Before Eve celebrated her first birthday she had suffered enough beatings in the hands of her mother and her boyfriend.
The two then poisoned the one-year-old toddler in an attempt to cover up a series of beatings, a court was told.
Eve Leatherland, who was just 22 months old when she died in October 2017, had suffered a fractured skull, broken ribs and a split liver, prosecutors claim.
Eve died at her home in Liskeard, Cornwall, where she lived with her mother Abigail Leatherland and her mum’s partner, Tom Curd.
A large amount of the strong adult painkiller codeine – which should not be given to children – was found in Eve’s system, Cornwall Live reports.
Leatherland, 24, and Curd, 31, from Watford, are charged with murder, manslaughter by gross negligence, and causing or allowing the death of a child.
They both deny the charges and say they were not responsible for the injuries Eve sustained in the build-up to her death or the administration of the codeine.
Opening the case, Sean Brunton QC said: “Eve Leatherland was murdered in her own home. In the few days leading up to her death she was assaulted on at least two occasions, possibly several more, and in the course of those assaults she suffered a fractured skull, several fractured ribs, a split liver and numerous other injuries of varying severity.
“She suffered injuries described by medical experts as being the type of injuries most commonly associated with a road traffic crash.
“Not only did she suffer a fractured skull and ribs on one occasion but it seems that when she was assaulted again the second assault was sufficiently similar to the first that it re-fractured her skull and re-fractured some of her ribs, tearing apart the young bones as they started to knit back together.