A GIRL who was awarded £2.8m last year in compensation for the brain damage she suffered when just days old has fought off a bid to take away part of her pay-out.

Lawyers for the NHS trust which runs the RVI hospital in Newcastle said Bethany Ruff had been awarded too much compensation - because her life expectancy had been overestimated.

But yesterday judges at London's Appeal Court voted by a majority of 2-1 in favour of the nine-year-old.

Bethany, daughter of Conservative parliamentary candidate Aidan Ruff, suffered brain damage after being taken to hospital on New Year's Eve 1993.

Doctors failed to give incubation or mechanical ventilation and she now suffers from cerebral palsy, spastic quadriplegia, epilepsy, severe developmental delay and is blind.

Defence lawyers said Bethany was "over compensated" by nearly £500,000, saying the award was based on an unrealistic estimate of how long she would survive.

The trust was refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords, but may still petition the Law Lords directly for an appeal hearing.

Bethany and her family, of Ellingham Hall in Northumberland, were not in court to hear the judges' majority decision.