A father from Wallington has been jailed for five years for beating his 18-month-old daughter to death while babysitting.

Mark Howe, 36, was smoking cannabis and drinking before he struck the girl with such force that her small intestine was fatally ruptured.

A judge at the Old Bailey said Howe had “spectacularly abused” his duty on the first night his partner enjoyed a night out since the baby’s birth.

Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Richard Hone QC also condemned the former supermarket manager for keeping quiet as an act of self-preservation.

He told Howe: “I think you are a selfish person. You placed your own interests in front of those of your family.

“You were in a position of trust that evening which you abused spectacularly.”

The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been reluctant to leave her baby so she could share a Christmas meal with friends on December 22, 2006, but Howe reassured her during numerous phone calls that she did not need to worry.

He also grabbed the handset from her when she dialled 999 the next day after finding her baby “unresponsive and floppy”.

Howe took the child and fled in his car, passing two hospitals, before police found him waiting outside St George’s Hospital, Tooting.

Doctors fought for an hour to save the baby, but she was thought to have been dead before arriving in the A&E department.

William Boyce QC, for the prosecution, said: “What is a tragedy in this case is that, had she been taken to a doctor, even 12 to 15 hours after he struck the blow, she could have been saved by medical intervention.”