The wife of a Sussex pensioner who will never leave hospital after tripping on a paving stone faces a £40,000 legal bill after losing her case against the council.

Lilly Landers, 75, of Worthing, took West Sussex County Council to court claiming it did not maintain the pavement properly.

Her husband Bill, a 77-year-old retired hotelier, broke his hip and leg in the fall in Heene Road, Worthing in 1993.

He had a stroke just before his operation at Southlands Hospital in Shoreham and has been in Salvington Lodge hospital, Worthing, ever since.

Lilly said: "I'm disgusted because there's no justice for my husband. I was devastated when I heard.

"My husband has been in hospital for seven years and I go every day to feed him. The only people I feel sorry for are the elderly of Worthing.

"If I have done some good and helped pensioners to get the paving stones sorted, then it's been worth it.

"I'm going to get on with my life. My husband is almost a vegetable - I don't even think he knows me - but he's in the most wonderful hospital in the world.

"The nurses there take such great care of him that I have got no worries about him staying there.

"He had a wonderful personality. Everybody loved him and he had a glorious wit."