Man who beat his girlfriend's baby to death jailed for life

A steroid abuser who battered his new girlfriend's baby to death only weeks after she moved him in to "spite" her ex-lover was jailed for 21 years today.

Gary Alcock, 28, was invited to live with Claire Flanagan, 22, because she wanted revenge on a former boyfriend for being dumped.

But within three weeks Flanagan's daughter Violet Mullen, aged 15 months, was admitted to hospital in Manchester with multiple injuries likened to those of a car crash victim, and was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

Doctors discovered Violet had 39 injuries and had been forcefully punched or stamped on in the abdomen up to an hour before her death.

Alcock was today imprisoned for life, with a minimum sentence of 21 years, at Manchester crown court after being convicted of murder. Flanagan was found guilty of allowing or causing the death of a child and was jailed for five years, but was cleared of murder.

Judge Clement Goldstone QC told Alcock: "Yours was a truly horrific and cruel crime of murder for which you have shown absolutely no remorse whatsoever."