A three-year-old girl died when part of her bowel was severed after being attacked by her father, a court has heard.

Lia Green was covered in bruises when her lifeless body was taken to hospital, Preston crown court heard on Wednesday.

Her fatal injury must have been delivered with "substantial force", probably with a kick or punch to her stomach, and was the type normally seen in children involved in car accidents, Peter Wright, prosecuting, told the court.

Richard Green, 23, denies the murder of his daughter and has also pleaded not guilty, along with co-accused Natalie Critchley, 21, Lia's mother, to causing or allowing the death of the child.

The jury heard that Critchley, a nursery assistant, had been having an affair with the parent of a child at the nursery where she worked and Green harboured a "building and simmering resentment" towards his partner.

Wright told the jury: "When the body of Lia was examined it was discovered that the cause of her death was not some freak injury or terrible accident, we say, but blunt force trauma to her abdomen that had been delivered with such force that it had caused massive and ultimately fatal internal injuries.

"Part of her bowel had been completely severed by the force of the blow. Her condition had then progressively deteriorated and eventually she died from complications arising from this traumatic injury to her internal organs. In addition, Lia was found to be extensively bruised, many were less than 48 hours old, but some were older."

These were not the bumps and scrapes that any toddler picks up, Wright said. "The pattern, distribution and differing ages of the injuries were consistent with what's described as 'non-accidental injury'. This, we say, was evidence of physical abuse and repeatedly so. This was physical abuse from which she ought to have been protected by her parents, rather than exposed," he added.

Wright said the abuse "eventually" led to her death, at the hands of Richard Green.