A toddler scrabbling to pick up sweets from a moving escalator screamed in agony as part of her finger was chopped off.

Blood sprayed over the shop floor of TJ Hughes in The Broadway, Crawley, as two-year-old Maheen Arif lost a third of her left ring finger.

The tot had bent down to pick up sweets she had dropped when her finger got caught on Sunday, at around 2.30pm.

Her mother Yasmin Arif, 25, said: "All I heard was her scream. I saw her hand was stuck in the escalator. I grabbed her hand and pulled it out.

"I was scared the other fingers would get caught. There was blood spraying everywhere."

A shopper bandaged Maheen's hand while they waited for paramedics.

Maheen was taken to Crawley Hospital Accident and Emergency at 3.15pm.

Doctors asked the family for the missing part of the finger, so Mrs Arif's sister-in-law returned to the shop to look for it.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said: "We had been searching for two hours for the finger but at 6.30pm I phoned the hospital and they said it was too late."

Investigations into the accident were launched yesterday by officers from Crawley environmental health.

TJ Hughes refused to comment.