A father who dumped his three-year-old daughter’s body in a canal after she died locked up in the family’s basement has been seized by police.

The girl, who has not been named by police in Dinslaken, western Germany, is understood to have choked on her own vomit after being locked alone in the darkened underground room.

Her body, loaded down with weights, was found in the Rhine-Herne Canal, on 1st October.

Police say her father Sascha Wensing had locked her in the basement for two days as a punishment.

Wensing, 40, reports local media, is facing charges of grievous badily harm and false imprisonment after the autopsy appeared to confirm her cause of death.

He was arrested after handing himself in at a police station and confessing on 6th October.

Oberhausen Police Headquarters said in a statement obtained by Newsflash: “In the evening or early night of the same day, he threw the body, weighted down, into the Rhine-Herne Canal in Oberhausen.

“The exact drop location is between the Rohr Bridge and the Slinky Springs to Fame bridge structure.”

Crews from the Oberhausen fire department, aided by a team of divers found the child on 7th October.

An autopsy made at the request of the Duisburg Public Prosecutor’s Office showed that the little girl had choked to death on vomit.

Police said: “There were no indications of injuries that caused death.”

Wensing was in the middle of a divorce from his estranged wife Maja Wensing when their daughter died.

One neighbour later told local media: “Usually you can hear everything in the house, especially in the basement.

“But we heard nothing. No screaming, no crying, no whimpering. Just nothing. We can’t understand it.”

Wensing, currently in custody, has not spoken again since his confession, say police.