A father wants a change in the law over pet insurance, after his daughter’s face was left scarred by a dog attack outside their home.

Currently, it is not a legal requirement for owners to have cover in the UK.

But Alex, 39, from Bridgend, believes it should be mandatory in the same way car insurance is to cover things such as medical care, counselling and compensation, after Lilly, 11, was attacked.

Alex is also worried that future work, such as cleaning up the scar, will have to be paid for by his family privately.

The UK government has been asked to comment.

Warning: This story contains graphic details and images

Lilly was 10 when she was attacked in September 2023, and had just finished playing football with a neighbour when the Staffordshire bull terrier cross breed bit her face.

Her father said “it was horrific”.

“My wife and I were watching TV, and my youngest daughter was getting her hair plaited,” said Alex

“Lilly was out playing football with the local boys and popped back to one of their houses and we heard a scream because it’s only 50 yards away.

“We saw Lilly coming away with a piece of her face missing.

“There was loads of blood.”

Alex drove his daughter to the accident and emergency unit at the Princess of Wales hospital in Bridgend.

Alex said “she asked me in the car am I going to die, dad”.

“She’s a very tough kid but it obviously hurt and she cried a lot but the shock sent her white,” he added.

Lilly underwent surgery at Morriston Hospital in Swansea soon afterwards and spent two nights at the hospital.

“My friends were worried about me when I was away in hospital, I am improving but every now and again it’s really scary and sometimes I look at my scar and I don’t like the look of it and it’s scary that this can happen,” she said.

“I put on a scar cream most nights to help it improve.”

The family also have a dog called Snapple, and Lilly was cautious about going near him after the attack by the neighbour’s dog.

They never have the dog around guests because it now makes Lilly anxious.

Lilly said: “When Snapple sneezed, it would make me jump and I would burst into tears but now I find I’m not really scared about myself I’m scared of it happening to other people.

“So, when my dog is around my friends I get really panicked and I want to put her away so that nothing can happen.”

Alex said the dog that attacked Lilly was destroyed and the owner was fined.

“It was very upsetting when there was nothing more that I could do and there’s nothing we could have done to prevent it,” he said.

“It’s just not something you expect 50 yards from you own front door.”

Lilly has not undergone counselling because of the waiting times and her father describes her as being “resilient.”

After advice from a local GP Lilly started keeping a diary and her parents were allowed to read it and would address any entries they found upsetting and see how they could help.

She also received support from her primary school, having weekly discussions with a teacher and would share how she was coping after the dog attack.

Lilly said she would like to be a judge or a maths teacher when she is older and is concentrating on her schoolwork and sport to help her recovery.

“I really enjoy playing football because it gives me a break from the world, and nothing can hurt me there and the best thing about it is I can be with my friends,” she said.

Alex said his daughter was emotional because of the scarring when she attended her leaving prom at primary school last year.

“It’s a time when everyone gets dressed up and Lilly was upset when she was getting ready,” he said.

“My worry is when she gets older, if she was to have surgery to clean the scar up, she can’t have that on the NHS, it’ll have to be done privately.

“I don’t think it’s fair she has no recourse to remedy a scar which was left through no fault of her own.”

Alex is now calling for a change in the law and for all dog owners to insure their animals.

The consumer group, Which, said pet insurance policies currently available will have third-party liability.

It means, if your dog injures someone or damages their property it will cover legal costs and compensation.

Alex said: “It should be as normal as owning a car, any animal owner but especially dog owners, should have insurance.

“If you own an animal that could cause harm at a minimum you should insure them for a liability against that harm.

“It seems insane that it doesn’t already happen.

“”We have insurance on our dog and it’s not the cheapest thing, a lot of people are struggling with cash, so they don’t want to pay insurance.

“We want it to be a legal requirement, If you own a dog you must insure it.”

Donald Trump has said he is “not joking” about wanting to serve a third term as US president.

The US Constitution says that “no person… shall be elected more than twice”, but some Trump supporters have suggested there could be ways around that.

Asked in an interview with NBC about the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House, Trump said “there are methods which you could do it”.

“I’m not joking… a lot of people want me to do it,” he added. “But, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”

Trump, who would be 82 at the end of his second term, was asked whether he would want to keep serving in “the toughest job in the country”.

“Well, I like working,” he replied.

These were not his first comments on the topic. In January, he told supporters that it would be “the greatest honour of my life to serve not once, but twice or three times or four times”. However, he then said this was a joke for the “fake news media”.

On the face of it, the US Constitution seems to rule out anyone having a third term. The 22nd Amendment states:

“No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the president more than once.”

Changing the constitution would require a two-thirds approval from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as approval from three-quarters of the country’s state-level governments.

Trump’s Republican Party controls both chambers of Congress but does not have the majorities needed. Additionally, the Democratic Party controls 18 of the 50 state legislatures.

Trump supporters say there is a loophole in the constitution, untested in court.

They argue that the 22nd Amendment only explicitly bans someone being “elected” to more than two presidential terms – and says nothing of “succession”.

Under this theory, Trump could be the vice-presidential running-mate to another candidate – perhaps his own vice-president, JD Vance – in the 2028 election.

If they win, the candidate could be sworn into the White House and then immediately resign – letting Trump take over by succession.

Steve Bannon, the podcaster and prominent former Trump adviser, said he believed Trump would “run and win again”, adding there were “a couple of alternatives” in determining how.

Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican in the House of Representatives, introduced a resolution in January calling for a constitutional amendment to allow a president to serve up to three terms – as long as they were not consecutive.

This would mean that only Trump of all former surviving presidents would be eligible – Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W Bush all served consecutive terms, whereas Trump won in 2016, lost in 2020, and won again in 2024.

However, the high bar for constitutional amendments makes Ogles’ proposal a pipe dream – although it got people talking.

Democrats have deep objections.

“This is yet another escalation in his clear effort to take over the government and dismantle our democracy,” said Daniel Goldman, a New York Representative who served as lead counsel for Trump’s first impeachment.

“If Congressional Republicans believe in the Constitution, they will go on the record opposing Trump’s ambitions for a third term.”

Some within Trump’s party also think it’s a bad idea.

The Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin, of Oklahoma, said in February he would not back an attempt to put Trump back in the White House.

“I’m not changing the constitution, first of all, unless the American people chose to do that,” Mullin told NBC.

Derek Muller, an election law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the Constitution’s 12th Amendment says “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the United States”.

That means serving two terms in office disqualifies anyone from running as a vice-presidential candidate, in his view.

“I don’t think there’s any ‘one weird trick’ to getting around presidential term limits,” he said.

Jeremy Paul, a constitutional law professor at Boston’s Northeastern University, told CBS New there were “no credible legal arguments” for a third term.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected four times. He died three months into his fourth term, in April 1945.

The Great Depression and the Second World War coloured Roosevelt’s time in office – and are often cited for his extended presidency.

At that time, the two-term limit on US presidents had not been written into law – it was instead a custom followed since George Washington refused a third term in 1796.

Roosevelt’s extended stewardship led to the tradition being codified into law in the 22nd Amendment in the early 1950s.

Three victims of a house fire at a converted railway station have been named as Mayci Fox, four, her mother Emma Conn, 30, and Louie Thorn, 23.

They died after a blaze at a Grade II listed property in Rushton, near Kettering, Northamptonshire, at about 22:30 GMT on Friday.

A 54-year-old man from Kettering who was arrested on suspicion of murder at the weekend was released without charge.

Det Ch Insp Ruby Burrow, of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit, said there was no evidence of “criminal wrongdoing”.

Mayci Fox and Emma Conn were from Desborough. Louie Thorn was from Rushton.

Formal identification has yet to take place, Northamptonshire Police said, but it was releasing the victims’ names with the agreement of the Coroner’s Office and the support of the families.

Officers are now trying to establish how the blaze may have started. Specialist fire investigators and investigation dogs are still at the scene.

Villagers told the BBC they had been “traumatised” by the incident and police said officers would be in the area to “provide reassurance”.

Kevin Abraham, a churchwarden of All Saints’ Rushton in the parish, said the close-knit community had been “knocked for six” by the blaze.

“It’s probably one of the worst things in living memory that has happened,” he added.

Drone pictures of the house show its roof has been severely damaged in the blaze.

It was previously the Glendon and Rushton railway station before it was converted for residential use.

It was granted Grade II listed status in 1981.

Phil Pells, from Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue service, said it was a “terrible incident”.

He continued: “The focus now is on ensuring we conduct a thorough investigation – along with the police – to determine a cause.”

Mr Pells thanked the community for their support and said the families of those affected were being helped by specialist officers.

The prime minister has told the makers of hit Netflix drama Adolescence that it was “really hard to watch” with his teenage children, as he hosted them in Downing Street to discuss the influence of toxic material online.

Sir Keir Starmer said the show, about a 13-year-old boy accused of murder, served as “a torch that shines intensely brightly on a combination of issues that many people don’t know how to respond to”.

But he warned there was not a “silver bullet response” or “some policy lever that can be pulled”.

The meeting came as Netflix said it would make the series available to screen for free in schools, a move Sir Keir welcomed as “an important initiative to encourage as many pupils as possible to watch the show”.

The programme has sparked a national conversation about the impact of social media and “manosphere” influencers.

Jack Thorne, who wrote the show with actor Stephen Graham, recently said the prime minister should “rather urgently” consider a smartphone ban in schools and a “digital age of consent”, similar to Australia, which has passed a law banning children under 16 from using social media.

Thorne and producer Jo Johnson gave their views to Sir Keir at Monday’s meeting, along with selected charities and young people. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was also there.

The prime minister, who has a daughter aged 14 and a 16-year-old son, told them the show was “at times harrowing” but had “lit a touch paper” under the debate about the issues.

“To be honest, as a dad, I have not found it easy viewing,” he said.

“It instantly contacts with the fears and worries, not just of young people – because I was really struck by how riveted our children were to it – but also frankly the fears and worries of parents and adults across the country.”

But he told the attendees there was no single policy that could provide a simple solution.

“It is actually much bigger than that, almost a cultural issue,” he said.

He added that the show highlighted “the devastating effect of misogyny on our society”, plus “the dangers of online radicalisation and this sense of young people being on their own, very often in their bedroom or wherever, isolated with that online radicalisation”, and “the challenges our children, schools and families face every day”.

Speaking afterwards, Thorne said it was a “brilliant” meeting.

“The brilliant thing was that it wasn’t about us,” he said. “It was about facilitating conversations with charities and youth groups who really understand what’s going on, and I hope a solution can be found to this problem.”

The success of Adolescence has helped those charities and groups get “the opportunity to have conversations that they haven’t had before and that they should have had, and that might lead to a policy change and things being made better for our young people”, he added.

The government pointed to measures including the Online Safety Act, which says social media companies will have to protect children from harmful material including pornography, material promoting self-harm, bullying and content encouraging dangerous stunts.

Platforms will be expected to adopt “age assurance technologies” to prevent children from seeing harmful content.

The government is also updating its guidance on how schools should teach children about relationships, sex and health education (RSHE).

The Times recently reported that it would include “lessons to counter misogyny and the growing appeal of influencers such as Andrew Tate”, in the wake of the discussions about Adolescence.

Meanwhile, Netflix announced that the drama will be available to all UK secondary schools through the Into Film+ schools streaming service.

In a statement, Thorne said: “To have the opportunity to take this into schools is beyond our expectations. We hope it’ll lead to teachers talking to the students, but what we really hope is it’ll lead to students talking amongst themselves.”

For 22-year-old Harry Foster, being radicalised as a teenager was “very easy”.

“When you’re a child, it’s very easy when there’s a lack of any sort of direction or positive role models to get swept along with something,” he said.

He said extremist groups exploited his vulnerability with addiction issues as a teenager, manipulating him into sharing racist and misogynistic views.

“I thought I was finding some sense of belonging,” he told BBC Newsbeat. “What I was actually being given was a very harmful and very radical set of political views, which is almost like the trade-off for belonging to these people.”

He got help through The Warren youth group in Hull and now works with them to help other boys and young men in similar situations.

Harry welcomed Sir Keir’s plans to work with Netflix to show Adolescence in secondary schools, but said more work must be done.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a time where young people as a whole feel more disconnected from politicians,” he said.

“It’s one thing to make young men aware of the problems around these kind of ideologies, but it’s equally important we’re offering an alternative to young boys and men who are so desperately looking for something to identify with.

“I don’t think it’s as simple as showing a TV show. There needs to be a positive alternative for young people.”