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Ellie Butler murder trial is shown a PEPPA PIG video as her father says the six-year-old may have smashed her skull after falling while copying the cartoon animal's leapfrog game

Ben Butler is accused of attacking his daughter Ellie in a violent rage
But his lawyers have suggested she may have died in an accident instead
Jury was shown video of a Peppa Pig DVD showing a leapfrog game

Published: 09:46 GMT, 8 June 2016 | Updated: 13:47 GMT, 8 June 2016

Jurors in the trial of a man accused of murdering his six-year-old daughter were today shown a video of children's cartoon character Peppa Pig.

Ben Butler allegedly attacked his daughter Ellie in a violent rage, killing her - but his lawyers have suggested that she may have died while imitating her favourite television show.

In an attempt to support the theory, prosecutor Icah Peart QC showed the jury a four-minute DVD of Peppa Pig as the character instructs her friends to 'jump up and down' and exclaims 'leapfrog everybody'.

Trial: Ben Butler is accused of killing his daughter Ellie by attacking her in a violent rage

Jurors at the Old Bailey smiled as Peppa bounced around a pretend moon and went to a 'pirate party'.

In other clips, characters play football, go on a boat trip, attend a playground and jump up and down in a muddy puddle.

Butler, 36, from Sutton, in South-West London, denies murder and child cruelty over Ellie's death in October 2013.

His partner Jennie Gray, also 36, has admitted perverting the course of justice in the wake of Ellie's death but denied child cruelty.

After viewing the video, prosecutor Ed Brown QC warned the jurors not to be swayed by 'fanciful or speculative reasoning'.

TV: Jurors in the trial were today shown a short Peppa Pig DVD to support the theory that Ellie's death may have been an accident

In his closing speech, he told them to use their 'collective common sense and experience of life'.

He said: 'Juries do not and should not engage in fanciful or speculative reasoning or entertain fanciful suggestions. That is not the task of a jury.'

He told the jurors to look at the medical evidence together with what was going on in the Butler household at the time.

Butler 'dominated' the family with 'self-centred control' and 'a temper that could break at any moment', he said.

And Ellie's injuries were so 'extreme' and 'catastrophic' that they could not have been the result of an accidental fall in her bedroom, the prosecutor said.

He said the defence had tried to use to their advantage Ellie's previous injuries while in Butler's care.

But Mr Brown said: 'They do nothing to detract from the extreme and acute injuries that killed that young girl.'

Family: Ben Butler and with his wife, Jennie Gray, and Ellie in a family photograph

During an earlier part of the trial last month, Mr Peart put the idea of an accident to pathologist Anthony Risdon while cross-examining him.

He asked: 'Have you heard of Peppa Pig?' Prof Risdon replied: 'Yes.'

On whether he watched the cartoons or heard any of the nursery rhymes, he said: 'I am a little old for that... my children are in their middle ages now.'

The lawyer went on: 'In particular I am interested in a nursery rhyme that goes as follows: Five little Peppa Pigs jumping on the bed. One jumped off and bumped her head. Mummy called the doctor and the doctor said, "Don't let Peppa Pig jump on the bed."

'Did you know Ellie was a Peppa Pig fan? It was on the DVD in her room. There are Peppa Pig artefacts around about her room.

'What I am talking about is someone jumping up and down on the bed and, as Peppa Pig does, jumps over backwards, falls down and hits her head on the concrete floor.

Prof Risdon replied: 'I have seen a large number of head injuries in children. I have never come across a scenario like that and I have never come across a short distance fall that results in a similar injury.'

Mr Brown said today: 'There is no rhyme with the five little pigs on that DVD, there is no jumping to their deaths, there is no jumping on their heads.

'Ellie was not a girl who was reckless. She was sure-footed you may think. She was not unbalanced in any way. She was an agile, normal girl.'

The trial continues.