An 10-year-old schoolgirl from Bridgend, south Wales, has been left scarred for life after a dog escaped its cage to viciously attack her.
Lilly O'Byrne - who has since turned 11 years old - was playing football opposite her home when a Staffordshire bull terrier cross breed pounced on her.
The horrific attack left the young girl with a gaping hole in her cheek and puncture wounds to her hands - at just 10 years old.
"I was playing football with a boy across the road - his mum owns the dog. They keep it in a cage so I'd never seen it," Lilly told the Daily Mail.
Lilly O'Byrne was playing football opposite her home when a Staffordshire bull terrier cross breed pounced on her
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"The boy went into the house to change his shoes and suddenly the dog came out and jumped up at me biting my face. It was scary, it all happened so quickly."
Lilly's parents described the scene as "like something from a horror movie" when they rushed to her aid after hearing their daughter screaming just 50 yards away.
Engineer Alex drove his blood-soaked daughter to hospital immediately, where the family endured a six-hour wait in A&E before Lilly was transferred to a specialist unit to undergo surgery and receive antibiotics.
The dog - a Staffordshire Bull terrier crossed with a German Shepherd - was humanely put down after police were called to the incident.
The animal's owner, Cody O'Brien, visited Lilly's family the day after the attack but, instead of apologising, she asked them to pretend the dog had been taken in by a local farmer.
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O'Brien later appeared before Cardiff Magistrates charged with being the owner of a dog dangerously out of control causing injury where she pleaded guilty and subsequently fined £666.
Lilly's parents were not informed about the court hearing, preventing them from giving a victim impact statement.
"What really hurts is that she still lives there and she's now got another dog. The courts didn't ban her from keeping animals," said Alex, Lilly's father.
The family was also unable to claim from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board because the dog wasn't on Britain's list of banned breeds.
Alex and Kylie say they have never been offered help or counselling for their daughter so far, and cannot afford private treatment themselves.
"We feel let down that nobody cares that this has happened to our little girl," Alex wrote on his GoFundMe page.
Lilly suffered significant scarring
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"Apart from comforting her when she is sad or scared, and buying her expensive creams to improve scarring, I have been unable to succeed with anything else," Alex added.
The O'Byrne family has launched a GoFundMe appeal to help Lilly get the support she needs, which aims to raise £10,000 for potential future surgery and therapy.
Alex explained: "I would like to raise enough money for Lilly to have the option to elect for further surgery to reduce the scarring on her face or to go to therapy via private medical practices if she feels things are getting on top of her.
"Most of all I want her to feel that people care and that she is not just left by society to fend for herself after such a traumatic incident."
While Lilly is finding ways to cope with the aftermath of the attack, her mother has said that her daughter still gets scared easily as she tries to recover from the traumatic event.
