A GRIEVING mother was today cleared of murdering her 14-month-old daughter by suffocating her with a pillow.

Sadia Ahmed, 28, sat emotionless in the dock staring straight ahead as the verdict was returned by the jury at the High Court in Glasgow.

But, seconds later as she left the court she broke down in the arms of a female relative.

The jury of eight women and seven men took just over an hour to find the charge against her not proven.

Judge Lord Matthews told Mrs Ahmed: “The jury have found the charge against you not proven you are free to leave.”

Lord Matthews told the jurors: “It's not meant to be an enjoyable business. At the end of the Inaya is dead. It's a terrible tragedy and we had to pick over the bones of it.”

During her four-week-long trial Mrs Ahmed denied murdering her daughter and claimed she had choked on bread. She told the jury: “My Inaya was the world to me."

Mrs Ahmed from Glasgow, was accused of murdering her daughter Inaya by smothering her with a pillow at the family home at 47 Bernisdale Drive, Drumchapel, on April 17, last year.

She said that she fed Inaya a small piece of buttered toast that morning and the child choked on it.

She denied that she had confessed to her 31-year-old husband Suleman Ahmed, her mother-in-law Noor Ahmed and her sister-in-law Nadia Ahmed that she killed Inaya.

Her mother-in-law Noor Ahmed and her sister-in-law Sana Ahmed claimed Mrs Ahmed came downstairs with Inaya slumped in her arms and said: “I've put her to sleep forever.”

But, she denied this and also refuted an allegation from her husband Suleman that Inaya was a burden to her.

Mrs Ahmed said: “My Inaya was not a burden to me. I loved her with all my heart and soul. I'm a grieving mother. I will be grieving till my very last.”

The court heard that Inaya died as a result of irreversible brain damage caused by lack of blood and oxygen.

She was rushed to the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow on April 17, 2016 and placed on a life support machine.

Inaya died three days later when her parents had to make the heartbreaking decision to switch of her life support machine.

Initially Mrs Ahmed's in-laws told police that the child had choked to death. But, in court giving evidence they changed their story and claimed that Mrs Ahmed had confessed to killing her daughter.

Mrs Ahmed, a trained nursery nurse, told the court she was treated 'like a slave' in the household and expected to spend her days cooking and cleaning and was not allowed a phone of her own or to go out unaccompanied.

The Ahmed family denied this.