A Bishop's Waltham businessman murdered his 10-week-old daughter after losing his temper with her, it was claimed in court.

Charlotte Latta suffered massive brain damage after her father banged her head and shook her violently, Winchester Crown Court heard.

Jeremy Gibbons QC, prosecuting, said that Mark Latta was feeding his daughter upstairs in their detached four-bedroom house at Byron Close when, it is alleged, he attacked her.

Mr Gibbons told the court: "She may well have been difficult about feeding and he lost his temper, banged her head against a solid surface and shook her violently."

Charlotte was taken to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester, where doctors found she had a fractured skull and blood in the brain.

Medical staff also discovered Charlotte had suffered 33 other fractures to her ribs, arms, legs and right collarbone. Mr Gibbons said that some of these were old injuries and indicated that Charlotte had been attacked at least three times.

Latta (40) denies murder and two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Charlotte between October 1st and December 2, 2001.

The court heard that Latta and his wife, Sharon, had problems feeding Charlotte and that she had spent several nights in hospital in November 2001.

On the day she was alleged to have been murdered, Latta had taken her to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital for a check-up. Closed-circuit television pictures showed the father and daughter leaving, with Charlotte looking bright and alert.

When she was admitted later, Charlotte was so ill that doctors in Winchester decided she should be transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital For Sick Children in London.

But, Mr Gibbons said, Charlotte's head injuries were so severe she could not be saved and, at 6pm on December 4th, 2001, her life-support machine was switched off.

Latta told police that nothing strange or untoward had happened to his daughter as he fed her alone upstairs while the rest of the family ate their meal.

He said that she was feeding well until she "spluttered" and some of the milk came out of her mouth. Almost instantly, her eyes started to shut.

"I took the bottle out of her mouth and she started to make a deep wheezing sound and I saw her eyeballs roll back into her head and she started to go limp."

Mr Gibbons told the jury that Latta was concealing the reason why Charlotte had suddenly become ill, which was that he had shaken her and banged her head against a hard object - probably the floor.

He said that Charlotte had suffered a severe, blunt impact which had caused her eyes to bleed internally. He said this injury would have caused Charlotte to lose consciousness immediately.

The court heard that Latta and his wife were well-off, lived in a detached four-bedroom property and drove a BMW and an Audi TT but Mr Gibbons said: "Respectability notwithstanding, this baby girl was cruelly abused."