I know, the trouble is neither of us have anywhere to store our bikes so we're stuck with padlocking them to lamp-posts on the streets of brighton and anything that looks semi-decent would eventually get stolen.If you love her just go and weigh it in a buy her something reasonable
Anyway since I posted that, I've replaced the kicked-in wheel, and the brake pads (which I think were original and fossilised into some kind of rock), and the brake levers (the plastic levers were so bad you could feel them bending while also not putting enough force into the brakes). It's now usable and she loves it.