A heartbroken mother has told how a cot collapsed, fatally crushing her beautiful baby girl.

Catherine Harvey's nine-month-old daughter Alexandra suffered brain damage in the accident and died seven days later, an inquest heard on Wednesday.

Grieving Miss Harvey, 21, of Cromwell Road, Colchester, is struggling to come to terms with the tragedy and finds it hard to face the future.

Crying openly she described what happened on the terrible day when she lost her "little angel."

While she made breakfast, she had put Alexandra in the Mothercare cot upstairs because her play pen was damp from being washed earlier.

Former Colchester County High School sixth former Miss Harvey said: "I heard her crying and went to get her food ready. I can't remember when she stopped crying, but I went upstairs and the back panel of the cot, the side that doesn't go up and down, had fallen on her neck.

"The screws had come out. She had been jumping up and down. It crushed her throat."

Miss Harvey cradled her unconscious baby in her arms, frantically giving her heart massage and mouth to mouth while running downstairs to phone for an ambulance.

She was rushed to Colchester General Hospital and staff managed to resuscitate Alexandra before transferring her to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, which has a dedicated paediatric intensive care unit.

Miss Harvey and the baby's father Robert Smith, 25, who works at International Timbers in the Hythe, held a week-long vigil by the life-support machine, until Alexandra was declared brain dead and the ventilator was switched off.

Miss Harvey, who works part-time at the Hole in the Wall pub in Colchester, said: "She was cremated but I could not go to the service, I just could not bear to see that little coffin.

"Everyone who ever met her was touched by her. She was so beautiful. She was always smiling and laughing. I know everybody says their kids are so wonderful, but she actually was.

"She would have been a really good person. There was no reason for her to have been taken away. She did not do anything wrong."

Shaking and looking listless Miss Harvey, who was just 11 when her own mother died of cancer, added: "Even though I know it was an accident I feel guilty.

"It is horrible to feel this helpless. Kids will be kids, you can't keep an eye on them every second of the day, it's impossible."

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