Father guilty of killing daughter

A father has been found guilty of manslaughter at the Old Bailey after killing his baby daughter.

Mark Howe punched, kicked or stamped on his 18-month-old daughter's stomach with such force that he tore her gut, leaving her slowly dying.

The 36-year-old was looking after his daughter while her mother went on her first night out since giving birth.

Howe, from Wallington, south London, denied manslaughter in December 2006. He will be sentenced next month.

The severity of the force necessary to inflict such an injury does not allow for an accident William Boyce, QC

Howe claimed his daughter's injuries were caused by tripping over a coffee table and failing into her with outstretched arms.

But a post-mortem examination showed that the injuries must have been caused by "an assault type injury, by a hard punch to the stomach, a kick, or a stamp", William Boyce, QC, for the prosecution told the jury.

He said: "The severity of the force necessary to inflict such an injury does not allow for an accident."

The child's devoted mother had previously never been apart from her for more than an hour in the 18 months since she was born.

Jurors heard that she was "overprotective" because she and Howe had earlier lost a son who was stillborn.

Jail 'inevitable'

The mother did not realise how ill her daughter was until the next day when she started to turn blue.

However, Howe tried to stop her calling an ambulance to cover up his attack.

He told her: "I don't want to lose you."

When she ran off to get help, Howe drove off with the toddler and was later found by police sitting outside a hospital with her.

Doctors did their best to save the little girl but she was probably already dead - although she might have lived if doctors had seen her earlier, jurors heard.

Judge Richard Hone warned Howe that a prison term was "inevitable".