A postmortem examination of a six-year-old girl allegedly killed by her father showed she suffered skull fractures from at least two severe impacts such as being thrown against a wall or hit with a heavy blunt weapon, a jury has heard.
Ellie Butler’s “devastating” head injuries could not have been caused by an accidental fall, as claimed by her father, Ben Butler, the prosecutor Ed Brown QC told the jury sitting on day two of Butler’s trial at the Old Bailey.
The injuries were more like those sustained in a car crash, expert witnesses have said.
Paramedics found Ellie lying in her bedroom beside a low child’s stool after her parents raised the alarm.
The jury has heard that the call to 999 was made two hours after Ellie suffered her fatal injuries on 28 October 2013.
Her father, who had been home alone with the girl on the day of her death, told emergency services she had fallen, the court has heard.
Brown told the jury that an experienced neurological pathologist concluded that “an accidental fall from, for example, the chair found next to Ellie and close to the wardrobe could not have caused the injuries that Ellie suffered and that killed her”.
Consultant forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary found Ellie’s injuries were like those sustained in a car crash, not a short fall, Brown told jurors.
“The nature and extent of the head injury is wholly incompatible with having occurred accidentally in a domestic environment. Dr Cary has never in his experience encountered an accidental head injury of this severity in a domestic environment,” said Brown.
“In Dr Cary’s opinion, this major head injury was the result of one or more very forceful blunt impacts arising, for instance, through being thrown against a wall or the ground, or struck with a heavy blunt weapon.”
“The areas of bruising and the abrasion over Ellie’s body are consistent with grappling and gripping, including over the jawline and the limbs,” added Brown.
Another expert the prosecution cited found that the two injuries were not consistent with a head-first fall from standing on a chair.
The jury heard that Ellie also had a broken shoulder at least two weeks old for which no treatment had been sought.
Butler, 36, from Sutton, south-west London, is on trial for Ellie’s murder.
He is also accused, with his graphic designer partner, Jennie Gray, 36, of child cruelty towards Ellie over the broken shoulder. Both deny the charges.
Gray has admitted perverting the course of justice by allegedly helping her partner destroy evidence and stage the scene in the two hours after Ellie was fatally hurt.
Brown told jurors it was a “distressing case” of a father accused of murdering his daughter and failing to seek medical help for her earlier injury.
Gray had been “determined and persistent” in trying to protect him by hiding and destroying evidence, he said.
“The father is further accused of failing to seek medical help for his own daughter when she so plainly needed it, someone in that home having been responsible for causing the fractured shoulder blade, accidental causes of this type of injury being exceedingly rare.
“It would have been really painful, at the time and for a period after its infliction and the main carer, her own father, declined to take her to the doctor even,” said Brown.
The trial continues.
