A lesbian couple were today starting jail sentences after a young girl was struck up to 20 times with a piece of wood in a punishment beating at her home.

The youngster was covered in bruises and terrified to go home after she was struck with a range of implements.

Her mother, who admitted twice causing her daughter actual bodily harm, was jailed for eight months by a Bradford Crown Court judge yesterday.

The woman’s partner, a trained nurse, was locked up for four months for one offence of cruelty to the child.

Prosecutor Euan Mclachlan said the nurse, who cannot be named for legal reasons, did nothing to help the girl when she was assaulted in front of her on two occasions.

Judge Peter Benson said the girl’s mother, who also cannot be named, beat her for up to half an hour in a “sustained and brutal fashion” on March 19 this year.

Judge Benson said: “She was covered in bruises. It was a systematic and sustained piece of brutality.”

He said he could not begin to imagine how a trained nurse could stand by and witness the assault.

“You did nothing to protect someone who was essentially your stepdaughter,” he told the woman.

The offences were so serious custody was inevitable in each case, added Judge Benson.

Mr McLachlan said the child’s teacher found her cowering in a locked toilet cubicle because she was afraid to go home from school.

She showed the teacher extensive bruising to her body and said her mother beat her with a stick.

The police were called and the child was taken into foster care by Bradford social services.

Mr McLachlan said doctors concluded the bruises were caused by an object such as a stick applied to bare skin.

The girl told police her mother first struck her with a coat hanger because she got her homework wrong.

On March 19, she was in trouble for taking a watch to school without permission.

Her mother told her to stand in a corner and then beat her until she was in such pain she was unable to lie on her back.

Her mother admitted hitting her daughter about five times with the coat hanger three weeks before the more serious attack.

The court heard that the women, who live in the Bradford area, were of previous good character.

Charlotte Eastwood, for the girl’s mother, said the women were in a relationship, having met seven years ago.

They moved to the area to make a better life for themselves but the mother felt isolated and at the end of her tether.

Jeremy Lindsay, for the nurse, said she was ashamed and upset.