THE little girl who touched North-East hearts is safely back on British soil.

Hannah Maxwell-Jones, from Nunthorpe, in Middlesbrough, touched down at Teesside Airport just hours before attacks were launched on Afghanistan.

The toddler has been at the world-famous Arkansas Children's Hospital in the US for the past two weeks as part of treatment to repair her severely deformed face.

Readers of The Northern Echo helped raise £55,000 to pay for Hannah to return to America for what is expected to be a series of operations.

Hannah's mother, Allison, said: "We are exhausted but very pleased to be home. I have missed my other children so much."

Still recovering after a flight of more than 28 hours, via Memphis and Amsterdam, Allison said the three-hour operation had gone well, but stressed that it was only the beginning.

"It hasn't changed her appearance, which we were expecting, but an important start has been made," she said.

Professor Milton Waner, the pioneering surgeon who specialises in reconstructing the faces of children born with severe facial deformity, has told the family that Hannah is one of the most difficult cases he has come across.

But the South African-born surgeon has assured her parents, Allison and Keith, that he expects to dramatically improve her appearance after surgery is completed.

Allison is full of praise for the way her brave daughter coped with the ordeal.

"Even though she had a rough ride in the operating theatre she was walking around the wards, skipping and singing in no time. People just loved her, she lit up everywhere she went," her mother said.

Hannah is resting and should be fully recovered in time for the next trip to Arkansas in about three months.

"She is such an inspiration to us," said Allison, who is an intensive care nurse at the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough.

"She has been incredible, a superstar, so brave and so accepting of everything.

"She was an absolute inspiration to people over there in the same way as she is over here. People loved her," her mother added.

Hannah is likely to need up to five more operations in America and further surgery before she reaches her teens.