Toddler Millie Martin will finally be laid to rest today more than a week after she died at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.

Hundreds of mourners are expected to attend the funeral which will take place at Ardess Parish Church near Kesh in Co Fermanagh at 1pm. Thousands of floral tributes, messages and Teddy bears have already been laid outside her Glebe Park home since the 15-month-old died last Friday.

Millie’s mother Rachael spoke publicly for the first time yesterday, revealing the desperate |moment she realised the tot could not survive the horrific injuries she suffered in an alleged attack by Rachael’s partner Barry McCarney last Thursday.

Recalling the moment her “darling little angel” died, she told the Impartial Reporter: “They let me nurse her before they turned off the machine and after. I kissed and cuddled her, holding her in my arms.

“She was my perfect princess with a lovely smile and beautiful big eyes and she should still be here.”

Ms Martin denied reports that her daughter was known to Social Services before she was killed and dismissed reports that a Social Services ‘Gateway team’ — the first point of contact when concerns are raised about a child — had visited her home.

She added that reports Millie had received a broken back were “completely incorrect”. Ms Martin spoke out just two days after Barry McCarney was charged with murdering the baby.

The 30-year-old from Irvine-stown appeared at Omagh Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

Last night Millie’s family were preparing for the funeral, which will leave from her grandparents’ home in Ardess, and asked that people make donations, if they wished, to the Royal Victoria Hospital for Sick Children.

They released a statement earlier this week saying: “The entire close-knit family are numb with pain — we can’t believe that our loving, darling little angel is gone.

“No words can describe the distress that we are going through right now. Millie was our beautiful and precious little girl and we feel blessed to have been able to share her short life.”