Father who battered Elsie to death was ‘a Jekyll and Hyde’
Killer’s husband was fooled by pretence, says judge
A FATHER who murdered the 18-month- old girl he had been allowed to adopt is a ‘Jekyll and Hyde character’ who convinced everyone he was a good parent, a High Court judge has concluded.
Matthew Scully-Hicks could have been ‘emboldened’ to carry out repeated violent attacks on Elsie by the failure of medical staff to detect the truth about injuries inflicted up to seven months before her death, according to Mr Justice Moor.
The people fooled by the fitness instructor’s pretence to be a loving parent included his husband Craig Scully-Hicks, who did not suspect anything was wrong, but has since branded him a ‘monster’.
In a ruling released yesterday, Mr Justice Moor cleared Craig of any suggestion that he failed to protect Elsie, saying: ‘There is nothing he could or should have done but I fear he may find that difficult to accept.’
He explained that Craig’s innocence of his gay partner’s true nature was reinforced by social and medical workers who did not take account of a succession of injuries to Elsie or question Matthew Scully-Hicks’s behaviour.
Mr Justice Moor said that after finishing her tea on May 25, 2016, Elsie had been ‘crying and was very difficult to settle. Matthew lost his temper with her as he had done before when nobody else was present. He picked her up and shook her very hard’.
The child suffered cardiac arrest and brain damage before she was thrown to the floor, hitting her head and fracturing her skull. She had been gripped so hard that she had broken ribs. ‘ There was nothing that could be done to save her,’ the judge said.
Matthew Scully-Hicks, now 31, and Craig, 36, were married in 2012 and were approved as adoptive parents. The judge said of Craig, who was working away from home when Elsie suffered the fatal injuries, that ‘if the professionals were not concerned, it would be unreasonable for me to expect a parent who was not present at the time to be concerned’.
He added that he believed Craig had been telling the truth to the family court when he said he was shocked when he learned what his husband had done. The judge said relatives and friends of Matthew Scully-Hicks had all considered him a model citizen and parent and his violence would have shocked his family.
‘It was not the man they knew,’ he said. ‘It was not the man Craig Scully-Hicks knew. I have come to only one conclusion. Matthew Scully-Hicks is a Jekyll and Hyde character. In private, he was quite unable to control himself when Elsie played up.’
Mr Justice Moor’s fact-finding ruling, drawn up in Cardiff 11 months ago, was published after Matthew Scully-Hicks’s trial, which ended earlier this month.
It contains evidence that was hidden from the public until a Cardiff Crown Court jury convicted him of murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 18 years.
Craig Scully-Hicks left his husband after his daughter’s death.