Gay fitness instructor Matthew Scully-Hicks, 31, was convicted last month of the sickening murder of his 18-month-old adopted daughter Elsie
A £10,000 fundraising appeal to free a child killer a month after he was jailed for murdering his adopted baby has raised just £40.
Gay fitness instructor Matthew Scully-Hicks, 31, was convicted last month of the sickening murder of his 18-month-old adopted daughter Elsie.
But a group of friends in his hometown of Delabole, Cornwall are now trying to raise funds to overturn the verdict and secure his freedom.
Calling themselves the Scully-Hicks Innocence Project (SHIProject), they say they are dedicated to his release after he was jailed for a minimum of 18 years.
Their website and social media pages protesting his innocence have led to outrage among people online – who are calling for Scully-Hicks to ‘receive the death penalty’.
Elsie suffered a catalogue of devastating injuries in the months before her death including a broken leg, bruising to her head, broken ribs and a final catastrophic fractured skull.
She died in May 2016 just two weeks after being officially adopted by Scully-Hicks and his husband at their home in Llandaff, Cardiff.
Scully-Hicks, who has always claimed he did not commit the horrific murder, was unanimously convicted by a jury at Cardiff Crown Court.
Elsie Scully-Hicks died in May 2016 just two weeks after being officially adopted by Scully-Hicks and his husband at their home in Llandaff, Cardiff
After the case it was revealed that a family division court judge had described him as ‘a Jekyll and Hyde’ character.
Jurors heard how he had described the toddler as ‘a psycho’, ‘the exorcist’ and ‘Satan dressed up in a baby grow’ in text messages to friends and family members.
The crowdfunding page set up on Just Giving says the Scully-Hicks Innocence Project is aiming to raise £10,000 to go towards Scully-Hicks’ appeal and legal costs.
So far it has raised just £40 from two donations.
The project website features a long message purportedly written by Scully-Hicks, which reads: ‘I have no explanation other than how I found Elsie that night – Unresponsive and staring ahead on the floor. An image that I will be haunted by forever.’
The article also points to an incident which took place more than two months before the toddler’s final hospitalisation as being a possible cause of her death, when Elsie was taken to hospital after Scully-Hicks called 999 claiming she had fallen down the stairs.
Medical experts told the trial this incident – which a family court judge had previously attributed to another episode of shaking rather than a fall – could not account for the catastrophic injuries Elsie suffered before her death.
The article also discusses evidence given by defence witness Professor Michael Holick, an American endocrinologist who specialises in vitamin D, who said he believed Elsie was deficient in vitamin D and showed signs of having rickets – a diagnosis which was disputed by other medical experts.