MOVING tributes have been paid to a four-year-old New Forest girl who has died from a brain tumour.

Jessica Girling spent the last few weeks of her life playing "big sister" to her brother Joshua, who was born three months ago.

Jessica's illness was diagnosed at the beginning of June.

Her parents, John and Hayley, of South Street, Pennington, near Lymington, noticed that she kept tripping up and that her speech was becoming slurred.

Jessica was taken to Southampton General Hospital, where doctors discovered that she was suffering from brainstem glioma.

Her heartbroken parents were told the tumour was inoperable and so large that radiotherapy would have little effect.

The couple contacted Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children and cancer specialists around the world, but the advice was always the same.

Mr Girling, 32, said: "Jessica could have had radiotherapy, which might have prolonged her life for six months.

"But it wouldn't have provided a cure, and we felt it was not in her best interests to go through all that extra suffering."

Mrs Girling, also 32, gave birth to Joshua a few weeks after learning that Jessica was terminally ill.

She and her husband said Jessica loved cradling her baby brother and feeding him with his bottle.

They added that their daughter was an inspiration to anyone who was lucky enough to meet her.

Mr Girling suffers from a spinal condition but is planning to take part in next year's New Forest Marathon in aid of the Wessex Cancer Trust.

Fellow runners will include his brother Paul, who runs the Setley Ridge Vineyard, near Brocken-hurst, and family friend Ben Ford, of Gordleton, near Lymington.