A MORECAMBE lorry driver has been jailed for life for the murder of his baby stepdaughter.

Christopher Hackett was convicted by a jury at Preston Crown Court of murdering 14 month old Hannah McKie at the end of a five day trial.

The court heard that Hackett, 27. shook Hannah to death in a fit of temper when she would not stop crying. He also subjected Hannah to what prosecutor Peter Openshaw QC described as a "regime of ill-treatment."

He scalded her with hot water and would not let her mother, Naomi McKie, to take her to hospital.

Home office pathologist Dr Edmund Tapp described the injuries as the worst he had seen.

The court had heard that doctors later said the scalds, which covered 10 per cent of the body, were so serious that morphine would have had to be given to the child to ease the extricating pain, had she been to hospital straight away.

When she was eventually taken to hospital with what proved to be fatal head injuries from the shaking, 90 bruises were found on her body and she also had a fractured arm and two loose front teeth. Hackett told the court that he had lost his temper with Hannah after she climbed out of a cool bath he was giving to soothe the scalds on her back. He shook her for about five seconds, put her back in the bath and went into another room to finish his tea. Hackett had denied murder but the jury of six men and six women unanimously convicted him. McKie was sentenced to two years probabtion. and the Judge told her he had found exceptional circumstances not to pass a custodial sentence.

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