Overview
- On 8 July 2026 Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told MPs that King Charles III accepted government advice to grant a conditional pardon for Ruth Ellis, who was hanged in July 1955.
- The pardon swaps Ellis’s death sentence for a notional sentence of life imprisonment but does not overturn her 1955 murder conviction or declare her innocent.
- The Ministry of Justice said new evidence and today’s understanding of coercive control and domestic abuse mean Ellis’s case would likely have been handled differently under modern partial defences such as loss of control or diminished responsibility.
- Four of Ellis’s grandchildren brought the application and were in the Commons for the announcement, saying the pardon recognises a deep injustice and brings some measure of peace to their family after decades of campaigning.
- The decision was made under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, a Crown power exercised on ministerial advice, and could strengthen public and legal focus on how past cases shaped by unrecognised abuse are reviewed.