Hate-filled letter sent by child murderer Ben Butler to his daughter Ellie’s grandparents
He wrote: “I will get you and find you and find out where you and your family all live.”
EVIL Ben Butler sent a threatening and abusive letter to tragic Ellie’s maternal grandparents, telling them: “You f*** with me you f****** c***”.
The vile note was sent by murderous Butler during a custody battle over his six-year-old daughter as her doting grandparents fought to keep her.
Butler penned the hate filled note and wrote: “I will get you and find you and find out where you and your family all live.”
He wrote the poisonous letter in June 2008 as Neal and Linda Gray spent their £70,000 life savings in a battle to keep Ellie, reports.
Little Ellie was put into the care of Mr Gray and his late wife when jobless Butler, 36, was accused of shaking her as a baby.
But when that conviction was quashed the loving couple were forced to hand the little girl back to her Butler and their daughter Jennie.
Ellie barely knew her parents as she had been taken away from them when she was still a newborn.
In a two-and-a-half year period when Ellie was living with her grandparents, Mr Gray said Butler visited Ellie just twice - while her mum only visited four times.
But when Mrs Justice Hogg returned Ellie to the care of abusive Butler she gushed it was a “happy end”.
Following that decision Neal warned the family judge she would have “blood on his hands”.
Within a year of returning to the ‘house of horrors’ Ellie would be dead.
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Today, in an emotional interview with This Morning, a tearful Mr Gray said he “hates” his daughter Jennie after she “destroyed many lives”.
He said he longer counts the murdered girl’s mum as his daughter and referred to her as Butler’s partner.
Mr Gray said: “She’s not my daughter anymore because how can you accept any offspring as your own after they have committed such a terrible crime?
“I hate her. I hate her for everything she done. She has destroyed many lives. My wife died on the first day the court case started. I think if all the stress hadn’t been brought on then my wife would still be here.”
He added: “We tried to fight it tooth and nail but every time we protested, we were told we were trouble makers, or elderly, or not worthy of looking after children. We found it very devastating.
“It was the best years of our lives, looking after her and we thought, as special guardians, we would have her until she was 18. We treated her like our own daughter.”
Butler was yesterday jailed for 23 years while Ellie’s mum Jennie, 36, was convicted of child cruelty and handed a 42 months sentence.
During the trial it emerged Jennie Gray had faked a 999 call for help after finding her daughter’s lifeless body at their home in Sutton.
The haunting call was made up to two hours after Ellie’s death – and acted out by the parents who knew their daughter was dead.
Speaking today Mr Gray said child killer Butler is “one nasty person” and described a meeting with him where Butler went “berserk”.
Mr Gray – who has called for a public inquiry into her death - said: “He started shouting and swearing at my wife.”
He last saw Ellie the day before she died during a 30-minute visit at a McDonald's in Sutton, south London.
He said: “She wasn't the Ellie we knew. She had bruises on her forehead and her face and scratches, her hair was all bedraggled, she had odd shoes, odd socks, clothes and she looked as though she'd been dragged through the back of a hedgerow."
Ellie died after suffering a string of injuries, including a broken shoulder, during months of physical abuse at her father's hands.
Butler's convictions for attacking Ellie as a baby were quashed on 17 June 2010 as new medical evidence called into question whether a jury could be sure of Butler's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.
As the pair were sentenced yesterday, Gray cried out “we’ll be back” as they vowed to prove their innocence.
They held hands, looked each other in the eyes and exchanged their final words before the jury of eight women and four men returned their verdicts after two days of deliberations.
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