Evil dad Ben Butler guilty of murdering daughter Ellie

A father described as ‘pure evil’ was removed from the dock and vowed to fight for the rest of his life to clear his name as he was found guilty of murdering his six-year-old daughter in a moment of volcanic rage.

Ben Butler, 36, faces life behind bars for battering little Ellie to death less than a year after she was returned to his care following a quashed conviction for shaking her as a baby.

Jennie Gray, also 36, who has appeared as an extra in EastEnders and The Bill, exclaimed ‘big mistake’ as she and her abusive partner were both convicted of child cruelty.

The graphic designer also faces a lengthy jail term for perverting the course of justice after helping Butler to cover up the true circumstances of their daughter’s killing.

The pair staged the scene to make it look like a tragic accident and even forced Ellie’s younger sibling to ‘discover’ her dead body as part of the sickening charade, it can now be revealed.

The little girl was left lying in her bedroom for two hours on 28 October 2013 before her parents phoned for help in a ‘cold-blooded’ 999 call.

Paramedics arrived minutes later to find Ellie already cold.

She had suffered catastrophic head injuries more commonly seen in a high-speed car crash while Butler was looking after her at their home in Sutton, southwest London.

Butler and Gray claimed to be the victims of an elaborate establishment conspiracy following a bitter legal battle to get Ellie back.

But an Old Bailey jury did not believe their string of far-fetched theories, including a fall from a tiny chair as their daughter copied her favourite cartoon character Peppa Pig.

The pair held hands, looked each other in the eyes and exchanged their final words before the jury of eight women and four men returned their verdicts after two days of deliberations.

Mr Justice Wilkie said he would sentence the pair later today.

But Butler was removed from the dock as he ranted of his innocence, shouting: ‘Do it now.’

‘I want to be sentenced now so I can fight in the appeal court to prove this is wrong.’

The full story of how Ellie came to be murdered in their ‘house of horrors’ can be reported for the first time today (Tue).

The jury did not know that before meeting Gray, Butler was involved in another violent relationship with Hannah Hillman, 32.

She told how his eyes would turn ‘smaller and black’ and he would almost foam at the mouth before meting out his savage beatings – once with an iron bar.

Hillman, who was with Butler in 2004 and 2005, said he would get a look of ‘pure evil’ and feared he would kill her when he lost his rag.

He got Gray pregnant soon after meeting her in March 2006 but did not bother to go to the birth.

The first time Butler looked after baby Ellie she suffered radiator burns to her head and hand.

The next time he was alone with her, on 15 February 2007, she was rushed to hospital with severe head injuries that Butler was accused of causing by violently shaking her.

He was found guilty of causing both injuries by a jury and jailed in March 2009 but a High Court judge quashed the convictions on the basis of new medical evidence, without making findings on how the injuries were caused.

By then Ellie was happily living with her loving maternal grandparents, Linda and Neal, who battled along with Sutton Council to keep her and her sibling safe.

But Mrs Justice Hogg exonerated Butler and Gray of any wrongdoing in an extremely rare public ruling in which she spoke of a ‘happy end’ and said: ‘It is a joy for me to oversee the return of a child to her parents.’

In an emotional outburst in court, Ellie’s grandfather Neal Gray is said to have warned her: ‘You will have blood on your hands.’

It can now be revealed Hogg dismissed evidence of domestic abuse, glossed over convictions for violence and overlooked Butler and Gray’s admitted lies.

Butler was jailed in July 2001 for attempted robbery and intimidating witnesses and by 2006 had committed a string of drunken attacks on victims including Hillman.

But the High Court judge believed him when he said he was ‘not that bad’ and accepted Gray’s evidence that regular facial bruising was caused by Botox injections.

Butler and Gray had lied to the authorities about their continuing relationship and tried to pretend he was not the father of Ellie’s younger sibling.

Again Hogg sided with the parents and said: ‘They have carried an intolerable burden for the last five-and-a-half years.’

The judge, who retired weeks before the start of the Old Bailey trial, then ordered Sutton council to tell police, schools and doctors to ‘wipe the slate clean’ for the family and appointed ‘two-man band’ independent social workers to oversee the children’s return to their parents.

The ruling sparked a PR offensive by Butler who convinced newspaper journalists he was a ‘doting dad’ whose daughter had been wrongly torn away from him in a ‘miscarriage of justice’.

He even appeared on This Morning to tell viewers of his six-year battle for justice.

To the outside world he and Gray appeared to be loving parents and their children were always well-dressed, clean and materially well provided for.

Home videos played in court showed family trips to parks, games arcades and fun fairs.

But within the four walls of their home in Westover Close, jobless Butler would become increasingly frustrated in his role as full-time dad and house husband.

‘He was an angry and violent man with a short fuse. The make-up of the man dominated his and his family’s domestic life,’ said prosecutor Ed Brown QC.

The barrister described how Butler was ‘consistently teetering on the edge of a violent loss of temper’ and said of Gray: ‘Her actions flowed from the abusive and violent relationship she had with Butler with her enduring but quite irrational devotion to him.

‘She put Butler’s welfare above all else, including that of her children.’

In desperate internet searches not shown to the jury, Gray revealed how Butler broke her nose and stabbed her in the leg when she was pregnant.

Butler beat her on her birthday and a work colleague described seeing a ‘Tom and Jerry’ type lump on her forehead the following day.

He even attacked her in hospital where she had used a fake name to escape his domestic violence.

Gray was also subjected to an almost constant tirade of vile text messages that police said in itself amounted to a ‘very serious form of abuse’.

The violence was not restricted to his partner, with both children suffering a string of injuries in the short time they spent with their parents.

Butler likened his daughter to the partner he despised and took his daughter to the doctor to have her ears pinned back.

Ellie’s extremely painful broken shoulder went untreated and harrowing video footage showed her with a black eye and bandaged leg as Butler barked down the phone: ‘Now f*** off.’

Then on 28 October 2013 Butler’s sudden loss of temper caused him to inflict devastating injuries on her.

Only he knows how he caused her death at around 12.45pm, but experts believe Ellie could have been hit with a blunt object or thrown against a wall.

Gray was summoned home from work in an office block opposite the court where they would later stand trial.

The pair staged the scene to make it look like an accident, placing Ellie’s little body next to an open wardrobe beside a tiny upturned Disney Princess stool.

Butler disposed of evidence then took the family Jack Russell puppy, Minnie, for a walk to convince neighbours everything was fine.

‘He was going about a cover-up in a calculated, cynical and cold-blooded way,’ said Mr Brown.

The couple then sent Ellie’s younger sibling in to find the body before ringing for an ambulance at 2.46pm – at least two hours after she was killed.

The chilling 999 call in which both parents feign panic was described by the prosecutor as an ‘extraordinary performance’.

Gray even pumped down on the chest of her daughter’s lifeless little body in a doomed attempt at CPR as Butler demanded: ‘What happened?’

The once hopeful actress continued the lie to police when she was interviewed as a witness and told how she had called Ellie down for cake before discovering her daughter.

The performance continued throughout an eight-week trial as Butler claimed he was being ‘tucked up’ by the authorities as revenge for his exoneration over the injuries to Ellie in 2007.

He swore repeatedly as he gave evidence and observers became familiar with his extraordinary courtroom rants in which he blasted police, prosecutors and medical experts.

Obedient Gray nodded along and even rewarded him with mini high fives as he returned to the dock during breaks in the court day.

She stuck to her lines to the letter but Butler was visibly not pleased with her performance and shook his head as she took her seat after a mauling from the prosecutor.

DCI Dave Reid said: ‘In this case the offence is as serious as it can get, it’s a murder.

‘But it’s more than that. This is somebody who, in the minutes and hours after the death of his six-year-old daughter focused exclusively on coming up with a cover story, an account to try and explain away her injuries.

‘I think a lot of people do things in temper or make mistakes and regret it later.

‘That’s quite normal. But what is not normal is to know your six-year-old daughter is lying in her bedroom while you’re ringing up your mate to find out about your bank account or to go to the dustbins to throw away letters and other incriminating evidence. That’s not normal.’

‘It’s not normal for a mother. Undoubtedly she knew from the moment she spoke to Ben Butler when she was still at work that Ellie was either dead or at least really seriously injured.’

Butler, formerly of (14) Westover Close, Sutton, denied murdering his daughter on 28 October 2013.

Gray, formerly of the same address, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice between 27 and 30 October 2013.

The couple both denied cruelty to a person under the age of 16 between 1 August and 29 October 2013.