Tracy Reid did not get medical help for her daughter

Danielle survived the attack for at least two hours but Tracy Reid failed to get any medical help and left her to die in her room.

Later, she put her daughter's body in a suitcase weighed down with rocks and tiles and chatted casually to her boyfriend's brother as she went to hurl it into the Caledonian Canal.

Lee Gaytor, 25, thought he had got away with the murder as weeks went by without any questions being asked.

His life was made easier by a family rift which meant that Reid's mother and step-father no longer saw Danielle.

The ill-feeling was began when Gaytor started seeing Reid, after ending a relationship with her sister, Katrina.

On Hogmanay, Danielle's step-grandfather, Hugh MacGrogan, met Gaytor's brother Christopher in a pub and asked after Danielle. Christopher Gaytor blurted out what had happened.

Police suspicions

When police spoke to Lee Gaytor he tried to claim that Danielle had fallen down the stairs and collapsed after drinking a bottle of vodka.

An officer went to the couple's two-bedroom house at Argyle Street in Inverness shortly after the bells on 1 January.

Reid gave an explanation of her daughter's whereabouts, but the officer was sceptical.

When Gaytor's brother Christopher was arrested on 6 January, he admitted to police that he helped Tracy Reid put the suitcase containing Danielle's body into the Caledonian Canal.

Lee Gaytor: Finally admitted his guilt

He showed officers where the body had been dumped and the suitcase was recovered by Grampian Police divers.

At least four heavy blows had been landed on the child by Gaytor, who was unemployed and originally from Newcastle.

Her head and clothes were covered in blood and stains were found on the stair banister, the hall walls and in her bedroom.

Danielle sustained severe brain trauma, but could have survived if she had been given medical treatment, according to medical evidence heard at the High Court in Perth.

Reid later said her daughter had spoken to her after landing at the bottom of the stairs and said: "Yes mummy, I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me."

Gaytor said: "I threw her downstairs and she landed in a heap at the bottom. I shouted 'get up Danielle' and she did."

Different accounts

The child was then simply put in her bed and was found to be dead when the couple went to get her the next morning.

When police started to look for Gaytor in January, he called on friends of his parents, Allen and Kim Brown, to shelter him.

On a car journey with Mr Brown, Gaytor confessed that Danielle was dead, although he still stuck to his story that she had fallen down the stairs on her own.

Mr Brown called the police and Gaytor was arrested at his home.

Danielle was left to die in her room

He gave four different versions of events during police interviews, but at no time confessed to the murder of Danielle.

On Friday, Gaytor pleaded guilty to murdering Danielle by repeatedly striking her on the head and body, seizing and pulling her by the hair and throwing her down a flight of stairs.

He also admitted conspiring to defeat the ends of justice by procuring the others to throw the body in the suitcase into the canal.

Reid, 25, from Elgin, admitted failing to get medical attention for her daughter when she knew she had been severely injured.

She also admitted conspiring to defeat the ends of justice by taking the body and dumping it in the canal.

Christopher Gaytor, 23, from Hull, admitted conspiring to defeat the ends of justice by helping dispose of the body.

All three are due to be sentenced on 11 July.