Weeping in court, father accused of shaking adopted daughter to death
A MAN accused of killing his adopted baby wept yesterday as he insisted her injuries were accidental.
Matthew Scully-Hicks, 31, described 18-month-old Elsie as a ‘happy little girl’.
The fitness instructor from Car- diff allegedly subjected her to seven months of assaults and abuse while his husband, Craig, 36, was away, a court heard.
He is then alleged to have killed her in May 2016 by shaking her to death, two weeks after she was formally adopted by the couple.
Yesterday he insisted the injuries had been caused by domestic accidents and denied verbally abusing Elsie while alone with her.
Giving evidence for the first time, he grew emotional as he described Elsie. He said: ‘She was a happy little girl...She always had a smile on her face.’
Cardiff Crown Court heard that on May 25 last year, Scully-Hicks, who was alone with Elsie and her adoptive sibling, phoned 999 to report she was unresponsive.
She was taken to hospital where her heart rhythm was restored. Scans showed recent and older signs of bleeding on both sides of her brain. Her condition worsened, and two days later a decision was taken to turn off her ventilator.
Scully-Hicks, who denies murder, said he met his husband in Swindon in about 2006. They married in 2012, and Scully-Hicks said they had always wanted children. ‘That was
‘She was a happy little girl’
something we were able to agree on very early on,’ he said. ‘We had requested as young as possible.’
He added that although Craig would work away from home, it would never be for longer than two or three nights because he wanted to spend time with Elsie.
He said: ‘We would always do meal times together, bath time and bed time. He wanted to do as much as he could when he was at home.’
Scully-Hicks said they agreed ‘early on’ that he would be the main parent, or primary caregiver, as he remembered how much his mother had been there for him as a child.
Robert O’Sullivan QC, defending, asked him about a time when Elsie fell in the kitchen in November 2015. Scully-Hicks said he was preparing food when Elsie fell from an activity table. He said: ‘I picked her up, gave her a cuddle to console her and checked her over to see if I could see anything obvious, which I couldn’t.’
Scully-Hicks said it was only two days later when he noticed her foot was injured, and he and Craig took her to a doctor. ‘The GP’s conclusion was that she couldn’t see her in any pain,’ he said.
He denied deliberately causing any injury to her right leg.
Elsie came to live with the couple in September 2015 at ten months old. The court previously heard Scully-Hicks had referred to Elsie as a ‘psycho’ and ‘Satan in a Babygro’ in messages sent to Craig.
On November 5, 2015, she hurt her right leg while Craig was at work. Four days later an X-ray revealed a fracture above her right ankle. On December 16, 2015, while Craig was again at work, Elsie sustained a bruise to the left of her forehead.
Following two other incidents, Scully-Hicks told his husband and doctors her injuries were accidents.
The trial continues.