NEIGHBOURS of a mother and daughter who plunged from a top floor flat have been recalling events leading up to the tragedy.

Their accounts came at the start of an inquest in Maidstone into the death of 33-year-old Maxine Carr.

Miss Carr of Hawley Court, London Road, Maidstone, died on August 1 last year after falling more than 100 feet from the balcony of her flat.

Her daughter Yazmina Alvarez-Delgardo, aged three, who also fell from the same flat, was discovered alive but very cold and whimpering, close to her mother's body.

At the inquest Nicola Morrell, of London Road, said she was at home on Thursday, July 31, when she heard raised voices from a top floor flat at about 9pm.

She said: "I could see from my window that someone was walking across the balcony with a child. I saw objects thrown from the top balcony and I could hear that a child was upset."

Miss Morrell called the police but by the time a patrol car arrived things appeared to have calmed down, she said. She and her partner, Andrew Gabriel, then walked their dog before going to bed at 11pm.

They were soon woken by a car horn outside and a man shouting up to Miss Carr that he was taking the car back and would return in half an hour.

After asking the man not to sound his horn when he returned, Miss Morrell tried again to get to sleep. She and Mr Gabriel were disturbed twice more, first by a "very loud thud" and later by the sound of a child crying.

"It was a horrible noise," said Miss Morrell. "It was fairly quiet to begin with, but it got louder and when it was loud it was blood-curdling."

Lucia Church, also of Hawley Court, told the inquest she got out of bed shortly after midnight to fetch her husband a drink.

As she passed the lounge door, she heard a very loud scream from the direction of her balcony, and saw something falling outside.

Mr Church told the inquest his wife returned to the bedroom "in a bad way".

"She said she thought the little girl had been thrown over the balcony," he said.

He asked his wife to get back into bed but 10 minutes later heard a little girl screaming "mummy mummy mummy". The cries appeared to be coming from the balcony above.

There was also a loud banging, apparently from inside Miss Carr's flat. The noise continued until 2am when everything fell silent.

When questioned by Miss Carr's family as to why the couple did not call the police, Mr Church replied that he had been ill at the time and that seeing the object fall had left his wife badly shocked.

Miss Carr's next door neighbour, Christine Johnson, said she often spoke to Miss Carr and had an arrangement in place whereby she would call the police for her if trouble flared between Miss Carr and her ex-boyfriend.

She told the inquest that ealier that evening she had heard Miss Carr shouting and saw things being thrown from the balcony - behaviour she said was totally out of character. She rang 999 and spoke to officers when they arrived.

"They knocked on Maxine's door and she wouldn't open it so I had a go because she knew me," she said. "I told her the police wouldn't go away until she opened the door. She looked a bit stressed but she said she was all right." She later heard Miss Carr singing at about 11.30pm.

Jamie Walls and Kim Rumble, also of Hawley Court, heard a loud bang at about 1am. Mr Walls said his girlfriend looked out of the window at about 1.30am, when they dialed 999.

"She said she thought she saw a body out of the window and asked me to have a look because she wasn't sure whether she had imagined it," Mr Walls said.

Miss Carr's daughter was taken to Maidstone Hospital before being transferred to Guy's Hospital, London. She has since made a full recovery.

The inquest is due to resume on June 4 when Roger Sykes, coroner for Mid Kent and Medway, is due to hear from police officers who attended the flat that evening, as well as Miss Carr's family members and GP.