The High Court today rejected a claim that the Government was negligent in not issuing an earlier warning over a link between aspirin and a condition which left a child brain damaged.

Amanda Smith, 22, from Crowborough, was a healthy six-year-old until she contracted chickenpox in May 1986 and was given adult aspirin by her mother, Jenny.

A few days later, Amanda's condition deteriorated into a severe neurological illness - Reye's syndrome.

Despite expert care she was left with brain damage, a form of spastic quadriplegia and epilepsy, and is not expected to live beyond 40.

Ms Smith launched a damages action through her mother against the Health Secretary, who denied negligence and liability.

Her counsel, Lord Brennan QC, told Mr Justice Morland in London he would have to decide whether, between March and June 1986, the defendant owed a duty of care to warn that young children - in particular those with chickenpox - should not be given aspirin.

If such a duty was owed, there was a question over whether the defendant was in breach of it by failing to give a public warning until June 10, 1986.

But the judge said he had reached the clear conclusion that no fault was established against the Secretary of State, the Secretariat of the Medicines Division of the Department of Health or the Committee on Safety of Medicines.

In his judgment, they had "acted throughout rationally and in good faith, reaching decisions and implementing them carefully and expeditiously in the interests of the public at large and children in particular."

He said a "ghastly tragedy" befell Amanda and her family because what was done on June 10/11 1986 was not done a month earlier.

But in his judgment that postponement was "reasonably justifiable".