A young father has been convicted by a Bradford Crown Court jury of deliberately fracturing his two-month-old daughter’s skull, ribs and ankle.

The 24-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was told by Judge Christopher Batty to expect a jail sentence of more than six years.

Judge Batty said the age of the child and the number of injuries were the primary aggravating features of the case.

The father was found guilty of three offences of unlawfully and maliciously causing grevious bodily harm to the little girl with intent to do her serious injury. He was cleared of one other count of the same charge.

The little girl’s skull had been fractured across the whole of its left side.

After the verdicts Judge Batty told the Bradford man, who appeared to be slouched in the dock: “I do think you have regretted your actions on that day and it is clear to me tensions built and built and you took them all out on a little child.

“She was only two months old and you will be getting a sentence in excess of six years when I see you next.

“Even if it didn’t start as deliberate targeting, there was an element of aggravation by the fact there were three separate injuries.”

Judge Batty said that “in all probability the injuries were sustained on the same day” and included the severe squeezing of the rib cage, then the severe pulling and twisting of the ankle’.

Turning to the jury, he added: “You have never been in any doubt how serious this is.

“There is no doubt in my mind that not only did you, the jury, get it right, you followed the direction I gave you and I thank you for your care and attention.”

At the time of the injuries the baby and her mother were living with the defendant in the Bolton Woods area of Bradford.

On December 28, 2010, the child’s mother and grandmother left him in charge of his daughter for an hour and a half. When they returned that afternoon, the baby had a swelling to her head.

The court had heard that the man told his cousin he had tripped and fallen while carrying her.

The baby was taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary and found to have a fractured skull, three fractured ribs and a broken ankle.

The baby’s family wept in court as the verdicts were announced.

The defendant will be sentenced next month.