THE father of a three-year-old girl who died after being subjected to ten days of horrific abuse says the law should be changed to ensure child killers spend life behind bars.

The Manchester Evening News revealed yesterday little Courtney Crockett died from bleeding on the brain caused when one of her mother's boyfriends either kicked, punched or hit her head against a hard surface. Police believe the force needed to cause the fatal injury could have involved Gareth Rees swinging the little girl by the legs and smashing her against a wall.

Rees, 21, from Benchill was sentenced to ten years after admitting manslaughter and child cruelty. Further charges of sex abuse were ordered to lie on the file.The little girl's mother Sandra Bennell, 24, from Borth Walk, Baguley was sentenced to three years for child cruelty by neglect.

It is understood police officers involved in the case were furious that a murder charge was not pursued against Rees.

Mr Crockett, 24, from Sale, said: "Something needs to be done about it, because people like him are getting away with it.

"He should have been given a lot longer. He has taken Courtney's life and destroyed mine and my family's. He should not be able to walk free from prison in a few years."

Phil Fleming, a special case-work lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service, described how it was only after there was extensive consultation with the police and lawyers in the case that he made the decision to accept Rees' guilty plea to manslaughter.

He said: "We agonised over the decision because we are all parents ourselves. We thrashed out all the issues and that is the conclusion we came to after careful analysis of the evidence. We have to take a professional decision not an emotional one."

He added: "What led us to accept that plea was the nature of the injuries the child had suffered. There was a catalogue of injuries, mostly bruising which amounts to actual bodily harm rather than grievous bodily harm. The expert pathologist said that the fatal injury to the head was caused by either one blow or more than one blow.

"If it was only one blow that we could prove led to her death we couldn't prove to the required criminal standard that he intended to cause her really serious harm. If his intention had been to murder the little girl, why would he have called the child's mother to say she was having a fit?

"The likelihood would be that a jury would bring in a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter."

Mr Fleming said another factor taken into consideration was the chance to avoid putting another child aged five - herself a victim of violence at Rees hands and a witness to what happened to Courtney - through the ordeal of reliving it in court.

Manchester Crown Court was told that on top of the blow which caused the brain damage which killed her, the little girl suffered 100 different injuries including a bite to her leg, numerous bruises all over her body and a burn, probably caused by a cigarette. In murder cases judges must impose a life sentence, but they can use their discretion in cases of manslaughter.

There are no guidelines as to how long someone must spend in jail for manslaughter - the crime of killing someone without intending to do so.