Danielle's final moments

The mother of Danielle Beccan, the schoolgirl killed yards from her home in a drive-by shooting, told today how she cradled her dying daughter in her arms at the scene of the attack.

Paula Platt's last words to her daughter were "come back to us, I will be waiting for you," shortly before the 14-year-old died in hospital of a single gunshot to the chest.

Mrs Platt, 32, said today in an interview with the Nottingham Evening Post that she had been left feeling "numb" by her daughter's death after the shooting in the St Ann's area of Nottingham on Saturday evening.

Danielle was returning from the city's annual Goose Fair with a group of friends when she was hit by one of several shots fired from a passing gold-coloured car.

Mrs Platt said today: "I just feel numb. There are no words that can describe how I feel.

"If you take the worst you could feel, and multiply it by a million, it would not even come close."

The first news of the shooting came from Danielle's friends who had gone with her to the fair.

They ran to the family home and told Mrs Platt of the shooting.

"I grabbed my shoes and ran out of the door, even though I didn't know where I was going," she said today. "She was lying on the floor. I could see a bullet hole in her top.

"I knelt down beside her and she was closing her eyes. I told her to stay awake and keep conscious.

"She said she felt like she was dying. I said 'just stay awake, stay awake'."

Danielle was conscious in hospital, said Mrs Platt, and managed to talk with her mother before she was taken into the resuscitation room where she died.

"I spoke to her just before she went back into resus," said Mrs Platt. "I said 'I love you'. She said 'I love you too, mum'.

"I said 'Come back to us, I will be waiting for you'. She said 'I will, but I can't talk, I'm in too much pain'.

"Those were the last words she said to me."

She said: "They have taken my beautiful child's life. She is in a refrigerator in a morgue.

"They are not people. They are wicked, evil scum. Human beings do not behave like that.

"Every time they look in the mirror, I want Danielle's face to look up at them."

Five men were arrested in London on Monday night, one is still being questioned by police, the other four have been released.