Star Hobson’s great-grandad left Good Morning Britain viewers in tears by the 'pain' in his eyes as he said his granddaughter's baby "looked depressed".
On Tuesday, Savannah Brockhill was convicted of killing the toddler at her home in Keighley, West Yorkshire.
The 16-month-old's mother Frankie Smith was found guilty of causing or allowing the toddler's death, but was cleared of murder and manslaughter.
Tiny Star was taken to hospital on September 22, 2020 but the injuries she had suffered were "utterly catastrophic" and "unsurvivable".
Great-grandparents David Fawcett and wife Anita Smith had looked after Star in April 2020 for 11 weeks because her mum had been "struggling".
"A week after we were getting concerned," he said after the pair heard from other relatives that Brockhill had been "slam choking" Star and Anita referred her granddaughter to social services on May 5th.
"We didn't know what that was," he said of 'slam choking'.
When Star returned to Smith, social services visited the family home - during which Brockhill claimed that they had been reported because she was a gypsy and the relatives didn't accept that they were a lesbian couple.
"The whole situation was twisted because Savanna was a really controlling person," he said. "If only [social services] had gone to us... they never got in contact with us."
Asked what Star had been like, he said: "She were absolutely beautiful. The time we looked after her and we took her down... to be honest, she looked a bit down and depressed. She looked like a depressed baby - I mean, I've never seen a depressed baby before.
"Star was just looking at the floor all the time, her hair looked sort of unkempt and she had a really bad nappy rash so Anita sorted all that out, she cleaned her up. And within about two days she started coming out of herself, she was a proper little character.
"She weren't actually walking at this time but she could pull herself up on the chairs, anything where she was on her feet. Soon as she heard music her little legs were going and you could tell she was absolutely lovely to look after. An absolute joy."
And viewers were left utterly heartbroken over his comments, with one tweeting: "The pain in grandads eyes is heartbreaking. Cant beleive this is happening again #GMB."
While another commented: "Heartbreaking."
A third wrote: "This poor grandad, what a nightmare they must be going through #GMB."
*Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV
