A YOUNG father admitted killing his five-week-old daughter when he appeared at Liverpool Crown Court.

Andrew Ashurst, aged 22, of Formby Avenue, Atherton had been due to face trial on a murder charge but his plea to manslaughter was accepted by the prosecution.

Ashurst pleaded guilty to unlawfully killing Leah Marie Aldridge on Christmas Day, 2002.

Andrew Edis, QC, prosecuting, said that Leah was born on November 15, 2002 and died in hospital the following Christmas Day.

Her mother, Janine Aldridge, was 15 when she was conceived.

"The circumstances surrounding her death involved meticulous investigation into her short life by the police and a large number of medical experts.

"The conclusion was that Leah died from substantial trauma to her brain inflicted by a severe shaking or by impact with some soft surface by being thrown against it," said Mr Edis.

He said that there was some scientific evidence from doctors of some earlier trauma but this had not contributed to her death and experts were not unanimous about that incident.

Mr Edis said the fatal trauma was inflicted by Ashurst on a single occasion between 4am and 7.25 am on December 23 while he was in sole charge of his daughter and her mother was asleep upstairs.

"The fatal injury may have resulted from a single violent act although on the basis most favourable to the defendant it must have involved a severe shaking of this child. Although the defendant denied using violence when interviewed he now pleads guilty to manslaughter saying he did not intend to cause really serious harm.

"The evidence does not rule out the possibility of a single spasm of unpremeditated, but severe, violence. The evidence does not refute the possibility of a loss of temper."

The baby was taken from her home in Coniston Avenue, Atherton, after the incident and admitted to the Royal Bolton Hospital and then transferred to the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital in Pendlebury where she died two days later.

Judge, Mr Justice Morland, ordered that a pre-sentence report should be prepared on Ashurst, who has no previous convictions. He has previously been on bail and his QC, David Lane, asked that this should be continued but the judge remanded him in custody until May 27.

He warned shaven-headed Ashurst, who is unemployed, that he would inevitably pass a substantial prison sentence on him.

Members of the victim's family wept in the public gallery during the hearing and gasped with relief when he was kept in custody.