A mother has described how she feared for the life of her six-year-old daughter, who spent three days in hospital after swallowing a tablet of the drug ecstasy.

Danielle Pye was taken ill after eating pills which she found on the floor of a pub where her mother was working as a barmaid.

"I was worried she might die, you hear so much about it," said Amanda Pye.

"When someone said it was ecstasy I was terrified. You hear so much about kids taking it and going into comas. I just thank God she will make a full recovery."

The incident began at the Pavilion public house in Billinge, St Helens, Merseyside, on Saturday night.

Danielle had wandered off from the side of the bar while her mother's attention was briefly diverted.

Bitter pill

She found a bag of four tablets on the floor and began eating them.

Ms Pye, 24, from the Moss Bank area of Merseyside, told how her daughter had frothed at the mouth after spitting out the second pill, saying the "sweets" tasted bitter.

She called an ambulance immediately and both were taken to nearby Whiston hospital, where they remained until Tuesday morning.

After their release, Ms Pye said: "Danielle is feeling better now but we are all still a bit shocked.

"It was very frightening. She remembers everything. She remembers where she found them, she just remembers everything. It's been very traumatic for her."

Ms Pye said she was furious that the drugs had been left lying around.

"The fact that she has been able to get hold of something like this in the first place, I just can't believe," she said.

She said she did not blame the landlord and landlady of the pub, whom she said were "anti-drugs".

"At the end of the day there are kids going in and out of that pub all the time and whoever did it is irresponsible and didn't apparently care what the consequences were of having something like that," she said.

Merseyside Police said forensic tests had confirmed that the tablets - white with a line down one side and a mark similar to the Mitsubishi logo - were ecstasy.

They said it is not clear how the tablets came to be on the floor, and appealed for anyone with information to come forward.