A woman who lost her two front teeth during a childhood operation to remover her tonsils has been awarded £61,800 in damages.

Sarah Marshall, 21, sued Fife Health Board for compensation over negligence following the surgery at the Victoria Hospital, in Kirkcaldy, when she was aged six in 1996.

During a hearing at the Court of Session in Edinburgh Ms Marshall said she experienced bullying as a child following the hospital accident. She also faces further potential dental treatment.

The health authority admitted liability in the £100,000 claim brought by the Dundee University student, of Leven, in Fife, but the level of damages was contested.

A civil jury was left to decide the size of the award and granted her £38,000 for her pain and suffering, £8500 for services and £15,300 for future dental costs.

Her junior counsel Ruth Charteris told jurors that they could no doubt imagine how distressing it must have been for a six-year-old child, who had grown her adult teeth, to lose them through someone else's malpractice.

She said: "She had many, many attempts to try to provide her with alternatives to her natural teeth."

Ms Marshall said her teeth were lost after she went in to have a tonsillectomy as a child. She said: "I remember waking up and my mouth was really painful."

She said the two front teeth were sticking out and that an attempt had been made to push them back in to see if they would re-root.

She said efforts were initially made to keep them. "They were kept in by a brace. I think it was up until about nine when I got my teeth removed. They weren't doing anything. They were causing infections," she said.

Ms Marshall underwent various forms of treatment and faces options for the future.

Her senior counsel, Andrew Smith QC, asked how she felt at school with a gap between her teeth. She replied: "Awful. I got bullied a lot."

She was shown photographs of when she was younger and said of one: "I remember the photographer saying 'Smile. Show your teeth'. I said no."

Mr Smith told jurors: "This did not have to happen. A doctor's negligence knocked her teeth out."

Graham Primrose QC, for the health authority, said that what happened to her was clearly unpleasant and has been inconvenient for her. But he asked the jury to bear in mind in the scale of cases heard in the courts hers was a "relatively small" injury.