HOW COULD SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE FAILED ELLIE? ‘Behind closed THE EVIL DAD doors he displayed psychopathic traits’

Last week, evil Ben Butler, 36, was jailed for life for the murder of his daughter, Ellie, six, in October 2013. Ellie’s mum Jennie Gray was also sentenced to three and a half years for child cruelty, while Ellie’s heartbroken maternal grandad Neal Gray,

After twisted Butler was cleared on appeal in 2010 for violently shaking his daughter at seven weeks old, he brazenly went on TV to say he was a “victim of a miscarriage of justice,” despite going on to carry out attacks on Ellie. And when he was jailed for her murder last week, he mumbled angrily “big mistake.”

Elizabeth Yardley, Associate Professor of Criminology at Birmingham City University, says Butler’s behaviour is typical of someone with psychopathic traits. She says: “We all want to assume no parent would be capable of carrying out such horrific crimes against a child. But in Butler’s case we’re dealing with someone extremely narcissistic who only cares about himself and the image he’s portraying. He wanted to appear the perfect family man, which explains his five-year battle to win back custody. For him family is a performance rather than a genuine connection to others. But behind closed doors he had no concept of the pain he was causing as he simply does not experience emotion in the way most people do. Butler displays psychopathic traits; he had no emotional attachment to his daughter and would not have felt any remorse or guilt over his actions. Someone like Butler is used to being the centre of everything, so he would be unable to care for a child. His life is about doing everything his way and he’ll do anything to ensure that happens.

“Butler would view Ellie in the same way he would a stranger in the street – if she did something that annoyed him she needed to be dealt with. He’s likely to be a person of extremes who either played the loving father or carried out horrific violence. He’d probably have played on the times he appeared to be a good father to Ellie to reel in his partner Gray and keep in control of the relationship. There was no capacity to reflect upon his behaviour or how it has impacted others, it seems all he cared about was getting his own way regardless of the consequences.”