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Naomi Oni's life was changed by the acid attack in East London in 2012

Her former school friend Mary Konye is serving a 12-year sentence for the attack

Naomi said her attacker was a 'coward' but that she would forgive her

The memory of the woman in the niqab will always haunt her. Five years on, Naomi Oni knows she can never forget the image of that figure swathed in black, her unflinching gaze - and then the sudden, searing shock of the acid as it hit her face.

'I'd felt a presence,' Naomi recalls. 'I remember seeing a woman's cold eyes piercing into mine. The rest of her face was obscured by her veil. I didn't want to stare back, so I turned away.

'Then I felt the splash. I took a big intake of breath then screamed. I thought I was going to be killed. My face and tongue were burning.

'I didn't have time to feel fear. I ran and didn't look back. I felt it was the end - that I was on the brink of death. I screamed as loud as I could to deter this woman from chasing me, and ran until I got to my front door. I could feel a scalding sensation and there was a chemical smell.

'I hammered on my door shouting, "Acid! Acid!" My mum opened it. Her jaw dropped.

'I was screaming: "My face is burning up." There was steam coming off me. I was shaking with shock.'

Such acid attacks are now terrifyingly prevalent - a gruesomely simple weapon, deployed by criminals in robberies, muggings - and as revenge.

From takeaway delivery drivers out on their rounds to nightclubbers dancing and having fun, today there are more and more innocents who have felt the same caustic burn that Naomi so vividly describes. But on this dark night in the quiet lull between Christmas and New Year 2012, as Naomi, then 20, made her way home from a late shift at Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford, East London, where she worked in a lingerie boutique, acid attacks were rare.

She'd made the familiar journey home - by Tube, then bus - unaware that a black-clad woman was following her, poised to pounce in the empty street near the house in Dagenham that she shared with her mother.

So brutal was the attack that the scars are all too apparent five years on. Naomi was left with third degree burns and doctors feared she would be permanently blind. Her beautiful face was ravaged, her eyelids seared away. She looked, as she now recalls in this interview to coincide with a BBC documentary about the attack, 'as if I'd melted'. A young life full of hope and promise was shattered.

You might imagine that such an event would have left Naomi, now 25, bitter and numb with rage.

Not so. With extraordinary grace and courage, she says she has forgiven her attacker - a young woman whom she had considered one of her closest friends, but who had been driven wild with jealousy by Naomi's good looks, popularity and bubbly personality.

'I do forgive her. I owe myself the freedom to move on. But I still think she is a callous, vindictive person; a complete coward who betrayed me.'

And while, in the aftermath of the attack, the law student boyfriend Naomi had may have 'drifted away', today she wisely says: 'He was shallow. He just liked me when I was attractive.'

There have been no boyfriends since and her longed-for career as a make-up artist has stalled. Companies that make their money from selling perfection appear reluctant to employ someone with the disfigurement that Naomi endures.

'People stare,' says Naomi. 'But I'm learning to block them out.'

Since 2014, when 200 acid attacks were reported to police, the number has more than doubled to 431 in 2016 - and the worst affected area is the borough of Newham, which includes Stratford's Olympic Park, Westfield and Dagenham, where Naomi then lived and worked. In the past five years, almost 400 of London's 1,500 reported attacks happened there.

In the worst cases, acid attacks can be fatal - a fact reflected in the punitive 20-year jail sentence Arthur Collins, 25, the ex-boyfriend of The Only Way Is Essex reality star Ferne McCann, received last month after hurling corrosive liquid across a club dance floor in East London, with little thought for those in its wake.

Mercifully for Naomi, her sight slowly returned. But the restoration of her vision brought new trauma - and as she caught sight of her disfigured reflection in a hospital mirror, she contemplated suicide.

'I thought: "I'm never going to look like myself again," ' she says. 'I had no hair or eyebrows. My eyelids had been burnt off. I couldn't recognise myself. A slab of my thigh had been grafted onto my face where my cheek had been burnt away.

'I just couldn't take it in. I couldn't stop crying. I looked at this vision of my face in the hospital bathroom and just slid down the wall.

'I didn't feel grateful I was alive. I felt angry and thought: "What is the point in living?" I thought about taking my life.

'But then I gathered myself. I imagined my mum's face and thought: "I couldn't do it to her. I couldn't leave her."'

Swathed in bandages in a hospital burns unit, Naomi also grappled with the mystery of why she had been targeted. This was no bungled attempted at robbery; nor was there any clue about who the woman in the niqab was. The attack defied logic or reason.

'I concluded it was a crazy person, and that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,' she says.

Naomi, the beloved only child of Marriam, who had raised her single-handedly after her husband returned to live in his native Nigeria, had never been wayward or troublesome.

She went to a strict Catholic Convent School in Forest Gate, East London, and her bond with her mum was particularly strong because Marriam has albinism, which has caused her sight to deteriorate.

'Mum always said I was her spare pair of eyes,' says Naomi. 'I used to care for her.'

Poised on the great adventure of life, Naomi dreamed of working as a make-up artist. She felt blessed - with a boyfriend, a job she enjoyed, good friends and not an enemy in the world. Or so she believed.

But the woman who disguised her identity by wearing traditional Muslim clothing was Mary Konye, a friend Naomi had known since they were both pupils at St Angela's Ursuline School.

Konye is now serving a 12-year prison sentence for the attack, for which she has shown no remorse. Naomi, meanwhile, still reels at her former friend's horrifying treachery.

The night when it happened - December 29, 2012 - is indelibly etched in her memory. She'd begun work at 7pm. It was her turn to do a late shift, but she was loath to go.

'We had a family gathering at home. My godmother, uncle and several cousins had come over from Ireland, and Mum was cooking. I didn't want to go to work and leave them all.'

But, once at work, the camaraderie of her colleagues buoyed her up. She remembers laughing with them before they all dispersed to go home at 11.30pm.

Naomi went by Tube from Stratford to West Ham, then Barking, where she caught a bus.

'It was late, so during the journey I was keeping myself company by chatting to my then boyfriend on the phone,' she recalls. 'It was reassuring to talk to him.'

And then, in a matter of seconds, her life changed. 'I got off the bus, still yakking away to my boyfriend and was about to cross the road when I felt a presence,' she recalls.

There was the figure in black robes with the disconcerting stare.

'Next, I heard a liquid being dispersed from a container and I felt I was being bathed in something.'

As the acid hit her, she screamed and fled home to her shocked family.

'It was indescribable,' she says. 'Your mind is in a million different places. Your skin is scorched, you're scared, and at the same time you're thinking: "Why would someone do this to me? Am I a bad person?"'

Naomi's auntie Nelly, a pharmacist, knew instantly what had happened. She helped Naomi out of her clothes and washed her in the shower to try to dilute the potent effects of the sulphuric acid. Her mother called for an ambulance and her uncle Charles rang the police.

The ensuing days were a blur as Naomi, dosed with morphine, was taken first to London's Whitechapel Hospital and then to the specialist burns unit at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex.

'They washed my eyes with saline and yellow mucus kept pouring out,' she recalls. 'I drifted in and out of consciousness. I remember voices saying "corrosive substance" and "badly burned".

'I couldn't see. They told my mum and uncle, but not me, that the chances of me getting any sight back were small.'

Throughout January 2013, she remained in hospital. She underwent two skin grafts. Her eyelids were reconstructed with skin from behind her ears, her face rebuilt with skin from her right thigh.

'As my sight started to return, they covered the windows and mirrors so I couldn't catch a glimpse of my reflection, but I saw a vague image reflected in my phone.

'I thought: "What?" It wasn't me. My face was burnt black, charred. I remember thinking: "No one is ever going to marry me now."

'It's like a death. The old Naomi was a fun, fashionable, giggly person and that person had gone. I felt like I'd never blend in with other girls or have a normal life again. Many times I thought about taking my life.'

Since her discharge from hospital, Naomi has undergone 'countless' medical procedures to reconstruct her face, as well as grappling with the awful truth that the culprit was someone she believed was a friend and who later only compounded her cruelty by feigning concern for the injured Naomi.

In hindsight, Naomi realises there had been clues to Mary's skewed and troubled personality.

'She was bullied at school, a bit of a misfit, and I took her under my wing because I'd also been bullied,' she says.

'I accepted that the relationship was volatile. Mary would argue with me - but she'd had a troubled upbringing, while I had a loving mother, so I always made allowances for her.'

Police had asked Naomi if anyone had ever threatened to throw acid at her. Naomi racked her brain and a memory was ignited.

Back in 2011, after a trivial argument, she recalled that Mary had made such a threat - but she had dismissed it. 'And I kept believing that no friend of mine could possibly do that,' she says.

In February 2013, Naomi celebrated her 21st birthday with a small party.

'Mary actually came, flaunting herself in a highly inappropriate boob tube and mini skirt,' she recalls. 'It was as if she was saying: "Look at me, and look at you."

'I'd told everyone: "Please don't cry for me. I want everyone to be happy" - but Mary was the idiot who sat on the arm of my chair sobbing. I rubbed her back. She wrote in her card to me, "Happy Birthday beautiful, Love Mary."'

Scotland Yard's homicide squad were by now on Mary's case. Tracking the movements of the mystery woman in the niqab on CCTV camera footage, they discovered she was carrying a handbag identical to one Mary, who had already been questioned by police, brought to the interview.

The handbag was eventually found to have splashes of sulphuric acid on it.

The evidence was enough to charge Mary, who was by then at university, and in March 2014 she was jailed for 12 years.

In court she was defiant, making the preposterous claim that Naomi had thrown the acid on herself because she wanted the 'fame and fortune' bestowed on acid attack victim Katie Piper, a TV presenter.

Finally, she was compelled to admit that it was a monstrous lie.

The court heard Mary was 'obsessed' with Naomi and so jealous of her looks that she'd attempted to destroy them.

But she has failed, for Naomi remains striking. There is, too, a defiant beauty in her bravery, in her determination not to be cowed by the tragedy, in the courage with which she faces the world each day.

She has completed her course in make-up and while she has been rejected from countless jobs, she will not capitulate.

'But when I look in the mirror, I do feel sad,' she admits. 'I think a lot about what might have been and where I'd have been today if I hadn't been attacked. When I look back at old photos of myself, I see an innocent girl with big dreams and aspirations, wanting to make her family proud.

'There are still days when I'm unhappy, but I tell myself I'll overcome it. If something catastrophic can change a life in a second, then great things can happen, too.

'After the attack happened, I thought no man would want me. What I've learnt since is that the right guy will see beyond my scars. I've become a better judge of character now.'

She adds: 'I also know that the man who marries me will be lucky to have me.'

The smile that suffuses her face is radiant.

Acid Attack: My Story broadcasts on BBC3 and is available on BBC iPlayer from tomorrow.

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Acid attack victim Naomi Oni speaks out five years on

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Naomi Oni's life was changed by the acid attack in East London in 2012 Her former school friend Mary Konye is serving a 12-year sentence for the attack Naomi said her attacker was a 'coward' but that she would forgive her The memory of the woman in the niqab will always haunt her.

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A woman who was left with horrific scars after being attacked with acid, has accused police of incompetence and has claimed they initially alleged she had poured the toxic substance over herself.

Naomi Oni, 22, was attacked with sulphuric acid by her friend Mary Konye, who had disguised herself in a Muslim veil, in Dagenham, east London in 2012. She suffered serious burns to her face and chest and was left scarred for life.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Oni said it almost felt like she had "been accused of lying" after her then-friend, who has since been jailed for 12 years, attacked her.

Ms Oni, a former Victoria's Secret worker, said officers were incompetent "to kind of accuse me of doing it to myself, when I've said somebody has followed me from my workplace to my home".

"I even got told that they watched the CCTV footage and they saw no-one following me," she said.

"We've all seen the CCTV footage. There was a person in a veil following me.

"Why was this not found in the beginning? Nobody has answers to tell me."

In court it was argued that Ms Oni carried out the attack herself in a bid to find fame and fortune after becoming interested in a similar case where model and TV presenter Katie Piper was partially blinded.

Speaking to the BBC Ms Oni said she had researched the case after seeing a documentary and that she had found it "a moving and touching story".

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "All lines of inquiry were considered in the early stages of the investigation. The investigation was detailed and complex and officers had a duty to explore every avenue of inquiry and retain an open mind about the circumstances.

"They carried out numerous actions including door-to-door inquiries, leaflet drops, searches, interviews and forensic analyses.

"The CCTV evidence took some time to collate and analyse but then clearly showed a veiled suspect trailing the victim before the attack.

"Konye was arrested as the investigation progressed."

Ms Oni, who now has to wear a silicone face mask, described her situation in an impact statement read to the court last week.

The statement said it was now a "battle to get by each day" after she was permanently disfigured. She has suffered permanent scars to her leg, chest, stomach and arms and was almost blinded in one eye, the court heard.

Speaking to the BBC today, Ms Oni said her family was "in pieces" and she "almost didn't believe it" when the police told her Konye was a suspect.

She told Today: "I don't understand why this has happened. I'm just as lost and as confused, obviously more confused, than everybody, than my family, than the police themselves."

Ms Oni said Konye was "fascinated" with her image and was "jealous and obsessed".

She added: "I remember when I had my first surgery and they removed my dressings and when I saw my face after the surgery I was just in bits, I was crying, I was devastated and I remember her phoning me that night and speaking to her on the phone and just crying to her 'Who could do this to me?'

"I would never even wish this on my enemy. I was like 'This is just beyond any type of understanding'. I was just crying and crying and crying and she was just listening and like 'Don't cry, it's going to be OK'."

Breaking down in tears, she added: "I just think she is a very evil, evil, evil person and people like her should not exist and they should not be allowed to have a voice for any reason.

"I do not think that in turn of her, of what she did... no-one should have to come out and say the reason why she did it is because we had an argument. No-one in this world throws acid on someone because of an argument.

"She's a big bully that has no remorse and all she's ever done throughout my friendship is continuously bully me. It's an abuse. I just want people to understand that I've been in an abusive friendship so stop abusing me even further. It's not fair on me."

She added: "I just feel isolated, being in a room, just having to think every day about what's happened to me. Not being able to understand why and just feeling alone in my situation and still having to, aside from everything, still having to care for my mum.

"It's an impossible task for one person. I'm only human and I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask for it, I didn't see it coming."
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Sulphuric acid attack victim accuses police of incompetence

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A woman who was left with horrific scars after being attacked with acid, has accused police of incompetence and has claimed they initially alleged she had poured the toxic substance over herself. Naomi Oni, 22, was attacked with sulphuric acid by her friend Mary Konye, who had disguised herself in a Muslim veil, in Dagenham, east London in 2012.

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this shows the stress she had to endure after she was attacked as she was wrongly accussed.

geez milan

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A woman who was attacked with acid has accused Scotland Yard of incompetence, saying police initially claimed she had poured it over herself.

Naomi Oni, a Victoria's Secret shop assistant, was left scarred for life after suffering serious burns on her face and chest in the incident in Dagenham, east London, in 2012.

Her former friend, Mary Konye, 22, who disguised herself in a Muslim veil before throwing the sulphuric acid, was jailed for 12 years last week.

Ms Oni told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that police were slow to act on information she gave them about the attack.

She said it almost felt like she had "been accused of lying", adding that she had suffered "pain and backlash for her (Konye's) actions and other people's incompetency".

The Metropolitan Police said they considered all lines of inquiry in the early stages of their investigation.

Ms Oni said officers were incompetent "to kind of accuse me of doing it to myself, when I've said somebody has followed me from my workplace to my home".

"I even got told that they watched the CCTV footage and they saw no-one following me," she said.

"We've all seen the CCTV footage. There was a person in a veil following me.

"Why was this not found in the beginning? Nobody has answers to tell me."

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "All lines of inquiry were considered in the early stages of the investigation. The investigation was detailed and complex and officers had a duty to explore every avenue of inquiry and retain an open mind about the circumstances.

"They carried out numerous actions including door-to-door inquiries, leaflet drops, searches, interviews and forensic analyses.

"The CCTV evidence took some time to collate and analyse but then clearly showed a veiled suspect trailing the victim before the attack.

"Konye was arrested as the investigation progressed."

In a victim impact statement read out to the court last week, Ms Oni said she was now "paranoid and scared" about being outdoors alone and admitted having suicidal thoughts.

It was now a "battle to get by each day" after being permanently disfigured, she added.

She has suffered permanent scars to her leg, chest, stomach and arms and was almost blinded in one eye.

She faces further reconstructive surgery and must wear a silicon face mask which makes it difficult to breathe, the court heard.

Ms Oni said her family was "in pieces" and she "almost didn't believe it" when the police told her Konye was a suspect.

She told Today: "I don't understand why this has happened. I'm just as lost and as confused, obviously more confused, than everybody, than my family, than the police themselves."

Ms Oni said Konye was "fascinated" with her image and was "jealous and obsessed".

She added: "I remember when I had my first surgery and they removed my dressings and when I saw my face after the surgery I was just in bits, I was crying, I was devastated and I remember her phoning me that night and speaking to her on the phone and just crying to her 'Who could do this to me?'

"I would never even wish this on my enemy. I was like 'This is just beyond any type of understanding'. I was just crying and crying and crying and she was just listening and like 'Don't cry, it's going to be OK'."

Breaking down in tears, she added: "I just think she is a very evil, evil, evil person and people like her should not exist and they should not be allowed to have a voice for any reason.

"I do not think that in turn of her, of what she did... no-one should have to come out and say the reason why she did it is because we had an argument. No-one in this world throws acid on someone because of an argument.

"She's a big bully that has no remorse and all she's ever done throughout my friendship is continuously bully me. It's an abuse. I just want people to understand that I've been in an abusive friendship so stop abusing me even further. It's not fair on me."

She added: "I just feel isolated, being in a room, just having to think every day about what's happened to me. Not being able to understand why and just feeling alone in my situation and still having to, aside from everything, still having to care for my mum.

"It's an impossible task for one person. I'm only human and I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask for it, I didn't see it coming."

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Acid attack victim accuses police - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

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A woman who was attacked with acid has accused Scotland Yard of incompetence, saying police initially claimed she had poured it over herself. Naomi Oni, a Victoria's Secret shop assistant, was left scarred for life after suffering serious burns on her face and chest in the incident in Dagenham, east London, in 2012.

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... lol

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My best friend threw acid in my face then came to birthday party

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A woman left scarred for life when acid was thrown in her face by a jealous friend has revealed that she has forgiven her. Naomi Oni, 25, was nearly blinded when Mary Konye, 22, disguised in a veil, followed her victim home from work before attacking her with corrosive liquid.

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As Naomi Oni lay in her hospital bed in December 2012, her face destroyed by a brutal acid attack, there was just one thing that kept her going. The love of her family and friends.

One of the friends who texted and called Naomi to tell her she could get through this was her old school mate, Mary Konye.

The girls had grown up together, sharing the trials and tribulations of puberty and beyond.

But that was in the past, and their friendship was back on track.

Now, Naomi had been brutally attacked. Corrosive acid had been thrown on her face and body as she walked home after a shift working in Victoria's Secret, in the Westfield shopping centre in East London.

It's only now, five years on, that she has found the strength to tell her story in the BBC Three documentary, Acid Attack: My Story.

Back then, aged 20, Naomi had a boyfriend, and a new job. "I'm becoming a young adult, I'm getting there," she remembers thinking.

But that all changed on the night of 29 December 2012.

Naomi was working a late shift. Her commute back involved travelling on the underground, taking a bus, and then finally walking a short distance to the house she shared with her mum. It was late; after midnight.

As she walked from the bus stop she grabbed a takeaway and chatted to her then boyfriend on the phone. Then she felt a presence near her.

"I remember the person's face being covered, a very cold stare," Naomi says. Then a huge splash, and Naomi ran screaming and staggering to her house.

As she banged on the door, her mum Marian opened it, her mouth open in horror at the scene before her. Naomi ran upstairs, followed by her concerned godmother, Lelly, who doused water on her burning face and body, while her uncle, Charles, called an ambulance.

"I remember mucus running down my face," says Naomi. "I was trying not to freak out. When the ambulance came I remember seeing my mum, just frozen."

Her skin was melted, burned into dark patches, her eye sockets wide where the skin had dissolved. When medics said they were transferring her to a burns unit at the hospital, Naomi remembers that she "shut down".

Sadly, Naomi and her boyfriend split up just two months after the attack. The life Naomi had just started building was destroyed, just like her young face.

The police came in to speak to her. They asked her if anyone had ever threatened to throw acid at her. Naomi remembered that, once, Mary had threatened her with this very thing. But, she says, "I explained to the officer that Mary had been messaging me to see how I was. She'd been calling me. That's a friend."

Nonetheless, Mary was brought in for questioning. "They arrested her on the basis that Naomi said she'd threatened her before," says Detective Chief Inspector Dave Whellams, who later led the investigation.

But Mary insisted it had nothing to do with her. "When she told me this happened to her, I thought 'why? I don't understand'," Mary said in her police interview. She said she had no recollection of ever threatening to throw acid on Naomi.

Identifying the attacker seemed near impossible: there was no CCTV in the area near Naomi's house, it was dark and the attacker was concealed by a full niqab.

Then came two twists in the tale that would test Naomi further. She decided to go on TV, telling her story and appealing for her attacker to come forward. It was only then that her old friends, Vida and Phyllis, who were both away at university, found out about the attack.

After that, Vida says, "It's almost like we're trying to be detectives, trying to work it out ourselves. Who would do that to Naomi? Is it someone we know?"

"All the questions ended up on me," Naomi says, anger biting through her composure. "It's terrible to say that somebody would attack themselves."

Those who knew her rejected the theory.

And after seeing Naomi in the press and on TV, the case was referred to the Metropolitan Police homicide team for review.

Vida says, "Every name popped up [among our friendship group], and then a particular name popped up, and we were like 'naaah'. But then went silent."

That name was Mary Konye.

"Mary could be quite unpredictable," says Vida. "From being polite and well spoken to being passive aggressive, unresponsive almost."

Phyllis remembers: "Back in school you'd be scared of Mary. Not that she'd beat you up, but something about her was scary."

Still, they didn't want it to be true. Their friend, attacking their other friend?

The police eventually went back through the CCTV, and finally spotted a clue. About ten seconds after Naomi is seen coming through the barriers at the tube station, there's a woman in full niqab.

The woman is carrying a distinctive handbag: large, grey, with black straps. It was a very similar bag to the one Mary had brought with her when she was questioned at the police station.

The police also noticed the woman in the CCTV footage had an unusual swaying walk. When they looked at Mary again in their footage of her arriving at the police station, she had the same gait. The evidence against her began to stack up.

Naomi and Mary were both bullied at school for their appearance. "I felt protective of her," says Naomi. "And maybe she felt like the way people treated me sometimes wasn't fair."

They were picked on, but they had each other. Or so Naomi thought.

A search of Mary's house revealed the handbag, DCI Whellams confirmed, which contained traces of acid.

Naomi remembers the moment police told her they'd established that it was Mary who had attacked her. "I just felt distraught. I thought she was my friend. And I couldn't understand why she did what she did."

"Realising somebody you thought was your friend isn't your friend... it's a kind of grief, actually. To be betrayed like I was, for someone to lead you to your destruction. I was heartbroken."

Nobody is quite sure what motivated Mary.

Her friends think it could be envy of Naomi's lighter skin tone, recalling now how they once thought that Mary had tried to lighten her own skin in the past. Or a twisted expression of Mary's intense attachment to her friend - love turned to hatred.

Mary's defence had continued to argue that Naomi had wanted this to happen, and that Naomi had done it to herself.

"Her friendship had been so wilfully betrayed by you," the judge, David Radford, told Mary Konye.

Now, at 25, Naomi has found a way to look forwards. "I was twenty years old when I was attacked. You don't know anything at 20 years old," she says. "You're so naïve. You wouldn't think someone could do their worst to you."

Half a decade on, Naomi still bears physical scars, but feels strong enough to smile again through them.

This article was originally published on 3 January 2018

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My friend threw acid in my face - BBC Three

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As Naomi Oni lay in her hospital bed in December 2012, her face destroyed by a brutal acid attack, there was just one thing that kept her going. The love of her family and friends. One of the friends who texted and called Naomi to tell her she could get through this was her old school mate, Mary Konye.

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A young woman from London has been warned she faces prison after being found guilty of throwing acid in a friend's face because she once called her ugly.

Mary Konye, 21, attacked Naomi On in December 2012 while disguised in a Muslim veil.

Ms Oni, who was 20 at the time of the attack, was on her way home from work at Victoria's Secret lingerie shop in Westfield Stratford, east London, when Konye, wearing a niqab, threw the corrosive liquid at her.

She was left with serious burns on her head, neck, arms, legs and body. She was scarred for life, and required skin graft surgery to cover the burns.

She was five minutes from her home in Dagenham.

The jury at London's Snaresbrook Crown Court heard that, following the attack, Konye pretended to give Ms Oni a shoulder to cry on.

The court heard that the day after the attack, Konye sent a mobile phone message to her friend, who was in hospital receiving treatment, saying "OMG, I can't believe it."

The victim burst into tears as she left the courtroom and was hugged by family and friends.

Her said as they left court that they were "glad that a truthful verdict had been reached".

Dressed in black, Konye remained calm as the jury of eight men and four women returned unanimous their verdict.

She will be sentenced on 7 March, and Judge David Radford said: "I should make clear that, in my judgment, this is a case that will, in all likelihood, need a substantial custodial sentence.

"It is inevitable, but it won't be dealt with until I have received those (pre-sentence) reports."

Speaking outside court afterwards, Detective Chief Inspector Dave Whellams said it had been a "serious, horrible offence which required a degree of planning and calculation".

He told reporters that witnesses had testified in the court that the attack had been planned over the course of two years.

He said: "Mary Konye has had to purchase, at some point, some sulphuric acid.

"She has prepared for this over a number of months, even years, all resulting from a trivial, insignificant argument that everybody has in their everyday lives."

He commended Ms Oni as "a very brave woman and one I have great sympathy for."

Baljit Ubhey, Chief Crown Prosecutor in London, who described the attack as "extremely brutal," said: "Konye has now been brought to justice and must face the full consequences of her appalling actions.

"I would to like praise Naomi's courage and dignity in giving evidence during this trial."

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London acid attack: Mary Konye guilty of attack on Naomi Oni

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A young woman from London has been warned she faces prison after being found guilty of throwing acid in a friend's face because she once called her ugly. Mary Konye, 21, attacked Naomi On in December 2012 while disguised in a Muslim veil.

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An acid attack victim who was horrifically scarred in a random attack wept with joy after having cosmetic surgery to restore her eyebrows.

Naomi Oni, 21, had acid hurled over her face, head and body as she made her way home to Dagenham after her shift at Westfield's Victoria's Secret store last December.

The acid burned off the skin on her face and scalp and left her temporarily blinded. She lost her eyelids, eyebrows and some of her hair in the assault.

Since then, surgeons have painstakingly rebuilt her features including taking skin from the back of her ear to make new eyelids for her. But her eyebrows remained permanently damaged.

Before the incident, Naomi described herself as a 'girly girl' who would spend three hours getting ready to go out in the evening.

Losing her eyebrows was yet another blow to her confidence, which had already suffered so much.

Now, ten months after the attack, her skin has healed enough for her to have her eyebrows restored.

Naomi, whose attacker is facing trial at the end of this year, had a sophisticated semi-permanent make-up treatment that tattoos on the eyebrows as individual hairs, mimicking the effect of real brows.

Ten months on, Naomi was finally well enough to have the first cosmetic procedure on her face - recreating the eyebrows which were wiped out in the attack with a semi-permanent make-up treatment performed at the Debra Robson LDN clinic on Harley Street.

In her first public appearance since February, when she movingly described on breakfast show This Morning how her life was turned upside down when she was doused in sulphuric acid, Naomi now reveals on camera the extent of her suffering - and how she has managed to rebuild her life.

Naomi faces further intricate laser surgery as doctors strive to lessen the impact of her scars and reconstruct her face, using the same methods used on Kate Piper.

She said: 'It has been very difficult to come to terms with.

'My doctors have been brilliant but it will take years of laser surgery to repair my face.

'There is only so much you can do at any one time - then there is long healing process before you can undergo the next stage of the treatment.

'It is only now that I had been able to have semi-permanent make-up on my face.

'I loved having the treatment - it feels so good to have my eyebrows back.

'What I loved about the treatment was its intricacy - it is a form of cosmetic tattooing. It is the closest you can get to mimicking the appearance of the original brow.'

In the video below, Naomi can be seen having the treatment in video - as well as the moment she weeps for joy when she sees her new brows.

Naomi smiled: 'I did get a bit emotional when I saw them. It's the first time I have seen myself with eyebrows for almost a year.'

Naomi is on leave from her job at Victoria's Secret lingerie store at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, East London, while she recovers.

She eventually plans to return to work and pursue her dream of becoming a make-up artist.

Debra Robson said she had loved working with Naomi. She said: 'We recreated Naomi's brows with my FAME technique, which builds up the brow at microscopic level, hair by hair.

'First we pencilled in the brow and got the correct shape for Naomi's face.

'When she was happy with the shape, we began to build up her brows and as you can see from the pictures, the results were perfect.

'The key is to simulate the appearance of the natural hair - so that you can see the individual hair strokes in the new brow.

'Colour is implanted into the skin - it is very sophisticated form of cosmetic tattooing.'

Debra Robson, who also worked with Katie Piper after her acid attack, also specialises in scar and skin camouflage and areola reconstruction - for breast cancer sufferers who have undergone mastectomies.

Naomi's semi-permanent brows will last between nine months and a year before she requires a top-up.

She says: 'They are beautiful - I'm so pleased I had it done.'

Naomi, from London, is still at a loss to explain why she was targeted.

She said: 'I asked, "why me?" I work hard, I'm a good person.

'I'm the same person now but stronger.

'I want to say to my attacker, "You can burn my skin but you can't burn my soul."'

Naomi was on the phone to her boyfriend after returning from work when she was attacked in Dagenham, Essex, on December 30 last year.

She said the attacker gave her a 'cold stare' before throwing the liquid at her from behind.

She said: 'I felt a splash - that's when I thought, someone's out to kill me.

'I just started running straight home. I knew it was acid. It feels like something is eating way at your skin. I felt it most on my scalp, more than my face.'

She arrived at her home shouting and banging on the door, screaming 'acid, acid.'

Her family came to the door thinking she was excited about something.

Then when her mother opened the door, Naomi said everyone's faces 'just dropped.'

Naomi was last night honoured for her bravery with a prize at the Inspiration for Women Awards at Cadogan Hall in Chelsea.

Student Mary Konye, 21, of Canning Town, has been charged over the attack and will stand trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court in January.

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Acid Attack Victim Who Had Face Burned Off In Horrific Assault Weeps With Joy As She Has Her Eyebrows Restored

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An acid attack victim who was horrifically scarred in a random attack wept with joy after having cosmetic surgery to restore her eyebrows. Naomi Oni, 21, had acid hurled over her face, head and body as she made her way home to Dagenham after her shift at Westfield's Victoria's Secret store last December.

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A WOMAN left scarred for life and almost blinded when acid was thrown in her face by her jealous friend says she has forgiven her attacker.

Naomi Oni had corrosive liquid thrown in her face by a woman disguised in a niqab as she walked home from a late shift at work to her home in East London.

The attack in 2012 left her with third degree burns and doctors feared she would be permanently blinded, The Mirror reports.

Chilling CCTV footage showed the 25-year-old being followed home from her job at Victoria's Secret by a mystery woman wearing a veil.

Ms Oni told BBC documentary makers she saw "someone in just black and the person's face being covered".

"There was a very cold stare and I remember thinking, 'Whoah, OK, just cross the road and go to your house'.

"Before I knew it I felt a huge splash and I immediately screamed.

"I was running down my road. I remember banging on the door, screaming "It's burning, it's burning, acid, acid, acid."'

The woman, police later discovered, was Ms Oni's supposed best friend Mary Konye, who Ms Oni had known since primary school.

Konye, who is now serving 12 years in prison for the attack, was allegedly jealous of Ms Oni's popularity and bubbly personality and carried out the attack in a plot to destroy her good looks.

She even attended Ms Oni's 21st birthday party - pretending she was a supportive friend - as police hunted the person responsible.

When Konye was finally prosecuted she claimed Ms Oni had thrown acid on herself to gain "fame and fortune" like British TV presenter and acid-attack survivor Katie Piper.

The 22-year-old Konye was caught out when she turned up for routine police questioning carrying the same handbag used by the niqab-wearing woman on the CCTV footage. Tests later found the handbag tested postive for corrosive liquid.

In the aftemath of the attack, Ms Oni needed facial reconstruction surgery twice to treat her horrific burns at a specialist unit.

Doctors had to use skin from her thighs to rebuild her face and from behind her ears to create new eyelids.

But despite being everything she has suffered, she says she forgives her attacker, who refuses to show remorse for her actions.

"I do forgive her. I owe myself the freedom to move on. But I still think she is a callous, vindictive person; a complete coward who betrayed me."

Five years on, Ms Oni is says she is a shadow of her former self and admits to having suicidal thoughts in the months after the attack.

"I had no hair or eyebrows. My eyelids had been burnt off. I couldn't recognise myself. A slab of my thigh had been grafted onto my face where my cheek had been burnt away," she told the BBC.

"I just couldn't take it in. I couldn't stop crying. I looked at this vision of my face in the hospital bathroom and just slid down the wall.

"I didn't feel grateful I was alive. I felt angry and thought: 'What is the point in living?' I thought about taking my life.

"But then I gathered myself. I imagined my mum's face and thought: "I couldn't do it to her. I couldn't leave her."

Ms Oni says she still has her down days but that she is gradually feeling stronger.

"If something catastrophic can change a life in a second, then great things can happen, too.

"After the attack happened, I thought no man would want me. What I've learnt since is that the right guy will see beyond my scars. I've become a better judge of character now."

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A WOMAN left scarred for life and almost blinded when acid was thrown in her face by her jealous friend says she has forgiven her attacker. Naomi Oni had corrosive liquid thrown in her face by a woman disguised in a niqab as she walked home from a late shift at work to her home in East London.

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As Naomi Oni lay in her hospital bed in December 2012, her face destroyed by a brutal acid attack, there was just one thing that kept her going. The love of her family and friends.

One of the friends who texted and called Naomi to tell her she could get through this was her old school mate, Mary Konye.

The girls had grown up together, sharing the trials and tribulations of puberty and beyond.

But that was in the past, and their friendship was back on track.

Now, Naomi had been brutally attacked. Corrosive acid had been thrown on her face and body as she walked home after a shift working in Victoria's Secret, in the Westfield shopping centre in East London.

It's only now, five years on, that she has found the strength to tell her story in the BBC Three documentary, Acid Attack: My Story.

Back then, aged 20, Naomi had a boyfriend, and a new job. "I'm becoming a young adult, I'm getting there," she remembers thinking.

But that all changed on the night of 29 December 2012.

Naomi was working a late shift. Her commute back involved travelling on the underground, taking a bus, and then finally walking a short distance to the house she shared with her mum. It was late; after midnight.

As she walked from the bus stop she grabbed a takeaway and chatted to her then boyfriend on the phone. Then she felt a presence near her.

"I remember the person's face being covered, a very cold stare," Naomi says. Then a huge splash, and Naomi ran screaming and staggering to her house.

As she banged on the door, her mum Marian opened it, her mouth open in horror at the scene before her. Naomi ran upstairs, followed by her concerned godmother, Lelly, who doused water on her burning face and body, while her uncle, Charles, called an ambulance.

"I remember mucus running down my face," says Naomi. "I was trying not to freak out. When the ambulance came I remember seeing my mum, just frozen."

Her skin was melted, burned into dark patches, her eye sockets wide where the skin had dissolved. When medics said they were transferring her to a burns unit at the hospital, Naomi remembers that she "shut down".

Sadly, Naomi and her boyfriend split up just two months after the attack. The life Naomi had just started building was destroyed, just like her young face.

The police came in to speak to her. They asked her if anyone had ever threatened to throw acid at her. Naomi remembered that, once, Mary had threatened her with this very thing. But, she says, "I explained to the officer that Mary had been messaging me to see how I was. She'd been calling me. That's a friend."

Nonetheless, Mary was brought in for questioning. "They arrested her on the basis that Naomi said she'd threatened her before," says Detective Chief Inspector Dave Whellams, who later led the investigation.

But Mary insisted it had nothing to do with her. "When she told me this happened to her, I thought 'why? I don't understand'," Mary said in her police interview. She said she had no recollection of ever threatening to throw acid on Naomi.

Identifying the attacker seemed near impossible: there was no CCTV in the area near Naomi's house, it was dark and the attacker was concealed by a full niqab.

Then came two twists in the tale that would test Naomi further. She decided to go on TV, telling her story and appealing for her attacker to come forward. It was only then that her old friends, Vida and Phyllis, who were both away at university, found out about the attack.

After that, Vida says, "It's almost like we're trying to be detectives, trying to work it out ourselves. Who would do that to Naomi? Is it someone we know?"

"All the questions ended up on me," Naomi says, anger biting through her composure. "It's terrible to say that somebody would attack themselves."

Those who knew her rejected the theory.

And after seeing Naomi in the press and on TV, the case was referred to the Metropolitan Police homicide team for review.

Vida says, "Every name popped up [among our friendship group], and then a particular name popped up, and we were like 'naaah'. But then went silent."

That name was Mary Konye.

"Mary could be quite unpredictable," says Vida. "From being polite and well spoken to being passive aggressive, unresponsive almost."

Phyllis remembers: "Back in school you'd be scared of Mary. Not that she'd beat you up, but something about her was scary."

Still, they didn't want it to be true. Their friend, attacking their other friend?

The police eventually went back through the CCTV, and finally spotted a clue. About ten seconds after Naomi is seen coming through the barriers at the tube station, there's a woman in full niqab.

The woman is carrying a distinctive handbag: large, grey, with black straps. It was a very similar bag to the one Mary had brought with her when she was questioned at the police station.

The police also noticed the woman in the CCTV footage had an unusual swaying walk. When they looked at Mary again in their footage of her arriving at the police station, she had the same gait. The evidence against her began to stack up.

Naomi and Mary were both bullied at school for their appearance. "I felt protective of her," says Naomi. "And maybe she felt like the way people treated me sometimes wasn't fair."

They were picked on, but they had each other. Or so Naomi thought.

A search of Mary's house revealed the handbag, DCI Whellams confirmed, which contained traces of acid.

Naomi remembers the moment police told her they'd established that it was Mary who had attacked her. "I just felt distraught. I thought she was my friend. And I couldn't understand why she did what she did."

"Realising somebody you thought was your friend isn't your friend... it's a kind of grief, actually. To be betrayed like I was, for someone to lead you to your destruction. I was heartbroken."

Nobody is quite sure what motivated Mary.

Her friends think it could be envy of Naomi's lighter skin tone, recalling now how they once thought that Mary had tried to lighten her own skin in the past. Or a twisted expression of Mary's intense attachment to her friend - love turned to hatred.

Mary's defence had continued to argue that Naomi had wanted this to happen, and that Naomi had done it to herself.

"Her friendship had been so wilfully betrayed by you," the judge, David Radford, told Mary Konye.

Now, at 25, Naomi has found a way to look forwards. "I was twenty years old when I was attacked. You don't know anything at 20 years old," she says. "You're so naïve. You wouldn't think someone could do their worst to you."

Half a decade on, Naomi still bears physical scars, but feels strong enough to smile again through them.

This article was originally published on 3 January 2018

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My friend threw acid in my face - BBC Three

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As Naomi Oni lay in her hospital bed in December 2012, her face destroyed by a brutal acid attack, there was just one thing that kept her going. The love of her family and friends. One of the friends who texted and called Naomi to tell her she could get through this was her old school mate, Mary Konye.

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As Naomi Oni lay in her hospital bed in December 2012, her face destroyed by a brutal acid attack, there was just one thing that kept her going. The love of her family and friends.

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Naomi Oni Describes Acid Attack | Jeremy Kyle

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Naomi Oni was walking home from work when she became the victim of an acid attack. Her assailant turned out to be someone she trusted.