Ruth Ellis, last woman hanged in UK, granted posthumous conditional pardon

Ruth Ellis’s pardon recognises that, had her case been heard today, defences such as loss of control or diminished responsibility may have been put before a jury. Photograph: PA

Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, has been granted a conditional pardon in light of evidence that she was a victim of domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour.

Ellis was executed in 1955, aged 28, after she shot and killed her partner, David Blakely, whom she met two years earlier while working in the nightclub she managed.