A one-year-old girl died on the day her family were preparing to celebrate her first birthday, an inquest has been told.

Linda Isabella Antonia McDonagh – known as Lily – was found with her head in a mop bucket on Saturday, February 25 last year.

The bucket had been left near the shower room door of the family home on The Poplars residential park at Southwick.

An inquest into her death, held at Wiltshire and Swindon Coroner's Court on Tuesday, July 2, heard that the bucket, which had about five to six inches of water inside it, had been left after a relative was cleaning the floor.

The court heard that some family members were out in Trowbridge shopping for balloons and party food when they received a call to say Lilly had crawled into the bucket and drowned.

The court was told that attempts were made to resuscitate Lilly and a neighbour heard the family shouting for help.

Police and South Western Ambulance Service paramedics arrived within minutes of being called to the home but were unable to save Lily.

The inquest heard that pathologists Dr Deborah Cook and Dr Andrew Bamber found nothing suspicious during their joint investigation.

Concluding the inquest, the coroner ruled the death as accidental and said it resulted from Lily crawling unseen to the bucket that had been left by the shower room door.