A heartbroken couple today paid tribute to their baby daughter who died at just a month old after complicated heart surgery.

Little Summer Boyce was born weighing 5lbs 4oz at Bradford Royal Infirmary and was rushed to Leeds General Infirmary's intensive care unit within hours.

She later underwent a ten-hour operation to correct a fault where the heart chambers were back to front. But shortly afterwards she contracted a form of pneumonia. Despite battling on, she died on Friday, January 16 - exactly a month after was born.

Her funeral was taking place today at Shipley United Reformed Church.

Her mum Michelle, 24, of Gaisby Lane, Shipley, said: "She was so tiny, yet so strong. We were told the surgery had gone well and there was a 95 per cent success rate. We are so devastated we don't have her anymore."

Michelle and dad Tony brought her home for five treasured days over Christmas so the family could be together. They also have a six-year-old son Calvin. "They didn't want us to take her but in the end they went soft and agreed," said Michelle. "I didn't want to take presents into hospital, I wanted her here with us. She was all I ever wanted. I had a boy and a girl and I thought our family was complete."

Michelle, a sales company manager, found out she was expecting Summer the day before she was due in hospital for tests as the couple had been trying for three years without success to conceive again. She was scanned once a week from 30 weeks onwards because the tot was not putting on the expected amount of weight.

Doctors diagnosed the defect soon after she was born because she would not warm up. An operation to insert a tiny balloon to open her arteries was carried out the day she was born- December 16 - and the main ten-hour corrective operation followed on January 2. Initially doctors said it had gone well. But two days later the pneumonia set in.

Summer had more surgery to relieve the pressure growing in her chest and was put on a life-support machine which the couple decided to turn off after doctors said there was no hope.

Michelle said: "They kept telling us she only had an hour to live. That happened four times but she wouldn't give up. In the end she just got too tired to fight anymore."

The couple will plant a pink rose in the garden at their home as a permanent reminder of their little daughter.

Tony, 39, an engineer at Denso Marston in Baildon, said: "She looked so lovely in pink. We wanted a permanent reminder. If we move house we shall take the rose with us."