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A woman, whose brother was killed in a traffic accident, has met the man who was given his face in a pioneering transplant operation, the BBC reports.

Footage from Channel 9's 60 Minutes programme in Australia shows the moment Rebekah Aversano sees - and touches - the face of her dead brother.

The recipient, Richard Norris, from Virginia, US, was badly disfigured in a shotgun incident 15 years ago.

Until the operation he had rarely gone outside and lived as a recluse.

Transplant recipients do not normally meet the families of their donors.

But in what is thought to be one of the first encounters of its kind, Ms Aversano, from Maryland, came face to face with the man who received some of her brother's facial tissues and structures.

She touched his face and said: "This is the face I grew up with."

Her brother, Joshua Aversano, had been killed in a road traffic accident, at the age of 21.