A Toronto judge wept as she handed down a 10-year sentence to a Mississauga mother found guilty in the savage beating death of her toddler.

Justice Deena Baltman was so overwhelmed with emotion she wept, even needing to call a brief recess, as she announced the reasoning behind her sentencing and thanked the jury for their work.

Nandini Jha sentenced to 10 years for 2011 beating death of 3 year old daughter in #Mississauga. 10 month pre-trial custody credit given. — Tammie Sutherland (@citytammie) July 31, 2015

In delivering her sentence on Friday, Justice Baltman said the 38-year-old Nandini Jha was her three-year-old daughter’s sole protector but “instead of defending her, she beat her repeatedly, ultimately to death.”

“This crime was a betrayal of the most sacred bond of trust and care that should exist between a parent and a child,” Baltman said. “The very person to whom a child would look for refuge turned out to be her greatest enemy.”

Peel Det. Mark Heyes said he was very pleased with the sentencing.

“Her Honour did what was right. She spoke for little Niyati, which no one has been able to do,” Heyes said outside the courthouse.

In April, the jury found Jha guilty of manslaughter in the 2011 death of her daughter. The woman was originally charged with second-degree murder but the jury felt there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that the mother meant to kill the little girl.

Niyati suffered serious injuries at the family’s home on Green Meadow Crescent, in the Cawthra Road and Dundas Street East area, in September 2011. She was taken, unconscious, to a walk-in clinic before being rushed to the Hospital for Sick Children in critical condition, having suffered massive head and brain injuries.

She was taken off life support the next day after being declared brain dead.

Det. Heyes said the brutality of this case will forever stay with him.

“This is probably one of the ones that I will remember the most,” he said. “This was my last homicide case and this is one that will sit in my mind forever.”

During the trial, Jha testified that her daughter was highly energetic and prone to accidents, and that the fatal injuries she had suffered had been her own doing.

Prosecutors argued that the little girl had suffered repeated beatings at the hands of her mother in the months leading up to her death. An autopsy revealed the child had previously suffered multiple internal and external injuries, that included bruising, hemorrhaging and fractures.

Doctors testified that when the little girl arrived at the hospital her head trauma was so severe that her brain had swelled and brain matter had actually leaked out of her ear.

Her mother claimed that nothing significant had happened to the girl on the day she was brought to the walk-in clinic, but that she had eaten a cookie and then took a nap and not woke up. She claimed the injuries the child suffered were connected to an incident earlier that month where a book case fell onto the little girl as she played in her room.

Justice Baltman called Jha’s bookcase story a work of “fiction she concocted to explain the bruises caused by her beating Niyati.”

With credit for time already served, Jha now has nine years and two months left in her sentence, after which she could be deported to India as she is not a Canadian citizen.

With files from The Canadian Press