Council couldn’t block Ellie Butler ruling

British social services bosses say lawyers advised them that they “couldn’t have appealed” when a senior family court judge ruled that Ellie Butler should return to live with the father who had been accused of hurting her.

Bosses in the London Borough of Sutton said they had “strongly contested” the decision made by Mrs Justice Hogg four years ago after a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London. But a spokesman said lawyers had advised that there were “no grounds” for a legal challenge in the Court of Appeal.

Ellie died in October 2013, aged six, after being found injured at her home in Sutton, south-west London, about a year after Mrs Justice Hogg ruled that she should return to parents Ben Butler and Jennie Gray.