LONDON (Web Desk) – A young girl Ellie Butler who was returned to her violent father by a family court after a long custody battle has been strangled to death by the latter.
The little girl was taken away from father Ben Butler when she still a baby after he was convicted of shaking her less than two months after she was born, the Daily Mail reported.
But – following a dispute over how his trial was handled – Butler’s conviction was overturned and he and his partner Jennie Gray launched a campaign to win Ellie back from the loving grandparents she had been placed with.
In an extraordinary judgement in 2012, family judge Mrs Justice Hogg then accepted the couple’s version of events and went even further than appeal judges by exonerating Butler.
The family judge also took the astonishing step of ordering no further involvement in the case on the part of independent social workers from Sutton council, which had been involved in Ellie’s case from the beginning.
As the judge’s decision came in for strong criticism, it emerged that Ellie’s grandfather, who had been looking after Ellie since she was first removed from her parents, told the court it “may have blood on its hands.”
The judge’s decision came despite Butler’s previous convictions for attempted robbery, witness intimidation and assault and the fact that the couple had repeatedly lied to authorities during case proceedings.
