The mother of a Bradford girl shot in the eye today declared she had lost faith in the justice system after a 14-year-old boy was cleared of the wounding.

Sue Margison's 12-year-old daughter Jenna was hit with a pellet after an air rifle was fired from a bedroom window.

After collapsing in agony, she was rushed to Bradford Royal Infirmary suffering blurred vision and needed an operation to remove the centimetre-long metal pellet.

At Bradford Youth Court, the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was cleared of wounding Jenna last July.

Her mum Sue, of Kildare Crescent, Allerton, said: "I'm just sick for Jenna. It's been a complete farce from start to finish. If nobody's been found guilty then who did shoot her? It's like calling her a liar.

"Somebody pulled that trigger. Jenna is marked for life now with a one-inch scar under her eye. That's with her for the rest of her life, but according to the courts nobody did it. She's been through the trauma of standing up in court and giving evidence, all for nothing.

"They didn't even have the courtesy to ring me and tell me the magistrates' decision. I've lost faith in British justice."

Giving evidence, Jenna said she had been playing with friends when she saw one of two boys firing a pellet from the window.

She ran for cover behind a fence, only to be struck by a second pellet when she peered through a garden gate.

"I looked up and he fired." She added: "I saw him. It hit me in the face and I fell to the ground." The boy told police another teenager had fired the second shot that hit Jenna.

He said he had only been messing about with the weapon while it was unloaded, adding he was not intending to use it.

He told the court: "The gun was not loaded. I was not pulling the trigger."

Chairman of the bench Maria Bahrami said they were not convinced Jenna could definitely identify the person who fired the second shot.

Jenna's scar has healed since the shooting but she now gets black spots appearing in front of her if she rubs it.

She said: "I feel as though I haven't been believed. I was petrified in the witness box, so I just stared at a water jug and told the truth."

Her dad, Lawrence Margison, 39, of Halifax, who is divorced from Jenna's mother, said his daughter had been left with both a physical and psychological scar for life.