The mother of a seven-year-old girl is hoping she will finally be able to see her daughter smile again –- three years after she was horrifically injured in a dog attack.

Demi Franklyn was left with damage to her facial muscles and nerves, leaving her unable to smile since the Akita turned on her in March 2009.

She returned to her home in Buttershaw, Bradford, at the weekend following a major operation at the Royal Free Hospital in London to replace a nerve in her face with tissue from her leg.

Demi’s mum Mary Davies, 42, said it was the third operation her daughter had been through since the attack outside their then home in Windhill, Shipley, but she was due to undergo even more in the coming years.

She said: “She keeps crying and getting upset. She’s doing all right at school, she has her moments, but she gets upset sometimes at school.

“She can’t smile, I’m hoping this operation is going to bring her smile back.”

Mrs Davies said she was due an operation next year to remove muscle from her chest and put it in her face, and was also expecting a second operation when she is older to help her close her eye.

At the time of the incident the Telegraph & Argus reported how Mrs Davies was “disgusted” the dog, named Tyson, had not been put down before it mauled Demi, who was aged three at the time, after it emerged it was the same animal which attacked seven-year-old schoolboy Charlie Faulding three doors down from his former home in Hustler Street, Eccleshill, the previous year.

In March 2009 the T&A reported a spokesman for the dog’s owner shopkeeper Asam Bashir said the dog had been tied up outside Tommy's convenience store in Leeds Road, Windhill, when it attacked Demi.

He told the T&A: “I’m sorry for what it has done. My heart bleeds for her – if it had happened to any of my kids, I would be deeply upset.

“But it wasn’t our fault. We had the dog tied up on our land.”

Mrs Davies yesterday said she was hoping to pursue a claim of compensation for Demi.

She said: “All the treatment is on the NHS, but it’s proving to be expense travelling to London.

“I think she should be allowed something.

“My argument is why didn’t that dog get put down the first time it attacked another little boy?

“I just want some money for Demi for when she’s older.

“I’m still angry, I think any mother would be. I haven’t thought much about the future, I’m just taking it day by day.”