BY ERIC KING
A father who won a legal battle to have his daughter returned to his care has been found guilty of her murder.
Evil Ben Butler, 36, was sentenced to life in prison today for murdering his six-year-old daughter Ellie in October 2013, 11 months after she was returned to his care. Most disturbing about this case is that Sutton council and the girl’s grandparents fought in vain to prevent it. Butler will serve a minimum of 23 years.
Violent Butler had a history of assault, and was jailed in 2009 after being convicted for violently shaking Ellie. Ellie was subsequently taken into local authority care where she lived with her grandparents. Butler later challenged the court verdict and was successful it getting his conviction squashed.
Following a revocation of the initial verdict by the Court of Appeal , Butler also eventually won a High Court challenge to have Ellie returned to his and his partner’s care in 2012. He murdered her the following year in October 2013.Young Ellie died of “catastrophic” head injuries- a sad ordeal for any young child.
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Her mother, Jennie Gray, was also convicted of child cruelty in relation to an untreated broken shoulder Ellie suffered. She had already pleaded guilty to covering up her daughter’s death and perverting the course of justice. She was sentence to 42 months in prison, but deserved more for the lack of conscience against her own daughter. How any human being can murder their own daughter is beyond belief, and too much to even imagine. Exactly what he was thinking, killing his own daughter. This world , as evil as it is, is too good for some people.
Sutton Council and her grandparents, obviously saw something dangerous about this man, but he had his wicked way. The killing has shocked many in the community of Sutton, with many angry it was allowed to happen at all. Court papers revealed that Butler even tried to stage the boy being found , even though he knew what he had done to his child. The awful killing is one of the reasons the law forbids parents hitting their children, because of how far some take it. Extreme abuse of children is however no reason parents should not be entitled to chastise their kids physically within reason, but this example of wicked madness is indeed disturbing. The father at least has been sentence to life imprisonment for killing his daughter, but this might not be consoling enough for those who saw this coming
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