A woman has won almost £70,000 in damages from a hospital after an operation on her ankle left her unable to walk or stand properly.

Simone Stead, 32, says she is not celebrating the windfall at her home in Playden Close, Whitehawk, Brighton.

She says she would gladly swap that amount to be able to go to a gym, attend school functions without having to sit down every ten minutes or go on shopping trips with her children.

She says much of the payout has been swallowed up by the legal costs of a four-year fight and the settlement of debts run up in that time.

Both the Brighton Healthcare NHS Trust and the Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Trust have decided to jointly settle the claim for medical negligence without admitting liability.

The saga started 25 years ago when, as a six-year-old, she was hit by a car as she dashed across the road near her home in Elmore Road, Brighton, after buying an ice cream.

She was dragged under the wheels of the vehicle, breaking her leg.

The break was so bad she had to have a skin graft on her right ankle. As she grew the skin tightened and when it was hot it bled. During the summers of 1994 and 1995 the situation got worse.

She said: "It had begun to tear and leave me with an ugly gaping wound."

She saw her GP who referred her to a consultant at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, who in turn referred her to a plastic surgeon at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.

Doctors advised her to have a flap graft operation, which involved taking skin from underneath her arm and grafting it to her right ankle.

She was warned it might lead to a larger ankle, but she was assured the bleeding would stop.

She had the operation on February 26, 1996. Days after the operation she was still in pain and on crutches. Months later the swelling had not gone down and she was still unable to walk for long periods.

She decided to take legal action following one outpatient visit when a doctor told her to put her weight on her ankle. She had not be able to put the heel to the floor because her ankle joint had locked She said: "The operation alleviated the splitting of the skin. It solved one problem and opened a can of worms for others. There is no way I would have gone through this operation if I had known the true effects.

"It has entirely changed my life. I have still not got any answers as to what went wrong. I walked into hospital normally and nine days later I still could not walk."

Brighton Healthcare NHS Trust and the Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Trust said in a statement: "We are very sorry that this happened and we acknowledge that our care fell below our normally high standards. This is a matter of regret.

"The trusts and their staff have every sympathy with Mrs Stead and are pleased to have reached a negotiated settlement."