Ben Butler will serve a minimum of 23 years in prison for murdering his young daughter - with a judge warning him he may 'never' be released.
The death of Ellie was in a London court described as "horrific," with her 36-year-old killer being in turn cited as a "self-absorbed, ill-tempered, violent, domineering man".
He inflicted "car-crash-like" injuries on the child and then waited two hours before calling emergency services - something the court heard was “deceit” on a “breathtaking” level.
Father jailed for life with minimum term of 23 years for murdering his six-year-old daughter Ellie Butler https://t.co/r52sTjzbTA
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) June 21, 2016
Sickeningly, along with Ellie's mother Jennie Gray, Butler set up a younger sibling who was in the house at the time of the murder to “discover” the child's body in her bedroom before calling an ambulance.
Today, a jury came to an unanimous decision, declaring that unemployed Butler “consistently teetered on the edge of a violent loss of temper”.
Ben Butler sentenced to life for the murder of daughter Ellie https://t.co/rn8IWbgKzG
— Metro (@MetroUK) June 21, 2016
He killed six-year-old Ellie in a rage when minding her alone at their south-west London home in October 2013.
She had been returned to her parents' care just 11 months earlier following the quashing of Butler’s conviction for violently shaking her in 2007 when she was a a seven-week old baby.
Gray was also jailed for 42 months for child cruelty as well as her part in covering up her daughter’s murder.
Both had denied the charges and as the verdict was delivered this afternoon, Butler "mumbled angrily" while Gray said: “Big mistake, big mistake, big mistake,” reports theguardian.com.
Ellie's heartbroken grandfather had previously described the child as "a very beautiful, bubbly and intelligent little girl who always had a smile on her face, and even at such a young age she was nobody’s fool.
"She was our life and she gave so much pleasure to us and our family too; how we all miss her.”
