Coroner ‘ignored evidence’ on tragic Ellie, 6
THE grandfather of murdered six-yearold Ellie Butler yesterday accused a coroner of whitewashing failings that allowed her father to take her life.
Ben Butler beat the girl to death at home after a court returned her to his care.
But at the conclusion of an inquest yesterday, the coroner said she could not say that ‘any acts or omissions’ contributed to Ellie’s death.
Butler and Ellie’s mother, Jennie Gray, had lost custody of their daughter but regained it in 2012 after duping a judge into thinking they posed no threat.
Her grandfather, Neal Gray, had told Family Court officials of the danger posed by Butler and Gray, whom he had disowned.
At a press conference yesterday Mr Gray and his legal team indicated they were considering a judicial review. ‘I believe the agencies involved with Ellie’s care have blood on their hands,’ said the 72-year-old.
‘They were not called to account in the coroner’s conclusions despite the fact that they accepted they had let Ellie down.’
He said the inquest was an ‘opportunity missed’ and the coroner – retired High Court judge Dame Linda Dobbs – had ‘looked at the case blindly’.
Mr Gray added: ‘She disregarded all the evidence that was given to her by all the parties.’
He and his wife Linda had fostered Ellie since she was a baby after Butler was found guilty of shaking her in 2009.
However, Butler’s stubborn legal challenges led to him being acquitted on a technicality by the Court of Appeal in 2010.
He and Gray took their mendacious campaign to the Family Court, where they successfully persuaded Mrs Justice Hogg to return Ellie to them. Within a year Ellie had died from catastrophic injuries.
The two-week inquest into Ellie’s death in Sutton, south London, in October 2013, ended yesterday with Dame Linda concluding she was unlawfully killed by her father.
After hearing hours of detailed evidence from all the agencies concerned, the packed court was braced for a damning review of the failures that led to the tragedy.
The inquest at Croydon Coroner’s Court had received detailed submissions from eight separate legal teams, including a clutch of QCs.
A serious case review had highlighted a number of failings in the case.
But Dame Linda left the court stunned as she merely read out a timeline of the case, followed by her conclusion – a single 46-word sentence.
She said she had been ‘unable to conclude that any acts or omissions by the relevant agencies possibly or probably contributed to the death’.
The coroner had said the hearing would examine whether there were failures on the part of the local authority, social workers and schools.
In her conclusion, however, she did not explain or even refer to where she thought these processes might have broken down. In a solitary reference to the Family Court, Dame Linda appeared to blame social workers for not challenging Mrs Justice Hogg’s decision to exonerate Butler, 37.
He is serving life with a minimum term of 23 years after he was convicted of murder.