By Bryony Jewell For Mailonline
Published: 00:50 GMT, 22 January 2019 | Updated: 00:57 GMT, 22 January 2019
A chef accused of murdering his 23-month-old step-daughter broke her arm and vertebrae just weeks before he shook or punched her to death, a court has heard.
Martin Johnson, 20, told police he had been playing 'high fives' with Erin Tomkins at her home in the Gleadless area of Sheffield when she suddenly collapsed.
But prosecutors told a jury how medical experts found a number of bruises on Erin's body, including '10 areas of injury to the head and face'.
A postmortem found Erin, who was just a few weeks short of her second birthday, also suffered a broken arm and a number of fractures to her spine in the weeks leading up to her death.
Martin Johnson, 20, is accused of murdering his two-year-old step-daughter Erin Tomkins, pictured, at her home in the Gleadless area of Sheffield last May
These injuries had been explained by Johnson as Erin 'falling off the settee when she was asleep', the court heard.
However, the fractures were found by the pathologist to be 'forced extension of the spine' - which the prosecutor said 'could be caused by whiplash-type forces, the sort of thing that might happen in a car crash'.
David Brooke, QC, prosecuting, told the jury how Erin was taken to hospital on May 21, 2018, after Johnson phoned 999 from his partner's home in Leighton Road.
Staff at Sheffield Children's Hospital found bruises on Erin's face and body, bruising and bleeding to the surface of her
