Bruised and bandaged, the girl ‘ battered to death by daddy’
HAUNTING images of the bruised face of a six-yearold girl were shown yesterday to a jury charged with ruling if her father murdered her.
Ellie Butler was caught on camera in three apparently accidentally recorded clips just a few seconds long in the months before death.
Two of the clips show the little girl with a black eye and what appears to be bruising to her forehead as she holds her face towards the lens.
In another video she can be seen wearing pink pyjamas with a heavy bandage wrapped around her lower right leg.
As the camera pans around, her father, Ben Butler, 36, is captured shouting foul-mouthed abuse down the phone.
Ellie does not react as he booms: ‘Don’t ask me to do something which you ain’t ****ing done.’ He adds: ‘Then sort it out. Now **** off.’
Butler is accused of murdering his daughter in a moment of rage after he was left to look after her at their home in Sutton, South London. He is suspected of killing her with several blows to the head.
The prosecution alleges that Ellie suffered ‘significant fractures’ to her skull as well as a fatal brain injury, and that her injuries were similar to those caused by a ‘high speed’ car crash.
The stay-at-home dad was a violent and controlling bully who created a ‘toxic’ environment, the jury has been told.
Butler was convicted of assaulting Ellie after she was taken to hospital with serious head injuries in 2007 when she was only six weeks old. His conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in June 2010 but by then Ellie had been fostered.
Butler and his partner Jennie Gray, also 36, began legal proceedings to have Ellie returned to their care. She was handed back to them in November 2012. Less than 11 months later, on October 28, 2013, she was dead.
Yesterday, the Old Bailey jury was shown the three video clips by prosecutors who say they illustrate the atmosphere in the home. Ellie’s face is recorded in two clips of just a second and two seconds in length. She is shown standing still in silence
‘Violent and controlling’
with her eyes closed. The third clip, which is 12 seconds long, captures the floor and the lower half of Ellie’s body as her father rants in the background.
Still in the same pose with her eyes closed, she has a white bandage wrapped around her right leg and is wearing pink shoes and pink-and-white pyjamas.
The clips, recorded on an unknown date, were found on a Samsung camera in a chest of drawers in her parents ‘ bed- room. Butler and Gray are also accused of child cruelty over an untreated shoulder injury suffered by Ellie in the weeks leading up to her death.
After her death a pathologist discovered she had suffered a broken shoulder several weeks earlier. The prosecution says she did not receive any medical care.
Jurors have also been read dozens of vile text messages showing Butler’s relentless abuse of Gray as she went to work as a graphic designer.
She remained devoted to him and asked about their relationship by police, said: ‘[It is] very strong. I would describe it as very loving. He is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.’
Butler was the only adult present when Ellie died and he claims it was the result of an accident. He told police he had been the victim of a ‘miscarriage of justice’.
Butler, denies murder and child cruelty. Gray denies child cruelty. She has admitted perverting the course of justice. The trial continues.