The pardon for Ruth Ellis is welcome but domestic violence law needs further reform
3 min read
The family of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, has received a measure of justice from this government.
Members of her family petitioned Justice Secretary David Lammy to recognise that had she been tried now, rather than in 1955, she would not have been convicted of murder, let alone executed. Last week, on Lammy’s recommendation, she was granted a conditional pardon by the King. I was pleased to have played a small part in the process by asking about her case in the Commons.
Ruth’s pardon asks that we reflect on what has changed in the past 71 years – but also what hasn’t. Women still face an unequal situation in the courts, and the law on homicide is currently under review. Ruth’s case offers insight into what needs to change.
My interest in her case goes back to my previous career as a crime historian. My research demonstrated the unfairness of certain ostensibly neutral standards of legal defences. Men who killed women were more likely to be successful in arguing that they had been ‘provoked’ than women who had killed men.
There is no doubt that Ruth shot and killed David Blakely on 10 April 1955. Arrested immediately, her trial took place two months later and lasted just over a day. She was hanged within three weeks. Her trial did not hear the reasons why she killed Blakely nor about the circumstances leading up to that night.
Ruth was 28 and mother to two children. She had worked as a model and as a nightclub hostess. The media made much of her ‘scandalous’ past. Blakely, by contrast, was the public-school educated son of a doctor.
After the verdict, however, it became clear that Blakely had been violent towards Ruth. While pregnant, he punched her so hard that she miscarried. On another occasion, her brother said she was “hobbling on two sticks” after Blakely beat her up. She was, in short, a victim of domestic violence.
Since 1955, the law has changed for the better. Only two years after Ruth’s hanging, Parliament passed a law allowing the defence of ‘diminished responsibility’. In 2009, it was made easier for someone in a similar position to Ruth to claim the defence of ‘loss of control’. This allows a murder charge to be reduced to manslaughter when someone kills while in fear of serious violence. This informed Ruth’s conditional pardon and posthumous life sentence.
Ruth’s pardon matters for two reasons. Most immediately, it lifts a weight from her family’s shoulders. They now have affirmation that their grandmother was not a callous murderer but a woman pushed beyond her limits.
More widely, it sends a strong message about the need to better understand the causes and consequences of abuse. We know more about coercive and controlling behaviour and abusers are being prosecuted. However, there is still more to do.
In June, the Law Commission launched a consultation on possible changes to the homicide law. Evidence of the need for change comes from an independent review by Clare Wade KC, and recent academic research that examined 110 homicide cases heard between 2010 and 2024 involving ‘loss of control’ defences.
The research suggests that the need to prove an ‘explosive’ loss of control is at odds with the experiences of women suffering domestic violence and that men are better able to make use of the defence than women. There are parallels with the situation that Ruth faced in 1955. Ostensibly neutral guidelines have given greater advantages to men than to women. The Law Commission’s review addresses this.
I hope it will lead to greater fairness in the courts and better outcomes for today’s victims of domestic violence.
Pam Cox is Labour MP for Colchester and was co-author of ‘Victims and Criminal Justice: A History’
