A CREWE man guilty of abusing a 22-month-old child has been jailed for six years.

Michael Quilty, 27, was sentenced to four years for scalding the toddler and four years for causing fractures, to run concurrently, and a further two years for neglect.

His partner Stacey Bride, 24, was handed a two year sentence for neglect, and a further year for perverting the course of justice.

The girl, who cannot be identified, had more than ten injuries, including extensive bruising to her face and head, bruising and haemorrhaging to both eyes, a torn frenulum (flap of skin under the tongue) in her mouth, fractures to her right arm, left thigh, left lower leg, left upper arm, and left forearm.

In fact, the toddler’s right leg was her only functioning limb.

There was also evidence of scalds and blistering to the top and sole of her foot.

At Chester Crown Court Judge Nicholas Woodward heard how the toddler was taken to Leighton Hospital on February 5 2009 after she became listless and immobile.

After examining her, doctors became concerned regarding the level of current and old injuries to the child and were unhappy with the explanations given by Bride and Quilty for those injuries.

During the trial medical experts provided evidence which suggested the toddler’s injuries were a result of exposure to considerable force, and would have been painful and distressing to the victim.

Yet, neither Bride, nor her partner Quilty, took the little girl to a doctor.

It was only when the little girl developed a fever, stopped crawling, and lay listless with a severely swollen arm that she was taken to hospital, where doctors examined her and the police were notified.

The couple provided various explanations for the child’s injuries, including her older sister, aged 3, dropping toys into her cot and hitting her in the face with a plastic spoon, a door knocking her in the face, the toddler tripping over and falling on her face, and Quilty placing her incorrectly in a high chair so that she slipped through and burnt her foot on the metal parts of a gas fire.

But medical experts challenged these explanations as the force used to inflict the injuries on the toddler was too great.

The victim slept in a travel cot in a room in the Warrington Street house, which she shared with her older sister, who slept on a ‘make do’ mattress of pillows on the floor.

Bride and Quilty met via the internet when she was 17 years of age.

They corresponded online for several years, only meeting up in 2006.

They started a relationship in August 2008, when Bride moved from her home in Rochdale, to live with Quilty at his home in Crewe, bringing her two daughters with her.

The victim now lives together with her sister with foster parents.