The judge slams the "unimaginable acts" of cruelty and brutality that led to the death of the four-year-old boy.
Video: Magdelena Luczak and Mariusz Krezolek will serve at least 30 years in jail
Enlarge
Daniel Pelka's mother and her partner have been jailed for a minimum of 30 years each for murdering the four-year-old.
Daniel was beaten, starved and poisoned with salt by the pair, who hid the abuse by claiming he had an eating disorder.
The boy was left in his room to die for around 33 hours after he suffered a head injury on March 1, 2012.
Luczak, 27, and Krezolek, 34, had denied murder and tried to blame each other for the death during the trial at Birmingham Crown Court.
Eleven of the 12 jurors who convicted the pair in less than four hours returned to court to see them sentenced and one broke down in tears as the judge made her final comments on the case.
Mrs Justice Cox said the trial had heard "harrowing details of the unimaginable acts inflicted on Daniel".
She said she had not seen a "single sign of genuine remorse" from Luczak or Krezolek.
In front of a packed court, she told them: "Both of you are in breach of what is probably the most important position of trust - as the parent of a small child."
The judge added that a determination to lie and to protect themselves at all costs had been the "hallmark" of the defendants' conduct during their "campaign of cruelty".
Evidence that Daniel had been regularly "imprisoned" for prolonged periods of time in a small unheated box room was also presented to the couple's trial.
The door to the room had been adapted by Krezolek so that Daniel, whose emaciated frame was likened to that of a concentration camp victim, could not escape or even see out of the keyhole.
Referring to forensic evidence found on the door, Mrs Justice Cox went on: "The small hand and finger marks on the inside of that door provided a poignant image of his desperate attempts to escape."
The medical evidence in the case, the judge said, showed that Daniel's emaciation was regarded by experts as "unprecedented" in Britain.
The judge continued: "They likened his appearance to those who failed to survive concentration camps, and that comparison was not made lightly.
"As the months passed, Daniel increasingly scavenged for food, from other children's lunch boxes, from the playground or from rubbish bins.
"He would have suffered extraordinary hunger, increasing abdominal pain and, ultimately, a feeling of hopelessness.
"You, Magdelena Luczak, knowing of his hunger, gave specific instructions to his teachers that Daniel was not to eat any more food than the small packed lunch he had with him.
"Both of you constructed a careful and wholly untruthful account that Daniel had a serious eating disorder and learning difficulties, which he may have inherited and for which he was receiving medical treatment.
"This account was deliberately designed to prevent interference by school, medical and welfare personnel, and to perpetuate the brutality being meted out to him."
Daniel's death prompted a serious case review by Coventry's Safeguarding Children Board, with a report due to be published in the next six weeks.
The review will examine why police and social services did not get involved after staff at Daniel's school - Coventry Little Heath Primary School - noticed bruising on his neck and what appeared to be two black eyes.