The family court judge who ruled that Ellie Butler should be returned to her violent father, who subsequently murdered her, could be required to give evidence at an inquest into the six-year-old’s death, a coroner has said.
At a hearing at Croydon coroner’s court into whether to reopen the inquest into Ellie’s death, senior coroner Selena Lynch said the role of the family court played a key part in the case, and that the judge, Dame Mary Hogg, could be asked to attend.
“My feeling is that the resumption of the inquest is inevitable because there has been a breach of the article 2 (of the Human Rights Act) duty to protect life,” Lynch said.
She added that any investigation of the judiciary raised constitutional issues. She also highlighted the difficulty of a more junior court investigating a higher one.
“How can I investigate a superior court?” Lynch asked.
“The coroner has the power to summon witnesses and compel evidence of investigations. The Ministry of Justice and Mrs Justice Hogg could be required to attend. There is nothing in law to prevent them from being required to attend but a judge would not be compellable,.”
The coroner added that the scope of the inquest would be wide ranging. As well as engaging with the family court she requested evidence from the social workers at Sutton council, the independent social workers from Services For Children (S4C) who supervised Ellie’s return to her parents, the two schools the child attended, her paediatrician, her GP as well as the two hospitals (Chelsea & Westminster and St Helier) where her mother, Jennie Gray, attended after violence from her partner, Ben Butler.
Lynch said she would be exploring systemic issues about information-sharing and recording, the framework of cooperation between independent social workers and the council, the lack of communication in relation to putting together the bigger picture in relation to Ellie and identifying the risk to her.
Lynch said she favoured a public inquiry rather than an inquest to look at the issues arising from Ellie’s death because they were so wide ranging. However, no decision has yet been made about that and the coroner instructed Sutton social services, the S4C social workers and Ellie’s schools and GP to submit reports to her within 56 days.
As far as involving the family court in the inquest, Lynch said she intended to write directly to the secretary of state and would invite Ministry of Justice to engage directly with the coroner’s court.
She added that there were ongoing discussions between the president of the family court, Sir James Munby, and officials involved with the serious case review into Ellie’s death.
The girl’s grandfather Neal Gray welcomed Tuesday’s developments, saying: “I’m pleased things are moving forward, I don’t mind which way things are done, either by an inquest or a public inquiry, as long as the truth comes out about the role of the individuals and organisations involved with Ellie before she was murdered.”
It emerged last week that Jennie Gray had lodged an out of time appeal against her conviction for child cruelty towards Ellie. The coroner said on Thursday that Ben Butler had also lodged appeal papers but that these had been returned for technical reasons.
Butler, 36, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years in June for murdering Ellie. Gray was sentenced to 42 months for child cruelly and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
