A man has been jailed over the death of a Chinese toddler, whose injured body was repeatedly ignored by passers by.

It was a crime which shook China. A two-year-old girl, Wang Yue, was playing in the street in Guangdong province when she was run over by a van in October 2011.

The driver sped off, and 18 people walked by without helping the bleeding youngster, afraid they would be blamed for her injuries and have to pay her medical costs.

Eventually a cleaner moved Wang to the side of the road and called her parents, but she died in hospital several days later from injuries to her brain.

The driver of the van, 25-year-old Hu Jun, was jailed on September 5 for three and a half years for "involuntary homicide".

Many in China have called the sentence lenient, but the court said he was given credit for turning himself in, and for paying part of the child's medical expenses.

He pleaded guilty to causing a traffic accident, but not homicide.

In a statement, Hu said that rain and poor lightning meant he did not know what he had hit, and he had not stopped to check.