23 October 2005 BAD GIRL SIMONE'S BABY JOY By Steve Hendry - Copyright The Sunday Mail (Scottish edition)

SCOTS star Simone Lahbib is celebrating the birth of her first child.

The 40-year-old actress and husband Rafaello Degruttola, 35, are thrilled at the arrival of daughter Skye.

Stirling-born Simone discovered she was expecting the day before her husband of two and a half years - who was in Saving Private Ryan - was due to take a fertility test.

A friend of the couple said they were "delighted" after having their daughter earlier this month.

She added: "They are so happy - absolutely ecstatic and over the moon. She's a beautiful baby and her parents couldn't be prouder."

But new mum Simone is already planning to get back to work - she makes her TV comeback in grisly detective series Wire In The Blood in January.

It will be her first job since she quit playing feisty farmer Isobel Anderson in Monarch Of The Glen in April