THE mother of a year-old baby, who left her child with her partner despite social services warnings, returned home from a medical appointment to find her daughter "hardly breathing, white and floppy", a court heard.

Chelsea Crilly had left her daughter, Orianna Crilly-Cifrova, with then-boyfriend Jamie Chadwick while she was went to a nearby health centre with her sister, Aisha Mohammed, Manchester Crown Court was told.

Aisha went to check on her Orianna in her pram, and found her with serious injuries, jurors have heard.

Chadwick insisted he had been sat on the toilet when Orianna had crawled towards him, falling down three steps leading to the bathroom, the court was told.

But prosecutors say the baby was either swung against a wall or hit with a blunt instrument, suffering "catastrophic" skull fractures which led to her death at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital a short time later.

Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, said last September Chadwick and Crilly, with Orianna, had moved to live with his sister, Aisha Mohammed, at her flat in Cross Street, Radcliffe.

And when social services visited the flat above the shop Chadwick hid in a bedroom so they would not know he was there, he told jurors.

Days before the baby's death, Crilly had left Orianna alone with Chadwick while she went to a Bury superstore. But when she returend Orianna was crying and Chadwick was angry, the court was told.

Mr Wright said that same evening Crilly and Chadwick took drugs and drank vodka while Aisha cared for the baby.

"It is symptomatic of the calculated disregard for Orianna in contrast to their own enjoyment," added Mr Wright.

The jury was told that in the wake of Orianna's death, a post mortem examination was carried out by a Home Office pathologist.

The findings were that, as well as head injuries suffered on October 16, which were consistent with being stamped on, swung against a wall or hit with a blunt object, the baby had fractured ribs and a spinal injury which had been sustained at least two days earlier.

Chadwick, 22, of Cross Lane, denies murder, and Crilly, of Warwick Drive, Atherton, denies allowing the death of a child. The trial continues.