ALERT hospital staff used a secret camera to catch a mum they suspected of abusing her baby daughter.

Nurses and doctors at Liverpool's Alder Hey Children's Hospital have been praised for saving the life of the eight-month old girl.

Liverpool crown court heard the girl's mum had psychological and psychiatric problems and had become convinced her daughter was going to die.

The 23-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, began to deliberately hurt her daughter so the girl would be admitted to hospital.

But attentive nurses became suspicious of the woman's behaviour.

They kept her under close supervision and, with the help of police and social services, placed a camera in her hospital room.

It captured the woman hitting the child on her back with a rattle.

Judge David Harris QC told the woman: "In this city we have the enormous benefit of one of the greatest children's hospital in Europe.

"In this case, the hospital staff, both medical and nursing, have dealt with your abusive behaviour with enormous expertise and skill.

"They became alerted very quickly to the potential that you were causing, through your dysfunctional behaviour, harm to your daughter and they instated a careful system of monitoring to assess the situation, that included an entirely appropriate use in one episode of covert video surveillance."

Judge Harris suspended the woman's 12 month jail sentence for two years after learning of the "remarkable progress" she had made in therapy.

He placed her under supervision and imposed a two-month curfew.

The child is now in the care of the woman's family.