Ben Butler trial: Father 'walked the dog before calling 999 for injured daughter'

Ben Butler: The father said he took out some rubbish before calling 999 for Ellie
David Crump/Daily Mail
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A father accused of beating his six-year-old daughter to death said he walked the dog and took out the rubbish before calling 999, the Old Bailey heard.

Ben Butler, 36, told jurors he had “made a mistake” by not calling for an ambulance immediately after finding young Ellie badly hurt on her bedroom floor.

The former car salesman, accused of murdering her in a violent rage, told the court today he found her lying prone on the floor with her eyes open.

Butler claims to have attempted to resuscitate Ellie, and then in a panic called his partner Jennie Gray, 36, to ask her to come home from work.

Even after Gray got home, around an hour after Ellie had been injured, Butler said he still did not call for help as he was panicking.

He said he picked up a bag of rubbish and a towel that had Gray’s blood on it, and took them out to bins near to their family home in Sutton.

“I said I need to get some air, I felt I couldn’t breathe”, he said.

“I walked the dog and I chucked the rubbish away.

“I wanted to get some fresh air and try not to face, eventually, calling an ambulance and going through it.”

Butler said he was “in a daze” adding: “I walked the dog and I picked the dog s**t up, I didn’t want to go back and didn’t want to face what was going to happen.”

He said Gray regularly suffered bouts of bleeding, meaning her blood was on a towel, but he assumed the police would believe it was Ellie’s blood.

“As I walked past, I took the towel with blood on it, in a panic I thought they would think it was Ellie’s blood.

“I was already assuming at this point I was going to get the blame – and I was vindicated as I was blamed before anyone knew what had happened.”

The prosecution say Butler has a volatile temper and lashed out at Ellie in a fit of rage on October 28 2013.

Jurors have been told he was jailed for 19 months in 2007 for attacking Ellie when she was just seven weeks old, but his conviction was quashed on appeal.

The couple eventually, in November 2012, won a court battle to have Ellie returned to them after she had been taken into foster care. But within 12 months she was dead.

Butler has accepted during his evidence that he should have called an ambulance immediately, but claimed he was fearful of being blamed for Ellie’s injuries again.

“The biggest mistake I made was trying to cover up what we did wrong, giving other people the opportunity to say you have done something wrong”, he said.

“I didn’t do anything wrong to Ellie but by not calling an ambulance and not watching her, we tried to hide that part of it.

“That was the biggest mistake and made us look suspicious.”

Describing finding Ellie’s body, Butler said he called her to have some cake but there was no reply.

He went to investigate and found her on the floor by the wardrobe with her eyes wide open, he said.

“I'm sorry I let you down. It took all the breath away from my body. I did not expect to see that”, he said.

“I tried to shake her. She didn't respond to what I did. I tried to breathe in her mouth. It just took the wind out of my sails. I still don't know why I didn't do more."

Butler, of Sutton, south-west London, denies murder and child cruelty. Gray denies child cruelty but has admitted perverting the course of justice after Ellie's death.

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