Ellie Butler murder trial: Jury shown Peppa Pig video

Ben Butler's defence team suggested Ellie fell and cracked her skull while jumping to a Peppa Pig video

Jurors at the trial of a father accused of killing his daughter have been shown a Peppa Pig video, after the defence suggested the child fell and cracked her skull while watching the cartoon.

Ellie Butler, six, was found with fatal injuries while her father looked after her at their home in October 2013.

Ben Butler, 36, from south west London, denies murder and child cruelty.

In the clip shown to the Old Bailey "bossy" Peppa instructs her friends to "jump up and down".

'Fanciful reasoning'

The prosecution say Mr Butler caused Ellie's head injuries in a violent rage.

After the jurors watched the video, prosecutor Ed Brown QC asked them not to be swayed by "fanciful or speculative reasoning or entertain fanciful suggestions" but to use their "collective common sense and experience of life".

In his closing speech, he urged them to look at the medical evidence presented in court and the atmosphere in the Butler household at the time of the child's death.

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

He said the child's injuries were so "extreme" and "catastrophic" that they could not have been due to an accidental fall, and added the defence team had tried to use the six-year-old's previous injuries to their advantage.

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

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