London (AFP) — The grandchildren of the last woman to be executed in Britain have called for Ruth Ellis to be pardoned, 70 years after she was sent to the gallows for murdering her “abusive” lover, their lawyers said Wednesday.

Ellis, a 28-year-old nightclub hostess, was hanged in July 1955 for shooting dead racing driver David Blakely as he came out of the Magdala pub in London.

The case gripped Britain and was turned into the 1985 film “Dance with a Stranger” starring Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett.

Four of Ellis’s six grandchildren have formally applied to Justice Minister David Lammy for a posthumous pardon.

The application highlights the “repeated and long-standing sexual, emotional and physical abuse Ellis suffered” at the hands of Blakely legal firm Mischon de Reya, which

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