A father yesterday labelled his wife "evil" after she was jailed for life for the murder of their four-year-old disabled daughter.

Joanne Hill, 32, drowned Naomi in a bath because she could not cope with the daughter's disability.

Naomi had cerebral palsy and suffered walking and hearing difficulties.

Speaking after Hill was convicted of murder by a unanimous jury at Chester Crown Court, her husband Simon said: "Joanne is a non-swimmer with a fear of water.

"To be held under water is her biggest fear.

"What she did to my princess Naomi was evil."

The jury took just 90 minutes to dismiss Hill's defence that she was mentally ill and "blocked out" her emotions when she drowned Naomi in November last year.

Jailing her for life and ordering that she not be released for 15 years, Judge Elgan Edwards, the Recorder of Chester, described the case as a tragedy for all concerned.

He told her: "You killed your own daughter because you could not cope with her disability.

"This has been a very sad case. Sad for you, your family, for your husband and his family, and tragic for the daughter you killed.

"There can be no excuse for what you did."

It was agreed in court that Hill, of Deeside, North Wales, was currently mentally ill, and Judge Edwards ordered she be moved from prison to a psychiatric unit as soon as possible.

She had sat impassively in the dock throughout the verdict and sentencing, surrounded by two nurses and a guard.

Her husband, Simon, 38, who works for a car rental company, held the hands of relatives sitting next to him as he watched from the public gallery.

Hill had cheated on him with a work colleague just days before she killed their daughter.

Mr Hill, described in court as a devoted and fabulous father, had refused to consider his wife's request for Naomi to be adopted or fostered by their childminder.

A week later, on November 26 last year, Hill, who sold advertising space for a publishing company, killed her daughter at the family home in Goya Close, Connah's Quay.

Mr Hill said he would never come to terms with what his wife did.

He said: "There is not a minute that goes by without me wishing (Naomi) was still here."

Hill admitted the killing during police interviews, tapes of which were played to the jury. They heard her say she resolved to kill Naomi, and herself, at work earlier that day.

After leaving her office in Chester, Hill went to a pub where she had a glass of wine then collected Naomi from a child-minder.

Driving her daughter home, Hill stopped at a local supermarket to buy more wine, and laughed and joked with the shop assistant.

At about 6pm, they arrived home and Hill immediately ran a bath while Naomi watched television.

After drowning her, she dressed Naomi and put her in the family Renault Megane along with her handbag and a bottle of wine.

She told police she wanted to be out of the house before her husband returned home from work at 7.30pm and found out what she had done.

For the next eight hours Hill drove around between Deeside and Chester, stopping to drink the wine, buy another bottle and get petrol - with her dead daughter still in the back seat.

Detective Inspector Simon Price, who interviewed Hill after her arrest, said: "Naomi was described in court as a beautiful little girl and indeed she had the whole of her life before her.

"The fact that her life was ended so prematurely is in itself a matter of great sadness, however, for this for this to have taken place at the hands of her mother makes it all the more difficult to comprehend."