‘This Morning’ TV Programme, London, Britain. – 06 Feb 2013
SCARRED FOR LIFE – ACID ATTACK –
We speak to Naomi Oni, left scarred for life after a stranger threw acid in her face as she walked home alone from work. (Credit: Photo by Steve Meddle / Rex Features)
Violence against women is very real in various parts of the world, and it isn’t always perpetrated by men. Few people know this better than Naomi Oni, a beautiful young woman who was the victim of an acid attack by another woman.
Mary Konye, a 21-year old, disguised herself as a Muslim, wearing a veil and following Oni for the attack. According to police, the Victoria’s Secret lingerie assistant had once called the woman ugly and she was looking for revenge.
When she least expected it, Konye threw sulfuric acid into the woman’s face and in her hair. She could smell and feel her skin and hair burning, according to what she told the jury. She ran home and that’s where her family washed the acid off the woman’s face.
The attack was allegedly inspired by a similar strike on a woman by the name of Katie Piper. Oni lost skin on her face and her clothes tested positive for sulfuric acid, according to the UK Daily Mail. Konye says she didn’t do it and that she wasn’t jealous of the victim, but she allegedly told a friend that she wanted to throw acid onto Oni’s face.
Konye attended the Hertfordshire University business and finance in England. Her alleged copycat attack left the former model blind in one eye and badly scarred after the incident.
The prosecutor, Gareth Patterson, told the jury: “Naomi will tell you about her friendship with the defendant. She will tell you how in the past they had an up and down relationship and how the defendant had admitted to her that on one occasion in anger she threatened to throw acid at Naomi.
There was a reason why the defendant would have chosen to make such an unusual sort of threat. In the past the two of them had discussed a young woman called Katie Piper. Naomi and the defendant had talked about this and it appears that the defendant knew that Naomi had been particularly moved by Katie Piper’s ordeal.”
The prosecutors claimed that after one fight, Mary told a friend that she was so angry at her that she wanted to throw acid on Naomi. After the woman left work at the Westfield shopping center in Stratford, East London, at 11:30 pm, that’s when prosecutors say that the Mary waited to find Naomi and threw the acid in her face. She walked just a few steps behind her before the attack.
“All of a sudden Naomi felt a liquid being thrown into her face. She screamed and felt her face burning. She could smell her skin and hair burning,” the prosecutor said.
Since the attack, Naomi has gotten a skin graft to her face and is nearly blind. She also has significant scarring. Konye was arrested a few weeks later. The case continues in London.
