Leicestershire County Council's social services team are expected to be criticised today at a serious case review for their handling of the case of a young father who battered his baby daughter.

Zak Whitlock, 21, of Elizabeth Court, in Wigston, was left with his daughter despite a trainee probation officer warning four months before the child was born that the father could harm her.

He had been removed from the family after it was feared he had hit her when she was just two weeks old.

Whitlock was allowed home a few weeks later, when he smashed the child's skull, causing irreparable damage.

Whitlock is serving a four-and-a-half-year minimum public protection sentence for grievous bodily harm.

The child's mother, Leigh Challands, 19, was sentenced to two years' detention after admitting cruelty by negligently leaving the baby alone with Whitlock.

The baby's step-grandmother, Coral Mitchell, had previously had three children taken off her and the grandfather, Colin Challands, was on the run from police for alleged threats to kill.