THE jury in the Lydia Bishop trial heard that the three-year-old girl’s last words to her mother were: “I love you Mummy, see you later.”

Lydia was starting her first day at York College’s nursery and was excited at the prospect. She had got up early, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Six hours later, her mother Rebecca Dick was called out of the mechanics’ course she was on at the college and rushed in a police car with its blue light and siren on going to York Hospital’s accident and emergency department, where medical staff were trying to revive Lydia.

“It quickly became apparent that Lydia wasn’t responding to any medical treatment,” Ms Dick said in a statement read to the jury. “The doctor decided that she had died.”

She had difficulty realising that Lydia was dead, she said. “Eventually I was allowed to take Lydia into a private room where we could be together.”

The jury have heard staff member Sophee Redhead had found Lydia shortly before 2.30pm lying unconscious and not breathing on a play slide.

A visitor to the college, Saffron Stockwell, later told police she had seen a child lying motionless with her hands by her side and her eyes closed halfway down the slide in the nursery’s outside play area as she approached the college car park at 2.30pm.

The jury heard she had not seen any staff member anywhere in the outside play area. She didn’t tell anyone at the time because her own daughter sometimes played a game in which she lay in a similar way on a slide.

Redhead, 25, of Wenham Road, Foxwood, denies manslaughter through gross negligence. York College denies a breach of health and safety rules.

In her statement, Ms Dick said Lydia was a “bright, happy child” who had been born at York Hospital and had been enrolled at the nursery when her mother started as a mechanics student at the college.

She went on a half-day trial run there on September 10, 2012, a week before her death.

When she went to collect her at the end of the afternoon, Lydia was sitting listening to a story.

“It was quite obvious that Lydia was enjoying herself and was in no rush to leave,” said the statement.

On September 17, both Lydia’s parents took her to the nursery, where she arrived at 9am.

“She asked me to bring her sweets for being good and said: “I love you Mummy, see you later”,” said Ms Dick. Mrs Dick then went to her class.

Shortly after 3pm, a woman entered her classroom and took her hurriedly to the nursery.

“There were no children around. It seemed a little strange,” Mrs Dick’s statement said. She was told Lydia had been involved in an accident and was taken to the hospital.

Dr Anthony Powell, whose two children went to the nursery, told the jury its care was “first class” and he had been “astounded” to hear of the accident.

The trial continues.