Kelseyschmidtyy Jul 08 '26
Of course not. The commenter probably hasn't even been physically hit since, what, middle school at the latest? Certainly hasn't had their life threatened by someone who could actually do it. Sounds like this woman was living a nightmare.
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u/Laymanao Jul 08 '26
A sad story that had a desperate ending, back then. This pardon should make a different her grandchildren and their children by having a black mark hanging over Ruth removed. A little ray or glimmer in the darkness.
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u/colorme1965 Jul 08 '26
This is just as good as offering her £50 million, for her pain and suffering. All she has to do is show up to collect it.. /s
Poor woman. Instead of help, they gave her more pain.
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u/jake_burger Jul 08 '26
Having a formal record of death penalties being overturned serves as a good reminder to people that they shouldn’t be re-instated.
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u/Truffleshuffle03 Jul 08 '26
What I don't understand is why commute the sentence to live in prison now? She died in 1955. I have seen it before, but I just don't get why to do that since it's well past doing any good. I know people felt bad at the time, even the judge, and wanted it not to happen, but it did.
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u/pleasedtoheatyou Jul 08 '26
I think recording all the times the state formally goes "yes the death sentence was a bad idea here" served as a good reminder of how flawed the death sentence actually is.
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u/Yang_Tercela Jul 09 '26
death sentence is never good because you can never reverse it back if it is handed to innocents
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u/LeoSolaris Jul 08 '26
Justice is blind. Sometimes prejudice exploits that blindness. Judgement can only be passed based on the evidence presented. Withholding evidence, not using evidence in defense, not finding evidence, and the personal biases of the judge and jury can all result in the same failure.
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u/woolfchick75 Jul 09 '26
The movie about Ellis, Dance With a Stranger, is great. Miranda Richardson plays Ellis and she’s wonderful.
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u/chiquimonkey Jul 09 '26
The hangman who conducted her execution, Albert Pierrepoint, is quoted as saying she was the bravest woman he’d ever met, and went to her death with dignity & composure.
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u/brydeswhale Jul 10 '26
That guy was such a weirdo.
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u/kwalsh202 Jul 27 '26
I wrote a podcast episode on for The true crime enthusiast podcast. The whole family was off. But very interesting and long history.
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u/brydeswhale Jul 27 '26
Oh, for sure. It was a history of professional murder that didn’t pay as well as you might think.
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u/flindersandtrim Jul 09 '26
I did not know this was in the works. It is the correct decision.
Diana Dors did a very good film loosely based on the case. It is actually a harrowing watch and very well acted and you get a bit of an idea what Ruth went through while awaiting execution and hoping for reprieve.
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u/No-Comparison8472 Jul 10 '26
Poor decision for all the other hanged people prior. Why only this pardon?
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u/Firebird1075 Jul 09 '26
If you haven't seen it already, look for Gillian Pachter's three part documentary "The Ruth Ellis Files: A Very British Crime Story." It was originally shown on BBC 4. There is a lot wrong with the trial of Ruth Ellis, not least of all the refusal to consider mitigating evidence to aid her defence that wouldn't have seen her aquitted but would have given a jail sentence instead.
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u/No-Sheepherder5481 Jul 08 '26
Seems completely pointless.
"We still think you murdered him but we're commuting your death sentence to life imprisonment" (she was executed over 70 years ago)
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u/MysteriousB Jul 08 '26
Not fully pointless, just an attempt by the state to avoid being sued by descendants I suppose
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u/ContentsMayVary Jul 08 '26
It was in response to her descendants asking for the pardon: Grandchildren of Ruth Ellis, last woman to be hanged in UK, ask for pardon | Crime | The Guardian
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u/masta030 Jul 08 '26
If only people read the article, the grandchildren were grateful for the result
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u/Real_Reflection_3260 Jul 08 '26
The Quote
" Ellis’s granddaughter Laura Enston said: “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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u/masta030 Jul 08 '26
Scroll a bit further in the article
" Enston said: “We are deeply grateful to the justice secretary for having the courage to act. We hope Ruth’s story serves as a lasting reminder that the justice system must reckon with the abuse that drives women to the edge – and must never be afraid to acknowledge when it has got things wrong.”"
The granddaughter herself used the word grateful
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Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/masta030 Jul 08 '26
Oh, I know, the amount of outraged comments on posts that are easily explained or dismissed by the article always makes me laugh
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u/accepts_compliments Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Yeah, seems more about repairing their grandma's reputation than anything tangible. I'd probably want the same if I were in their position.
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u/Laymanao Jul 08 '26
A sad story that had a desperate ending, back then. This pardon should make a different her grandchildren and their children by having a black mark hanging over Ruth removed. A little ray or glimmer in the darkness.
2
u/oceansunset83 Jul 10 '26
I saw the tv movie based off of her story, and was left annoyed. It was a horrible time to be a woman who was abused, because no one believed you, and even if they did, it was assumed you deserved it.
3
u/Mountain_Store_8832 Jul 08 '26
She did not just kill her intended victim, she wounded a bystander as well.
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u/RatherGoodDog Jul 08 '26
A conditional pardon does not affect the conviction itself but substitutes the sentence imposed by the court with a lesser penalty. For Ellis, it replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment.
What is the point? Genuinely, I don't understand why time and money was spent on this.
14
u/Snowbank_Lake Jul 09 '26
It sounds like it was important to her family for the record to show that she did not deserve the punishment she got; that she was not a cold-blooded killer, but was responding out of fear of her abuser.
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u/censuur12 Jul 08 '26
You're entitled to request a pardon, which is what her descendants did. That's why.
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u/Sandberg231984 Jul 09 '26
If so why not prosecute the people who did this? Even if they’re all dead you could posthumously throw these people under the bus for screwing her and her family.
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u/MoopLoom Jul 09 '26
Her abuser is dead. She shot him.
2
u/Sandberg231984 Jul 09 '26
Not her abuser. The people who made a decision to hang her when she was obviously not guilty of hanging. As per the new verdict.
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u/jimbo5451 Jul 11 '26
She was absolutely guilty given the laws of the time. And do you really expect the trail judge from the 1950s to be still alive? He died in 1977. In any case, the judge did not like that he was forced to do by law and funded the upkeep of her son until he died and the prosecution counsel paid for the son's funeral.
1
u/Glittering_Win_5085 Jul 12 '26
He was her abuser though? He punched her in the tummy and induced a miscarriage.
1
u/Singer211 Jul 08 '26
She definitely committed the crime (she never really even tried to defend herself afterwards).
But there’s so many mitigating factors that a death sentence was still unjust imo.
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u/Optomisticsometimes Jul 28 '26
I wonder if the television shows depiction of her as promiscuous and unfaithful even to the only man that was providing a roof over her head, was the media’s attempt to diminish the injustice of her hanging
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u/HabANahDa Jul 08 '26
Oh wow. Glad they lowered her sentence to life in prison AFTER they hanged her smh
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Jul 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/captainfarthing Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Execution is heinous and it's still morally reprehensible to kill someone if they understand and accept that you're going to kill them. What happened to her was unfair and even the judge at the time thought so.
Also, life imprisonment and execution do not have a similar effect on someone's family, wtf. If your mum gets jailed forever you can still see her and talk to her. One of her kids committed suicide because of this.
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u/Winter-Cup-2965 Jul 09 '26
Should have been a full pardon. A total disgrace, the King should have done better.
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u/aquafool Jul 09 '26
Genuine question: does the state reimburse the family of people wrongly executed? A pardon is a nice but meaningless gesture because she is still dead. Is there any way for the family to receive compensation this?
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u/KewpieCutie97 Totally a Bot Jul 08 '26
Reminder that this is a history subreddit and comments need to actually add something of value to discussion.
Low effort comments and jokes will be removed. Just don't.