An MP has called for a change in judicial rules after the parents of a four-year-old girl killed by a speeding driver had their victim impact statement edited because it would upset the driver during his sentencing.

Glenn and Rebecca Youens’ daughter, Violet-Grace, was with her grandmother when Aidan McAteer mounted the pavement in a stolen car. He had been travelling at 83mph in a 30mph zone. Violet-Grace suffered catastrophic injuries and died in hospital.

It has now emerged that during his sentencing earlier this year McAteer won the right to have parts of the family’s statement redacted.

Marie Rimmer MP told a Westminster Hall debate that McAteer’s barrister at Liverpool crown court objected to the parents’ full statement, arguing that the defendant would find it “too upsetting”.

She said: “The judge accepted this and the CPS barrister gave the parents a copy of their impact statement with parts they could not read out in open court highlighted.”

Now Rimmer is calling for an improvement in the law and said she would press the victims’ commissioner to back a call for impact statements to be read in full in open court by default.

She said: “The law must be improved for victims and survivors.

“The whole purpose of the victim impact statement is the impact on the victims and the survivors, not the defendant. Guidance should be given to the judiciary that the overriding consideration is for the victim and their family, not whether the impact statement may upset the defendant.”

Following the crash in March 2017 McAteer, who was 23, went to Amsterdam but later returned to Britain. He was jailed at Liverpool crown court in May 2017 after admitting causing death by dangerous driving.

Rimmer, Labour MP for St Helens South and Whiston, will now raise the case with Dame Vera Baird, QC, the victims’ commissioner, and said she knew of at least two other hearings in which impact statements had been edited after pleas by defence lawyers.

On Monday parliament debated Violet-Grace’s law after her parents launched a petition for tougher sentences for dangerous drivers.

Almost 166,000 people have signed the petition which calls for life sentences to be considered for those convicted of dangerous driving.

Her father Glenn told the Guardian that being asked to redact part of the victim impact statement had been a further blow after discovering those involved in their daughter’s death would only be receiving “incredibly short sentences”.

He said: “We were told that we wouldn’t be able to read the full statement because it was upsetting. We were quite shocked at this but mostly angry that we had to protect our daughter’s killer from becoming distressed.

“We were the ones that had lost our daughter yet we were made to feel like we had to put her killer first … it made us lose faith in the justice system.”

McAteer, who was driving the high-powered Ford which went through two red lights before careering out of control, fled the scene of the crash, leaving his two victims lying in the road. He was jailed for nine years and four months.

His passenger, 27-year-old Dean Brennan, who also fled, was jailed for six years and eight months.

In a statement calling for a change in the law, Violet-Grace’s mother, Rebecca, said: “In October 2017, the government promised life sentences for death by dangerous driving. It’s now 2019.

“Innocent people have been killed, but nothing has changed. The law is out of date.

“Anyone convicted of death by dangerous driving should receive life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 15 years.

“If more than one person is killed or injured, the sentences must run separately. We don’t want anyone to feel the pain and injustice we have.

“We have a life sentence as does Violet.”