The mother of a six-year-old girl rushed home from work after her husband, who allegedly beat the little girl to death, called her to come home and cover up the murder.
Ben Butler, 36, called his graphic designer wife, Jennie Gray, 35, when she was at her London office in October 2013. The case is currently undergoing a court trial.
It was only 11 months earlier that their daughter Ellie had returned back to the stay-at-home dad after a conviction of him assaulting her when she was a baby was overturned.
A jury heard that six-year-old Ellie suffered head injuries similar to those caused by a fall from a one-storey building or a high speed car crash.
When bullied Jennie received the call to come home, she jumped in a cab. The cab driver, Derek Greenwood, spoke at trial, saying she was desperate to get home.
“I was just trying to refuse the job because it was all the way to Sutton,” he said.
“Then she said ‘would you take me to Sutton, because my child is ill.’”
He later heard her on the phone three-quarters of the way into the journey, saying ‘you’ve gone where? You’ve done what?’
Jennie has admitted she staged the scene and lied to police during the investigation into their daughter’s death, but hasn’t admitted to child cruelty.
Ben says little Ellie’s death was an accident. He was the only adult present in the house at the time.
Forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary believed the head injury Ellie suffered could have been from a caused by a heavy blunt weapon, or from being thrown against a wall or the ground.
The court heard a multitude of injuries inflicted on Ellie, including at least two significant and fatal impacts to the head.
The prosecutor believed Butler committed the act in a moment of rage, and he had an extremely short fuse, always “teetering on the edge of a violent loss of temper”.
Both parents are also accused of child cruelty when Ellie had a shoulder fracture in the weeks prior to her death, and it was left untreated.
The jury heard that Jennie was besotted with her husband, and destroyed evidence to cover up his crime.
CCTV captured Jennie as she left her work moments after the phone call, and her colleagues seemed to gauge there was something seriously wrong.
In 2009, Butler was jailed for 18 months for an alleged 2007 attack on six-week-old Ellie which resulted in severe head injuries. She was taken into care.
His convictions were overturned, and the couple eventually won custody of Ellie.
The trial continues.
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