‘Make him stop being angry’: Mum’s prayers reveal turmoil of relationship with murder trial dad
THE MOTHER of murdered 6-year-old Ellie Butler wrote prayers and letters about her "hateful" partner, a court heard.
Stay-at-home dad Ben Butler, 36 is on trial accused of Ellie's murder and of an earlier instance of child abuse. He denies both charges.
He is alleged to have battered his daughter so severely at their Sutton home in October 2013 that the dead girl resembled the victim of a high-speed car crash.
Butler's partner, 35-year-old Jennie Gray also denies child cruelty but has admitted perverting the course of justice by staging the scene and lying to police.
Today a jury was shown numerous letters written by graphic designer Gray, describing her anguish at what the prosecution called a "toxic" relationship.
She wrote in one: "Please let Ben become completely supportive. Do not let it be true about Lauren or anyone else.
"Make him stop being angry, hateful and violent. Make him sorry and willing to be nice."
In another she listed her concerns about Ellie's behaviour.
Among her 10 points were: "lying, not doing as she's told, does not listen or pay attention, constantly answers back, argues, constantly manipulative, feel you can't trust her, acts like a child prior to her years, we feel she is aware she is doing this".
Prosecutors painted a picture of Gray as a partner who would do anything to placate Butler's volatile temper.
The court previously heard how the mum rushed home in a taxi from her job in central London after Butler summoned her on the day of Ellie's death.
Cab driver Derek Greenwood told the Old Bailey: "I heard her say 'you've gone where? You've done what?'"
The jury also heard that togethe Butler and Gray created a "toxic" environment for little Eillie.
In another letter Gray prays for the turmoil experienced by her family to end.
"Dear Jesus, dear beautiful goddess and most (illegible) God," she wrote.
"Please make my home.. Ellie, Ben and I all happy together as a family.
"Please don't let Ben leave me but make him learn to like me. Stop violence and make him WANT ME and be there at the birth if I have a baby boy."
Cops also found a letter addressed "to Jennie" in a suitcase, which read: "I just wanted to tell you I'm proud of how you are doing.
"I know it's hard. Please try harder with your mouth as it's a trigger for me. I would be lost without you."
Yesterday at the trial the jury heard how Ben Butler acted aggresively to emergency services investigating the death, even telling one police officer to "f*** off" at St George's Hospital in Tooting.
PC Steve Stewart told members of the jury yesterday: "I discovered them both to be hostile and unwilling to speak to police until the previous matter was known where they believed there had been a miscarriage of justice."
Butler was jailed in 2007 for harming Ellie when she was just six weeks old, but he won an appeal in 2010 and got her back from foster care 11 months before her death.e said the fallout from Ellie's bleed on the brain explained his aggresion, which saw him shout ""F**k sake, I told you five times," in a 999 call.
Butler, who was the only adult at the pair's Sutton home on October 28, claims that Ellie's horrific injuries were the result of an accident.
But forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary said he had never seen an accidental head injury so severe in a domestic environment.
Ed Brown, prosecuting, said: "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."
Ambulance crew member Penny Robson said the "boggy mass" on Ellie's head was unlike anything she had seen.
She said: "It was completely soft. I was kind of devastated because it is the first time I have ever ever felt that. The whole area was soft. I did not feel any hard area at all."
The trial continues.