A DAD who killed his baby daughter after she started crying has been found guilty of her murder.

Callous Ali Zain smothered helpless 10-month-old Aiman Toor with a quilt after previously fracturing seven of her ribs and then repeatedly lied to police, medics and his family about what had happened.

During a two-week trial at Manchester Crown Court Zain, aged 25, admitted he had held a quilt over his daughter’s mouth at their Crompton Street, Farnworth, home to try and stop her crying but denied he intended to harm her.

But after several hours of deliberation a jury saw through his lies and unanimously convicted him of murder.

Ali will remain in prison until his is sentenced by the trial judge, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen, on Tuesday.

The court heard how Zain was alone with the little girl on the afternoon of November 1, 2019 while his wife, Sahar Toor, was at work.

The couple had married in Pakistan and he had moved to the UK to join his wife in 2017. Baby Aiman was born in December 2018.

Zain, who worked as a Subway sandwich shop manager, had returned home from an early shift but his plans to sleep were interrupted by the cries of his daughter.

The jury was told that the child would have struggled for breath as he forcibly held a quilt over her face on the bed, and ribs, which had been fractured between two and five days earlier, may have been injured again.

At 5.30pm he rang 999 saying baby Aiman was not breathing after he fell down the stairs and she banged her head.

Paramedics who rushed to the house were unable to revive her and doctors, who found no injury to her head, disproved his story.

Instead, haemorrhaging on her face indicated she had been asphyxiated.

Experts questioned in court indicated this could have happened by her being forcefully smothered or her chest crushed from the sides.

Zain changed his story and claimed his daughter had died accidentally when he had fallen asleep on top of her and smothered her.

Then again, two years after the baby’s death, he altered his account again, this time admitting that he deliberately covered her with a quilt until she stopped crying.

“He says he did it because she was crying and crying and he wanted to go to sleep,” said Andrew Thomas QC, prosecuting.

But Home Office pathologist Naomi Carter stressed that a face being covered with a quilt alone would not have caused the amount of red spots found on the baby’s face - an indicator of asphyxia.

“It is a real possibility that this child was squeezed around the chest again and it is that squeezing that has stopped the child breathing,” said Dr Carter.

In court Zain continued to deny that he had fractured his daughter’s ribs but admitted he had initially lied about about smothering the child because he feared the reaction of his wife and her family, who were said to still support him.

“I thought they would be angry with me and they would hate me,” Zain said. But the jury agreed with the prosecution case that Zain had lost his temper and acted violently towards his daughter.

The court heard that the child’s death would not have been peaceful and she would have fought, as best as she could, for her life.

Shortly before she died Aiman had begun crawling and was a fit, healthy baby.

“The contemplation of what he has done is absolutely horrific,” said Mr Thomas.