Overview
- Ellis’s grandchildren have submitted a formal application to Justice Secretary David Lammy for a conditional royal pardon, with the Ministry of Justice saying such bids are considered under longstanding conventions.
- The filing sets out accounts that David Blakely physically and emotionally abused Ellis, including an assault that led to a miscarriage, which the 1955 jury was directed not to treat as a defense.
- At her Old Bailey trial Ellis admitted intending to kill under cross‑examination, the jury returned a murder verdict in about 20 minutes, and the mandatory sentence at the time was death; she was hanged at Holloway Prison.
- The application contends that legal concepts introduced after her case—diminished responsibility and loss of control under the 1957 Homicide Act—would likely have reduced the offense to manslaughter.
- Her family, represented by Mishcon de Reya and Alex Bailin KC, says the execution caused lasting trauma across generations and frames the pardon as a step toward correcting a historical injustice.