A mother has told a Sydney murder trial she watched her partner relentlessly beat her two-year-old daughter into unconsciousness before her death.
Donna Deaves gave harrowing evidence on Tuesday in the Supreme Court trial of her former partner, Warren Ross, who is accused of murdering Tanilla Warrick-Deaves.
Ross has pleaded not guilty to murdering the child at her Watanobbi home on the NSW Central Coast on August 25, 2011.
The Crown alleges Ross abused the child in the weeks before her death as he tried to toilet train her, forcing her to run laps, whipping her with various implements and hitting her.
Deaves told the jury she had been jailed for at least nine years for Tanilla's manslaughter and had received a reduced sentence in return for giving evidence.
Looking thin and pale, she told the court she wasn't concerned about toilet training Tanilla when Ross moved in with her in 2011 but that he thought it was a good idea.
She said he soon became "very angry" whenever Tanilla soiled herself and started to make her run laps in the house.
"I said I didn't want him to smack (Tanilla)," Deaves said, adding the laps were supposed to be an alternative punishment.
"But then that didn't pan out because he still hit."
Deaves said Ross would punish Tanilla for "anything", using electric cords, shoes, a belt and his hand.
Two days before Tanilla was discovered dead, Deaves said Ross made Tanilla run laps for "ages" before he started hitting her with a cord when she became tired.
"I tried to stop it," Deaves said, her voice shaking.
"I tried. I couldn't handle it."
At one point, Deaves said she stepped in front of Tanilla and managed to stop the beating, but only for a short while.
After Tanilla soiled herself, Deaves said Ross took her to the bathroom, where he held her by the hair under a cold shower and hit her head on the glass shower door.
"I told him to stop and he slapped my face," Deaves said.
The court heard Ross also held Tanilla by the leg over the toilet, calling her a "c***" and "a black dog".
He then kicked Tanilla across the floor after the child sank to her knees, causing her to hit her head on a cupboard, the court heard.
"She was looking drowsy, like she was going to pass out," Deaves said, adding Tanilla lost consciousness shortly afterwards.
"I said, `let me ring an ambulance'.
"(Ross said), `Do that and I'll tell them you did it'."
Deaves said she put Tanilla in a stroller, as ordered by Ross, and spent the whole night awake beside the unconscious child.
Tanilla didn't regain consciousness the next day and Deaves said she discovered the toddler wasn't breathing the following night.
"I picked her up and put my hand on the back of her and she wasn't breathing," Deaves said, looking straight at Ross in the dock.
"She was dead."
The trial continues before Justice Stephen Rothman.
