TV host reveals acid attack pain

British television presenter Katie Piper has revealed how an acid attack on her face changed her life forever.

The 26-year-old has filmed a documentary with Channel 4 in the UK, in which she waived her anonymity to speak about the attack, which happened 18 months ago.

On March 31 2008, while walking down a London street, Piper's vengeful boyfriend Daniel Lynch organised for industrial-strength sulphuric acid to be thrown in her face.

She swallowed some of the acid, which left her unable to speak and eat for several months.

"I was standing in the street with people walking past me and I could feel my face evaporating. I thought I was on fire as the acid ate at my skin," Piper said.

She said she knew her ex-boyfriend was behind the attack. "In one of Danny's calls he told me he'd got a present for me that would change my life forever. I knew instantly that he was behind it."

After the attack Piper gave her parents a note begging them to kill her.

Yet she is slowly recovering from the attack and rebuilding her life.

She has had more than 30 operations and is coming to terms with the end of her television and modelling career, which relied heavily on her conventional good looks.

"I'm never going to be the old Katie. She's like a best friend I once had," she admitted in UK paper the Daily Mail.

"She's gone and there's a different one in her place. I'm not going to be a victim. I'm a woman who got through this. I am full of life and looking forward to the future."

As a result of her television work, Piper received many admiring emails - sometimes up to 80 in day.

But her interest was piqued when 33-year-old martial arts enthusiast Daniel Lynch emailed her saying he'd been following her career.

"We seemed to have a lot in common and, to be honest, looking at his picture, I fancied him," she said. The pair started dating and by the second date he had told her he loved her.

But signs started emerging that he had a temper and easily flew into rages. He also had convictions for violence and throwing boiling water into the face of another man.

At what was meant to be a romantic night in a hotel, Lynch raped Piper and held her captive for eight hours. He also threatened to slash her face with a razor and said he would hang her with a belt.

Too afraid to report the rape, Piper decided her brief affair with Lynch was a mistake.

But with phone calls and emails he managed to lure her from her flat, where an assailant directed by Lynch picked the petite blonde out of the crowd.

The man approached her carrying what she thought was a cup of coffee.

Instead it was a cup of the industrial strength acid, which ate through her face.

Her agony continued as ambulance crews took more than an hour to treat her as they were not sure if the assailant was nearby and ready to attack again.

The damage was horrific. The acid ate the skin of her face to the bone on the left side, she had lost sight in her left eye and because of damage to her oesophagus she was unable to eat.

Her weight plunged as she was fed via a tube through her stomach.

She was placed under police protection even though Lynch and his accomplice had been arrested.

When she first saw her injured face she thought it was a mask or the mirror was broken.

"I knew that they'd taken my face away and that it was out somewhere in a bin in the hospital, but in my head assumed I'd look like the old Katie, with just a few red blotches."

Now she prefers to eat meals alone as she is sick several times throughout and is too frightened to make hot drinks because it revives memories of the attack.

Lynch and his accomplice were described in court as "the face if pure evil" and jailed for life.

Piper is making a good recovery both physically and psychologically. "He couldn't take away my spirit. I love my life and I know that I have a future now, and it's a wonderful feeling."