Matthew Scully-Hicks, 31, is accused of killing 18-month old Elsie after ‘assaulting and abusing’ her over several months. He is pictured leaving Cardiff Crown Court today
A father murdered his baby daughter just two weeks after formally adopting her with his gay husband and giving up his job to become a stay-at-home dad, a court heard today.
Matthew Scully-Hicks, 31, is accused of killing 18-month old Elsie after ‘assaulting and abusing’ her over several months.
A court heard Scull-Hicks met his husband Craig – who is about five years older than him – while living in Swindon, Wiltshire, in about 2006.
He originally came from South Wales and the couple relocated to Cardiff in 2010 or 2011.
They married in Portugal in August 2012 and applied to become adopters later that year.
The couple first adopted Elsie in September 2015 and the process was finalised nearly eight months later.
But less than two weeks later little Elsie died after suffering traumatic head injuries.
Cardiff Crown Court was told Scully-Hicks assaulted little Elsie over seven months at his home after taking in the baby with his husband.
She died at University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, after the decision was taken to switch off her ventilator when doctors decided she would not survive her traumatic head injuries.
Prosecutor Paul Lewis QC said Elsie was found unresponsive by paramedics after Scully-Hicks attacked her at his home in Fairwater, Cardiff, on May 25 last year.
Mr Lewis said: ‘The injuries that caused her death were inflicted upon her by the defendant shortly before he called emergency services that day.
‘His attack upon her that day was not the first time he had employed violence towards Elsie, nor was it the first time he had caused her serious injury.
‘His actions on the late afternoon of May 25 were the tragic culmination of a course of violent conduct on his part towards a defenceless child – an infant that he should have loved and protected, but whom he instead assaulted, abused, and ultimately murdered.’
Matthew Scully-Hicks (pictured left with husband Craig to his left) gave up his job to become a stay-at-home dad, a court heard
The court heard Elsie suffered hemorrhages to her brain and behind her eyes.
Scans later showed older bleeds to her brain and behind her eyes and injuries including broken ribs and fractures to her skull.
The tot – described as ‘tiny and delicate’ but with a ‘brash and bouncy’ personality by Craig – was with her new family for less than two months when her right leg was broken in November 2015.
The court heard Matthew Scully-Hicks carried out the alleged attacks on Elsie while his partner Craig kept working full time as a company director.
Prosecutor Mr Lewis said: ‘Craig Scully-Hicks was at work at the time and Matthew Scully-Hicks was home alone with Elsie.
‘When Craig Scully-Hicks got home from work that evening the defendant told him that Elsie had fallen in the kitchen of their home that morning.
‘He said that Elsie had been upset following her fall but he had picked her up and consoled her and she had then ‘seemed fine.’
Matthew Scully-Hicks, formerly of Llandaff, Cardiff, and now of Delabole, Cornwall, denies murder
Matthew Scully-Hicks said that Elsie had fallen while playing at an activity table.
The court heard that Craig became concerned that little Elsie was not fully weight-bearing on the leg so decided she should see a GP.
Matthew Scully-Hicks, formerly of Llandaff, Cardiff, and now of Delabole, Cornwall, denies murder.
Mr Lewis said Elsie was generally ‘well and healthy’ but had been slow in reaching some developmental milestones such as walking.
Mr Scully-Hicks described her physically as being ‘tiny and delicate’ but with a ‘brash and bouncy’ personality, the jury was told.
On November 5 2015, Elsie suffered an injury to her right leg when Mr Scully-Hicks was at work.
She was taken to the doctor four days later and an X-ray at hospital on November 12 revealed a fracture just above her right ankle.
Mr Lewis said Scully-Hicks gave differing accounts of how Elsie suffered the injury to his husband and to doctors.
On December 16, while Mr Scully-Hicks was at work, Elsie sustained a bruise to the left hand side of her forehead.
A health visitor advised Scully-Hicks to take Elsie for treatment on December 21. He allegedly lied that he had done so.
On January 18 2016, Elsie suffered another bruise to her head.
Mr Scully-Hicks received a phone call from his husband on March 10, saying that he was in an ambulance with Elsie as she had fallen down the stairs.
He claimed to have been sorting washing in a bedroom, with Elsie on the floor, before going downstairs – closing the gate behind him.
‘He said he had then seen Elsie at the top of the stairs, that the baby gate had then opened and that Elsie had tumbled down the stairs,’ Mr Lewis said.
Mr Scully-Hicks was working in Leicester at the time but immediately headed to Cardiff, meeting the defendant at the University Hospital of Wales.
Elsie’s injuries were considered to be ‘consistent with a fall downstairs’ and she was discharged home after four hours in hospital, Mr Lewis said.
The trial, expected to last two weeks, continues.
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