Alone, a somewhat tragic figure, Mrs Violet Van Der Elst, for years an active campaigner against capital punishment, stands apart from police officers outside Holloway Priosn in North London, on the day Ruth Ellis was hanged for the murder of David Blakely. Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hung in Britain. Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hung in Britain. Her death gave impetus to the anti-capital punishment lobby to continue to protest against executions. But it was to be nearly ten years before the last hangings in Great Britain, and the final abolition of the death penalty.
