A mother has said a video monitor saved the life of her 19-month-old baby girl, after she was left dangling by her neck from a faulty cot.

Louise Conant initially thought her daughter Ophelia had stopped breathing when she became trapped in a gap in the faulty piece of furniture after crawling backwards through it and getting her head stuck.

Miss Conant only noticed what was happening because she happened to be looking at the monitor at the precise moment Ophelia crawled through the gap.

And the mum-of-two from Holmer Green said it didn't bear thinking about the possible consequences had she not had the video equipment installed.

She said: "I asked a friend when I was expecting what's the most valuable piece of equipment to get, and she said the video monitor. Had she not said that, the thought wouldn't have entered my head.

"I'm a member of a post natal group and I asked them if they had a video monitor and not one of them did.

"It's the best thing I have ever bought - it's been worth every penny."

This week the company that supplied the faulty cot bed, Baumhaus Ltd, based near Bicester, was fined £12,000 and the firm's director Phillip Dickens was given a suspended jail sentence for placing an unsafe product on the market.

Amersham Crown Court heard this week the cot, which had been made in China and imported by Baumhaus, did not comply to British safety regulations and there was "no quality control in place in the UK".

The horizontal gap in the railings at the top of the cot was larger than it should have been, which led to Ophelia getting her head trapped.

The court heard a similar incident happened to a mother from Northamptonshire a week before Ophelia's accident, which happened in April 2013.

Miss Conant said she was filming the video surveillance because she was considering removing the sides of the cot and converting it into a bed, and wanted to show the footage to her parents later that day to get a second opinion.

She said: "I'd never moved so fast in all my life. I had to negotiate two stair gates - I jumped over one of them. By the time I got to her she was hanging by her neck with her head dropped.

"I don't think the memory of this will ever clear, and the anxiety as you think of the what ifs, and how terribly close I was to losing her. I don't think that will ever leave me. I was in quite deep shock for quite a long time afterwards.

"She had night horrors for quite a long time after that. She was very unsettled.

"We've got a very strong bond, which may have strengthened through this."

Miss Conant added: "Now, I overly risk assess everything. You think you are doing everything really safely and something like this happens. It makes you question yourself.

"I wouldn't put her back in the cot after it happened. I was so frightened when I saw her on the baby monitor. I bought a soft travel cot for her, which she couldn't climb out of.

"It took me a really long time to find a bed that I felt was safe enough."

Judge Karen Holt, who presided over this week's court hearings, said the injuries caused to the two babies in 2013 amounted to "a serious offence" which came through Dickens' negligence - although she said there was "strong mitigation" as his company had not acted maliciously.

But Miss Conant said: "Tomorrow he'll be back at work and selling more cots."