Murdered baby Iqra Bibi might not have had to endure three weeks of hell at the hands of her father if health systems had not failed her, police revealed today.

And now a senior child protection officer has called for procedures to be reviewed following the killing of the tragic toddler by her father.

Two-year-old Iqra, who was only 2ft 7ins tall, died from a brain injury after her father, Mohammed Fiaz Qadar, repeatedly punched her in the head in a fit of rage because she was crying.

The fatal assault, in November last year, followed three weeks of regular beatings the little girl suffered from her 33-year-old father at the family home in Undercliffe Street, Undercliffe, Bradford.

After her death the toddler was found to be under-nourished and had more than 50 bruises all over her body.

And police have revealed she had never been seen by a doctor or health visitor, despite being registered by her father at the local GP practice, Bilton Place Medical Centre.

Iqra arrived in Britain from Pakistan with her mother, Rukhsar Bibi, 22, in January last year.

But on November 13 paramedics were called to the family's terraced home and found the baby, who had been teething and suffering from flu, unconscious.

Powerful Qadar, an insurance worker, had punched his defenceless daughter in the head five times, knocking her to the floor two or three times and picking her up to knock her down again until she lost consciousness.

He was convicted of Murder and he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serves a minimum of 16 years at Leeds Crown Court yesterday.

The judge, Mr Justice Henriques told him it was a "callous, brutal course of conduct on a little girl entitled to your protection. Iqra's condition called for sympathy, not physical abuse, and yet you beat her."

After the harrowing case, Detective Sergeant Bea Hopwood, of the police child protection unit in Bradford, raised concerns that no-one in authority appeared to know of Iqra's existence.

"The mother and daughter had legally come into the country through immigration with the correct passport but there then appeared to be no way of tracking them down within the health authority," said Det Sgt Hopwood.

"We had concerns at an early stage of our inquiry that the family were all registered with the local GP, but medication had been administered to the child without her being seen by a GP."

She added: "Nobody was aware of Iqra's existence, which was of great concern. She was in the area, she had been registered at the local doctors but she had never been seen."

Det Sgt Hopwood said a serious case review had been conducted - standard practice in cases where children are seriously injured - involving the police, health authority, social services and education departments and hospitals.

She said: "What should happen is that, when a child is registered, the health visitor should be notified by the GP service for them to check they have had their vaccinations and for any ongoing medical problems.

"That is for the child's protection. I don't know if that was done in this case but no GP or health visitor ever saw her.

"From a child protection point of view, we have got concerns. The fact we had a child in the country we were not aware of and the health authority wasn't aware of - somewhere along the line procedures have failed.

"Whether a health visitor seeing her would have saved her we will never know. I fear she is not the only child we do not know about, though I have no evidence to support that. But even if it is an isolated case we have lost a child. Procedures need to be reviewed to avoid having a child in an area that we don't know of."

Det Sgt Hopwood said the immigration authorities could also play their part by informing health authorities that a child has entered the country.

"It would be a back up system to let the health authority know, a double way of ensuring we have been made aware of the child. It should happen.

"Thankfully, we don't get many cases as tragic as this. In most cases the authorities have had an input."

But a spokesman for the UK Immigration Service said it was not its responsibility.

He said: "This is a tragic case but it is not an immigration matter. It is not our responsibility to let health and social services know of every child that comes into this country and that is quite right and proper. This child was registered. It's a breakdown of the health service, not an immigration issue."

Kath Tunstall, chairman of the Area Child Protection Committee, said a further inquiry had now started into Iqra's death.

"As a result of this tragic death of a child at the hands of a carer, the Area Child Protection Committee has begun a serious review of the circumstances of this case," she said.

"The review will be conducted on the inter-agency policies and procedures as laid down by the Department of Health and a summary of its findings will be published later in the year."

Noreen Rashid, practice manager at Bilton Place Medical Centre, declined to comment.