A disabled girl is suing a health authority for more than £50,000 in damages, claiming hospital staff at her birth were negligent.

Miffawni Horsman, now ten, was born premature at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton with cerebral palsy.

She has since developed epilepsy, is registered blind and needs round-the-clock care.

Her mother, Angela, has issued a writ, lodged with the High Court in London, against East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Health Authority on her behalf.

She believes Miffawni's condition was caused, or at least made worse, by a delay between her admission to the hospital and her daughter's delivery by emergency caesarean section at 29 weeks.

Miss Horsman, of Fairway Crescent, Portslade, said: "It gets harder and harder looking after Miffawni. The older she gets, the more problems she develops.

"I am doing this for her, to secure her future so that when I can no longer look after her, she can pay for the care she needs.

"I have a lovely, happy daughter but I have lost the little girl she would have been - the daughter that I would have taught to wear make-up, who would have got married and who I would have shared mother and daughter things with.

"I went to the hospital 29 weeks into the pregnancy because I knew something was wrong.

Things just didn't feel right and I put my trust in the doctors. Now Miffawni needs to be watched all the time. I am fighting for her."

Miss Horsman was in hospital for a month around the birth of her first child, Jay, now 13, after complications. She claims that despite this, she was not treated as a high-risk case when she admitted herself to hospital feeling unwell on the day of Miffawni's birth, June 14, 1990.

She arrived at 10am and was examined but allowed to go home to collect belongings. She says when she returned there was a period when she and the baby were not monitored. At 6pm she was rushed into surgery for the delivery.

She believes hospital staff failed to carry out an appropriate examination of her or her baby's wellbeing and failed to appreciate test results which, the writ claims, clearly showed the child to be in distress and showed signs her brain was being starved of blood and oxygen.

Miss Horsman claims there was an avoidable five-hour delay, during which time her daughter's brain was damaged.

A spokesman for the Royal Sussex said: "Neither East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Health Authority nor Brighton Health Care NHS Trust can comment on this matter as it is currently the subject of formal court proceedings."