Matthew Scully-Hicks: Father found guilty of murdering adopted daughter

Fitness instructor violently shook 18-month-old and struck her in head, fracturing skull

A father has been convicted of murdering an 18-month-old girl less than two weeks after adopting her.

Matthew Scully-Hicks, 31, inflicted a catalogue of injuries – including bruises, a broken leg and a fall down a full flight of stairs – on Elsie in the eight months she was in his care.

She died four days after being violently shaken and struck in the head, leaving her with a fractured skull, in May 2016.

Scully-Hicks, from Delabole, Cornwall, and his husband had formally adopted the toddler just a fortnight earlier.

Cardiff Crown Court heard Scully-Hicks, who broke into tears when the verdict was returned, struggled to cope with parenting and branded the girl “a psycho”, “the exorcist” and “Satan dressed up in a Babygro” in text messages.

Neighbours heard the former lifeguard and fitness instructor shouting “shut the f**k up” at Elsie and calling her a “little f***ing brat” and a “silly little c**t” when she cried.

Elsie Scully-Hicks (PA ) (PA)

Scully-Hicks insisted he never harmed his daughter and claimed he found her unresponsive at their home in Llandaff, Cardiff, on 25 May last year.

But following the trial, which lasted more than four weeks, during which 12 medical experts and six doctors gave evidence, jurors unanimously found him guilty of murder.

The jury returned their verdict on their fourth day of deliberating the case.

An independent child practice review is now under way to examine the “tragic circumstances” of Elsie’s death, a spokesperson for Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan Local Safeguarding Children Board said.

Following the verdict, prosecutor Paul Lewis QC told the court: “Elsie was particularly vulnerable by reason of her age.

“There was a gross abuse of trust on the part of the defendant. We invite the court to bear in mind the nature and the extent of the injuries suffered.

“All the injuries suffered by Elsie in her short life while living with the defendant were deliberately inflicted by him.”

Elsie was taken into care within days of her birth in November 2014. She went to live with the defendant and his husband, Craig Scully-Hicks, 36, in September 2015.

The court heard she was fit and healthy but in the following eight months suffered a string of serious injuries.

She fractured her right leg in November 2015 and suffered bruises to her head in December of that year and again in January 2016. On 10 March, she was taken to the University Hospital of Wales after falling down the stairs.

On the day she suffered her fatal injuries, Elsie’s parent had bought her an outfit to wear at a party to celebrate her adoption.

After finishing her dinner at about 5.45pm, she walked “hand in hand” with Scully-Hicks into the lounge and was changed for bed.

In a 999 call at 6.18pm, he told the operator: “I was just changing my daughter for bed and she went all floppy and limp.”

Mr Lewis said: “We submit this must have been [an attack] that required considerable force in gripping of the child because of the medical evidence of the fractures of the wrist. There must have been forceful shaking.

“There must have been gripping and shaking. Either her head was hit against a hard surface, or a hard object was used to strike Elsie to the head.”

In police interviews and during his evidence, Scully-Hicks said he had left Elsie alone for a few minutes before returning to find her unresponsive.

Police and paramedics arrived at the property at 6.26pm and found Elsie not breathing, with no pulse, in the lounge.

Tests later revealed she had suffered three separate areas of bleeding on her brain, retinal bleeding, a skull fracture and three rib fractures. Elsie died in hospital in the early hours of 29 May.

Scully-Hicks left full-time work to care for Elsie while his husband worked as an account manager.

Mr Lewis said the toddler did not “co-operate” with the routine the couple wanted to put in place, and was difficult at meals and bedtime.

All of Elsie’s injuries allegedly took place when she was alone with Scully-Hicks, who was nicknamed “safety boy” by his husband.

“She was just 18 months old,” Mr Lewis said. “She was defenceless and vulnerable. Elsie Scully-Hicks died because the defendant murdered her.”

Scully-Hicks claimed medical evidence that could explain his daughter’s injuries had not yet been found.

A vitamin D deficiency may have left Elsie’s legs more susceptible to fractures, his barrister told the court.

But the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said evidence from medical experts played a “crucial” part in determining Scully-Hicks’s guilt.

Speaking after Scully-Hicks was convicted of murder, Iwan Jenkins, head of the Complex Casework Unit for CPS Wales, said: “The expert evidence had to be considered in light of showing the mechanical aspect of the injury, how it was caused, the extent of that injury, whether it could be the subject of innocent explanation of children being busy and falling as they often do.”

Mr Jenkins said evidence was also used to analyse “the age of those injuries and whether or not the explanation provided by the suspect, the defendant then, was capable of being correct and true”.