A man has been sentenced to 54 years in prison for chopping off his baby stepdaughter’s head with a machete.

Diogo da Silva Leite was found guilty of decapitating his one-year-old stepdaughter, Maria Clara, in the Brazilian city of Pindamonhangaba in October last year.

He was sentenced to jail terms of 54 years for qualified homicide, one year and four months for concealment of a corpse, and one month and 10 days for making a false report.

His lawyer, Helio Barbosa, has said he will appeal the sentence, stating: “The penalty is very high”.

The crime took place on 13th October, when Leite went out for a walk with his stepdaughter and came back home without her. He told his partner that Maria Clara had been kidnapped.

The police were suspicious of him from the outset, and he ended up confessing to the crime when CCTV footage contradicted his version of events.

He told the police he killed his stepdaughter by chopping her head off with a machete and he then left her body in a wooded area beside a motorway in the city of Taubate.

However, he was not able to say what had motivated him to kill the youngster.

The case angered local residents, who set fire to the house where Leite lived with the baby’s mother. At the time, the young woman was pregnant and had to leave town.

Maria Clara’s father, Steven Roger Galvao, has two more children with the baby’s mother, who live with him.

Leite has been in preventive custody since his arrest.