ROME, July 21, 2008 (AFP) - Doctors treating a four-year-old French girl left in a coma when her father beat her head against a marble Rome monument were unable to say Monday if she would recover.

Nicola Pirozzi, in charge of her treatment at the Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome, where the girl was taken late Saturday, said she was still in a coma and it was too early to say any more.

The girl was admitted after her father smashed her head against the base of the Vittoriano monument in Piazza Venezia, in the city centre, before being restrained by passers-by.

One of the arresting officers said the man had 'taken the girl by her hair and hit her head three times against the marble.'

When police arrived, they found the man banging his own head against the monument.

The child's mother visited her in hospital Monday, Sky TG24 television reported. She had been in Turkey at the time of the incident and had not even been aware that her partner and daughter had travelled to Italy from Paris.

A senior officer with the carabinieri told AFP that she had confirmed to them that the father had a history of psychiatric problems.

'We found medicines that led us to believe he was following a psychiatric treatment and according to his partner he had already been hospitalised for that reason,' he said.

The father is due to appear before a judge on Monday or Tuesday.