THE parents of a baby girl from Burnley who suffered a leg fracture and deep bruising have lost the right to raise her and her older brother.

Concerns were raised about the welfare of the baby, who cannot be named for legal reasons, after she was taken to Burnley General Hospital to be treated for a ‘rash’ on her skin.

MORE TOP STORIES:

After she was transferred to the Royal Blackburn Hospital, doctors found dark bruises on her right lower leg, right shoulder and the base of her right ear, as well as a fracture in her right femur, which was seemingly undetected by the parents.

Judge Ross Duggan granted Lancashire County Council care orders for the baby girl and her older brother when they appeared in the family court in Leyland on Friday.

In April he found that the girl, referred to as 'T', had suffered injuries due to probable ‘rough handling’ by her parents.

He said that one or both of her parents had been responsible for the little girl's injuries.

"It was not possible to identify which of the parents was the more probable perpetrator, but I found that these were inflicted injuries indicating frustration and rough handling in a difficult domestic setting," he said.

He believed that if either of the parents were innocent, then they had kept quiet about it 'out of a sense of loyalty'.

Despite his findings, he said that they were 'not a family of habitual child abusers in which the parents were looking for an opportunity to torture their children'.

Lancashire County Council commissioned an assessment from an independent social worker who recommended that the children return to their parents with a strict support program under a Care Order.

However the county council did not accept the recommendation, and preferred that the children stayed with their aunt, although their parents will continue to have 'reasonable' contact with them.

Judge Duggan said that the parents did not agree with his findings that the injuries were caused by frustration in a difficult domestic setting.

While the dad said to an independent social worker 'that they did not find parenting their children stressful'.