Life for father who battered his daughter, 6, to death just a year after winning custody
AN EVIL father who beat his six-year-old daughter to death a year after a judge ruled he posed “no risk” to her was jailed for life yesterday.
Ben Butler smashed little Ellie’s skull in a fit of violent rage and tried to cover up the crime.
With the help of her wicked mother Jennie Gray, he placed Ellie’s lifeless body by an upturned stool and claimed she killed herself by falling out of bed.
In a final act of breathtaking callousness, the couple even let Ellie’s younger sibling find her body before Gray rang 999.
Doctors described Ellie’s head injuries as similar to a victim of a car crash.
In the last days of her life, the little girl had been in agony after her father broke her shoulder blade in a brutal beating.
Tragic Ellie’s murder came just 11 months after Butler and Gray, of Sutton, south London, won custody of the little girl following a high-profile court battle.
She had been brought up by her grandparents after Butler was jailed for violently shaking her when she was just seven weeks old in 2007.
Butler was jailed for 19 months but the conviction was quashed in 2010 when new evidence suggested her head injuries were caused by a traumatic birth.
Chilling
Two years later, a High Court judge granted custody to Butler and Gray.
Mrs Justice Hogg even gushed how it was a “happy ending” and added: “It is a joy for me to oversee the return of a child to her parents.”
But Neal Gray, Ellie’s grandfather, made the chilling prediction: “You will have blood on your hands.”
Just 11 months later, Ellie, who was happy with her grandparents and often cried pining for them, was dead.
Butler had even portrayed himself as an innocent victim of a miscarriage of justice during an interview with Eamonn Holmes on ITV’s This Morning.
Butler, 36, who had convictions for violence and robbery, was told he must spend at least 23 years in jail before he can be considered for parole after an Old Bailey jury found him guilty of murder. But Mr Justice Wilkie warned him: “You may never be released.”
Butler pointed menacingly at the judge and angrily muttered under his breath before being led to the cells. In four-letter outbursts during his trial, the killer had claimed he was the victim of an establishment conspiracy.
Former removals man Butler and graphic designer Gray, also 36, were found guilty of child cruelty for failing to get medical aid for Ellie’s shattered shoulder.
Ex-bit part actress Gray, who appeared briefly on EastEnders and The Bill, admitted trying to pervert the course of justice by lying to police about Ellie’s death. She wept as she was jailed for 42 months. Social workers were partially hampered by Mrs Justice Hogg’s order in 2012 which stated, “Neither parent poses any physical risk” to the little girl.
Alex Clark, headteacher of the school that Ellie attended for 10 months, said they “had concerns” about her welfare but found the parents “very difficult”.
A neighbour told ITV News how Butler was violent, saying: “They used to go out, get drunk then in the silly hours of the morning he’d start on Jennie.”