A three-year-old girl lay dead in the squalid bedroom of a pub for up to two days while abandoned by her mother and stepfather.

Tiffany Hirst was locked "unloved, unwanted and alone" in her beetle-infested room at the Scarborough Arms which the pair ran in Upperthorpe, Sheffield.

Passers-by recall seeing her face staring through the window in what may have been a please for help, according to senior detectives.

Paramedics found her body covered in insect bites in filthy bed and she died of pneumonia due to repeated and severe malnourishment.

Her mother Sabrina Hirst, 22, pleaded guilty to her manslaughter and stepfather Robert Hirst, 54, to neglect at Sheffield Crown Court this week (wed). Both were remanded in custody to await sentence later this month.

A Serious Case Review has been launched by Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board into Tiffany's death and the neglect of another child - aged 12 months -which the couple have also admitted.

Det Chf Ins Steve Williams, who led the police investigation, said: "We think this neglect had been going on for months and that those last few months, weeks and days of her life she was unloved, unwanted, starved of attention and left alone to die and she would have known that.

"Children are a gift who should be cherished; parents everywhere, those who have lost them and people unable to have them will find this treatment unbearable and unthinkable.

"We have heard that Tiffany would be seen staring out of her bedroom window and this was probably the little girl's cry for help but nobody realised - it is heartbreaking."

He said officers who dealt with the death had been left traumatised by what they saw.

Mr Williams added: "She was like a tiny porcelain doll, so tiny and frail and we all wondered how this had been allowed to happen in this day and age.

"This must never happen again and if people have any concerns at all or suspicions about the welfare of a child they must call somebody because out of every thousand calls followed up if only one turns out to be founded and a child's life is saved it is worth it."

A post mortem examination found development of Tiffany's bones had been abnormal, indicating malnourishment and growth happening in bursts when she had been fed.

The court heard that the living quarters at the Scarbrough Arms were "filthy and dangerous" and that over 13 months before Tiffany's death, the Hirsts were "in a habit of leaving children locked up there.

Police found live electrical wires hanging from the walls and one room where the family dogs were kept was full of excrement and urine and the stench unbearable.

Judge Alan Goldsack QC said that Sabrina Hirst had never been able to answer a single question as to how this child could die in her care.

Friends and relatives of Sabrina Hirst gave detectives the impression Tiffany had been loved as a baby and toddler, but this changed when Robert Hirst came into their lives.

They stopped taking her to nursery to mix with other children and she was denied even the most basic level of care, including not being provided with food and water.

She was so undernourished and dehydrated when emergency services found her she weighed less than an average child a year younger than she was.

Before her death last September she was seen "clean and well-dressed and with a healthy appetite" and on her last inspection by a health visitor in February 2007, Tiffany "appeared healthy and well".