British Police are investigating the death in prison of the mother of Daniel Pelka (4), who was convicted of starving and murdering him two years ago.

Paramedics confirmed Magdelena Luczak dead in her cell at Foston Hall prison in Derbyshire on Tuesday evening.

She was two years into her sentence and her death came a day before what would have been Daniel's eighth birthday.

Officers are now preparing a file for the coroner ahead of a possible inquest and a UK Ministry of Justice spokesman said the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman would also conduct an investigation.

Luczak (29) and her partner Mariusz Krezolek arrived from Poland in 2006 and were sentenced to at least 30 years in prison after they were convicted of murdering Daniel in 2013.

The boy was the victim of what was described in court as an "incomprehensible cycle of cruelty and violence" which left him looking like "a concentration camp victim".

The pair had denied subjecting Daniel to a campaign of starvation and punishment which reduced his weight to just 24lbs by the time of his death, insisting he suffered from an eating disorder.

During their trial the court was told Daniel was imprisoned in a room with the door handles removed, fed salt when he asked for a drink, deprived of food and forced to defecate in his own bed.

It was said they submerged the boy in a cold bath and sent him to school in Coventry with just half a sandwich in his lunchbox.

He was so hungry he would steal food from other children who subsequently had to lock their food away.

Staff said he picked up muddy and dirty pancakes from the floor, ate out of bins and even tried to eat beans which had been planted in soil as part of a school experiment.

Luczak and Kerzolek had blamed each other for the head injury which ultimately led to Daniel's death.

In December, the Court of Appeal dismissed a bid by Krezolek to appeal against his murder conviction and rejected claims from both that their sentences were "excessive".