LONDON, UK: Katie Piper said she was recently taken to hospital for emergency surgery after being attacked with sulfuric acid which severely burned her face and blinded one of her eyes. The 38-year-old TV presenter began dating Daniel Lynch in February 2008 after chatting on Facebook.
In 2008, Lynch raped Piper and then prompted a friend, Stefan Sylvestre, to attack her with acid. This made the relationship a terrible experience. Piper was placed in a coma and held there for 12 days. She also had to have skin grafts.
Piper wrote in her latest Instagram post: “On Saturday my husband saw a small black circle in my blind eye. I was excited because I thought I had a pupil again, but on Sunday my left eye was in a lot of pain and couldn’t take the light, so I put a band-aid on it, thinking it was old injuries. I’m used to being uncomfortable, so I went to work.”
Stefan Sylvestre is released from prison for the second time in two years. He used acid to hurt Katie Piper.
The thug who doused Katie Piper in 2008 got out of prison and was concerned for her safety.
“On Sunday evening I was sick and in a lot of pain. I called my eye doctor @sherazdaya @centreforsightuk and he confirmed that the black circle was a hole in my eye and that the eye was perforated. It was always thought this would happen,” she said. “Yesterday @sherazdaya got me a tissue and operated on me. I can’t thank him and his team enough for all they know and how kind and caring they are. There may be some bad people in the world, but there are also many amazing people doing great things for other people every day. Thank you Sherazdaya team and Center for Sight UK! You’re unbelievable!”
Piper recently opened up about how the attack changed her life. Joining Christine Lampard, Coleen Nolan and Janet Street-Porter on the podium, Piper said: “Thinking back on it, it feels like I’ve lived two different lives.” I’m 38 years old, but I feel like mine 70’s or 80’s. Because of what happened to me, I’ve been through so much in such a short amount of time while some people don’t have to go through that much in their entire lives.”
“In some ways you can see that as a good thing because life experiences make us better people and help us grow, but in other ways it’s been a lot. Both my mind and my body were affected. Some of the changes in my body are still happening as I get better,” she said.
“No one is ready for that. It felt like my whole life was turned upside down at once. People go through trauma in different ways and what happened to me is obviously more visible than what happened to other people. Trauma happens, but it doesn’t have to be a life sentence,” she said.
She said of her parents’ handling of the situation, “It was pretty hard because when people think of burns, they think of military heroes, kitchen burns or fireworks.” “I don’t think any of us knew how much it was affected so many functions and so many other health issues in the body that we had to learn about…” “It didn’t happen to me by accident. A long trial with many different charges involving my siblings, my parents and myself,” she said.
Reflecting on her childhood in a small village, Piper said, “I was a tomboy. I had a terrible haircut – a bowl haircut. My dad was a local barber and my mom was a teacher, so you either got a haircut from my dad or got in trouble from my mom. “It wasn’t a bad thing. Growing up, I never had any real pain or trauma. My mom and dad took care of us… She also said, “It wasn’t about having big goals for them, it was about being independent and making your own path in life.”
The attack on Piper was caught on CCTV and Sylvestre was soon arrested. Lynch was later caught and both received life sentences. Sylvestre was released from prison on October 10, 2018. He was sent to prison again 13 months later, but he was acquitted of taking cars without permission. After that, a parole board said he could be free in 2020. In 2018, it emerged that Lynch had received nearly £200,000 (US$242,333) in legal aid, paid for by taxpayers.