Last Woman Hanged in UK Pardoned

Ruth Ellis, the last woman executed in Britain in 1955 for killing her abusive lover, has been granted a conditional posthumous pardon.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said the decision aimed to bring a ‘measure of peace’ to her family.

Ellis’s hanging provoked a public outcry and helped turn opinion against the death penalty.

Campaigners had long argued that she was a victim of domestic abuse who should not have been put to death.