A four-year-old Shropshire girl has died following a “tragic accident” at a Christmas family party while she was playing alone in her bedroom.

The parents of four-year-old Arwen Isobel Esterhuizen, from Albrighton, today paid tribute to the “heartbeat” of their home and said they had been left devastated following the family tragedy.

It is believed the youngster died of asphyxiation after she was found in a room on her own at the party in Tong on December 27.

Ambulance crews rushed her to Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital but she was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.

Today her father, Johan, mother, Lucy, and two-year-old sister Eva paid tribute to Arwen.

Mr Esterhuizen said: “She was the heartbeat of our house. She was the first one to wake up in the morning and she kept going until we told her to go to bed.

“She was a perfectly healthy little girl and she was at her happiest.

“She was loved at Albrighton and Donington Nursery School and at church, a lot of people loved her, she was a great little character. She was such a happy little girl.”

On the night Arwen died she was playing in a room alone.

He added: “It was a family gathering, as we normally do at Christmas, and there was a tragic accident and she died of asphyxiation. She is the only one who knows what happened.

“The house was full of people but when the accident happened she was on her own.”

Mr Esterhuizen added: “It has been devastating.”

He said the family’s faith was helping them.