Katie Piper's ex lured her to an internet café. On her way, she was approached by a man holding a cup.

In March 2008, Katie Piper had the world at her feet.

She'd grown up in England's home counties, but soon swapped the small hamlet for life in the big smoke, renting an apartment with friends in Golders Green, London.

There, she became a successful model with a promising career in media, presenting on web TV shows and small digital channels in the hope of making the big time.

It was her beauty and fame that caught the attention of Daniel Lynch. But what she thought was the beginnings of a happy relationship with him soon became a nightmare, which left Katie in a coma for 12 days.

What happened to Katie Piper?

Katie Piper pictured in 2010, two years after the acid attack. Image: Getty

As Katie's star rose, more people started to follow her online.

One was Daniel 'Danny' Lynch, a martial arts enthusiast and steroid addict who lived in Shepard's Bush, west London. He'd been keeping tabs on Katie's rise to fame, and eventually befriended her on Facebook.

The pair started messaging and decided that they should go on a date, later meeting in person in Reading, Berkshire, where Katie had been working.

It all went well, and the pair began dating in February 2008.

"I really sort of quite fancied him, and the whole image he portrayed to me, I really liked," she said per ABC News.

"It was an intense relationship in that he was very affectionate, and... whenever I wasn't with him... he was calling me or texting me or e-mailing me and wanted to see me," she added.

Her best friend, Kay Little, added, "One minute, you know, she's single, the next minute she's met this guy. And, you know, that's the first I heard about Danny."

But within two weeks, Katie discovered just how dangerous he was.

Katie Piper had moved to London and begun work as a model. Image: Katie Piper Foundation.

In March 2008, the couple had been out in London for a meal and decided to stay the night at a hotel in Bayswater, in the north-eastern quarter of central London. It was supposed to be a romantic evening. Instead, it was anything but.

Inside the hotel, Lynch became aggressive and abusive. Katie was subjected to a brutal attack that lasted a harrowing eight hours.

During this time, she was repeatedly raped and beaten. Lynch threatened to cut her face with a razor and hang her, and he stabbed her several times in the arms.

"I remember thinking about my mum and dad and all my friends, thinking 'I'm never gonna see them again,'" she remembered of that night with Lynch. "I genuinely didn't think I would live… he was just unhinged, unstable, and extremely violent."

After the prolonged attack, Lynch drove Katie back to her flat in Golders Green. She sought treatment at the Royal Free Hospital, but scared to her core, she withheld the true reason behind her severe injuries.

Lynch had made Katie promise to keep what had happened between them a secret while in the hotel.

"He started saying, 'Had he messed this up between us, had he lost me forever?' And I didn't want to die," she told 60 Minutes of the night she was attacked.

"I knew I had to try and appeal to this side of him and convince him, 'No, it's fine, I forgive you. Let's leave this place together; no one has to know.'"

After she got home from hospital, Katie locked herself in her apartment for the weekend, terrified.

Daniel Lynch lured her out of her home and orchestrated an acid attack. Image: Metropolitan Police.

In the 48 hours following the attack, Lynch continued to make contact with Katie, making numerous phone calls and offering a barrage of apologies.

The worst part was, what she endured in that hotel would not be the only horror Lynch would inflict upon her.

Just two days after the hotel incident, Lynch lured Katie out of her apartment. He told her that there was an email he had sent to her Facebook account that she had to read, and that he would leave her alone forever once she did.

Katie didn't have internet in the flat, which he knew, so she would need to walk to the local internet café to log on and read it.

The email was a ruse to get Katie out in the open where he could exact his revenge.

Lynch had organised to have Katie attacked. On her way to the internet café, she was approached by a hooded man. His arms were outstretched and he was holding a cup. It was Lynch's accomplice, Stefan Sylvestre.

She thought the man might be begging for money, but instead he threw highly corrosive sulphuric acid in her face.

Stefan Sylvestre was the accomplice who threw sulfuric acid at Katie. Image: Metropolitan Police.

The attack, captured on CCTV, would change Katie's life as she knew it. The toxic material covered her face, going into her eyes and mouth, leading to her swallowing some of it.

She was on the phone to Lynch the whole time. He did not hang up.

It was an attack designed to do as much physical damage as possible and to disfigure Katie, who had always been considered particularly beautiful. The acid melted the skin on her face, neck and hands. By the time she arrived at the hospital, she was missing an ear, parts of her nose and was blind in one eye.

"It was burning really badly. And I remember thinking, 'Maybe he's just flicked a match at me'. It was head to toe pain, and heat, and I knew my face was falling off and my vision started to deteriorate," she said.

"I remember hearing this really loud noise, and it was like my ear was coming off, and really hurting… I remember thinking I wish the noise would stop, and then I realised it was my voice screaming and screaming."

Katie was rushed to hospital. The acid had burnt through all the layers of her skin, leaving her with fourth-degree burns and blind in one eye. She was immediately placed in an induced coma, which would last 12 days.

When her parents were alerted and came to the hospital, they were asked to identify her as their Katie.

"When they said, 'Is this your daughter?' I remember thinking, 'I don't know,'" her father David said.

It wasn't just her family that were left shocked and confused, the medical staff treating Katie at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital were at a loss for what to do.

"We had to stabilise all different areas. And then... my first reaction was, 'What the hell are we gonna do with this girl?,'" said Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a specialist in burns victims' reconstructive surgery. "Medically speaking, I had no idea."

To make matters worse, it wasn't just her skin that was impacted. As Katie had swallowed some of the acid, her oesophagus and stomach were also badly damaged.

The initial surgery to start the process of grafting skin on her face would not be the only one. Over the next nine years, Katie underwent a painful 250 surgeries, including a complete facial reconstruction.

The experience was excruciating, and at times she just didn't want to be here anymore.

She told NDLA, "I just thought to myself, 'I'll do whatever I need to do to get discharged and then quietly go home, take an overdose and kill myself.'"

Her dad told ABC that he sometimes wondered if that would have been the better option for her, rather than the pain.

"I remember thinking, 'Do I really want her to survive? She's so disfigured, she could be totally blind... What sort of life is she gonna have?,'" David said. "And I do, I do feel guilty, even now, about that."

For Katie, despite her devastation, there was a voice in her head urging her to keep going.

"Something, somewhere said to me: 'Don't kill yourself. I can't tell you why, but there's a bigger reason. You have to stay alive.'"

Danny Lynch and Stefan Sylvestre get life sentences.

As Katie struggled to recover, another fight was raging in the courtroom, as prosecutors tried to put her attackers behind bars.

In May 2009, both Lynch and his accomplice Sylvestre were given life sentences for their crimes at Wood Green crown court.

Lynch, who was convicted of rape and orchestrating the attack, was to serve a minimum of 16 years before being eligible for parole, while Sylvestre, who carried out the assault, was expected to serve a minimum of six years. The judge presiding over the case said that the pair represented the "face of pure evil".

"The facts of this case are chilling and shocking. You planned and then executed an act of pure, calculated and deliberate evil. You decided to wreck the victim's life by thrusting a full container of sulphuric acid straight into her face from point-blank range," said Browne.

During the case, Katie was able to give an impact statement.

"When the acid was thrown at me, it felt like I was burning in hell. It was an indescribable, unique, torturous pain.

"I have lost my future, my career, my spirit, my body, my looks, my dignity — the list goes on. All I am left with is an empty shell. A part of me has died that will never come back. This is worse than death."

As of 2024, Lynch is attempting to get parole from prison, but his case has been kicked down the road, and no decision has been made as yet.

In 2018, Sylvestre was released from prison on parole, on the basis that he was 19 at the time of the attack and had shown remorse for his actions. He had avoided anti-social behaviour while imprisoned and had completed the rehabilitation to "change his attitude and thinking".

What has Katie Piper done since her acid attack?

Katie Piper pictured in 2014. She has become a TV presenter and advocate for other burns survivors. Image: Getty.

Katie Piper, now 41 years old, has transformed her life in remarkable ways since the horrific acid attack she endured in 2008. It seems that the voice in her head telling her to keep going was for a reason.

Katie waived her right to anonymity and told her story publicly in a documentary, Katie: My Beautiful Face. This was the start of her public advocacy, using her platform to raise awareness for burns victims.

She started the Katie Piper Foundation in 2010, to help burns and scar victims reconnect with their lives and communities through rehabilitation, awareness and community building. It also helps to fund research into cutting-edge treatments for burns victims.

In her career, Katie has become a popular author, TV presenter, and campaigner, appearing as a panellist on ITV1's Loose Women and occasionally presenting on BBC Radio 2's Early Morning Breakfast Show. She has lived in the public eye as a person with scars for well over a decade, providing a beacon of hope for other burns survivors to embrace their scars.

In 2021, she was awarded an OBE for her services to charity and burn victims.

Katie has also advocated for longer prison sentences for acid attack perpetrators, highlighting how victims live in fear of their assailants when they are released from prison in such a short time.

"Survivors of such attacks often have to live with the immediate fear that their attackers may still be at large, and in the longer term — even if the attackers are caught and sentenced — may be released to potentially live alongside them after serving a minimum term," she wrote in an open letter.

"I meet many inspiring individuals who have worked hard to rebuild their lives after an attack; however, it can be hard to stay motivated when the justice system does not always reflect the severity of these crimes."

In 2024, Katie led a team of burns survivors who together hiked Snowdon, Wales' highest peak, to raise money for the foundation.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Katie Piper OBE (@katiepiper_)

Personally for Katie, finding love had always been a goal. When the attack happened, she wondered if she would ever find that in her future.

"I didn't even look like a man or a woman or an adult or a child, it was just like a corpse," she told 60 Minutes of the moment she saw her reflection after the attack.

"There were times I'd catch my own reflection and it would startle me, and then I'd think, 'Well, if my own reflection shocks me, what does it do to other people?'

"I've always wanted to get married and have children and to me, that was like quite a big part of the purpose to my life. I remember thinking, you know, 'Nobody's ever going to want to be with me. So really, what is the point of going on? I'm just going to be a burden on my family.'"

However, those pessimistic thoughts back in 2008 couldn't have been further from the truth.

Five years after she endured the attack, Katie was introduced to Richard James Sutton through a mutual friend. She said that he seemed really genuine, and she loved his ability to see past her scars.

"James was chatty, witty and looked me squarely in the eye. He never once mentioned my burns, and because he didn't, I didn't either," she told the MailOnline. "He didn't even stare at them, so I didn't feel self-conscious. He had me relaxed and buzzing with confidence."

Their relationship went from strength to strength. In the meantime, the couple found out that they were expecting.

Katie welcomed her first child, a daughter, Belle Elizabeth, on March 14, 2014. "I am delighted to tell you that our daughter Belle Elizabeth was born today! Overwhelmed with happiness. We can't wait to get to know her!" she said at the time.

Then, just a few months after Belle's birth, James proposed.

"It was quite a surprise actually. We got engaged a couple of weeks before Christmas so it was a really nice end to a year in my life I never thought I'd be lucky enough to experience so yes, I feel really privileged and lucky," she said.

They married the following year in November 2015, surrounded by their friends and family.

The couple soon began the journey to get pregnant again, but it wasn't as easy. It took Katie 18 months to conceive her second child, but she welcomed another daughter, Penelope Diane, on December 13, 2017.

The pair recently celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary in 2024, and their life is the bliss that Katie thought she might never get.

"The whole chapter of getting married and having a baby was something I had hoped for — but I knew it was a luxury and it doesn't happen to everybody," she said.

But while Katie's family life may be sweet, it doesn't mean she's free of complications from the acid attack all those years ago.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Katie Piper OBE (@katiepiper_)

In January 2025, Katie made the decision to get an "artificial eye" or prosthetic eye shell, more than 16 years after the incident.

This decision came after years of struggling with her eye health. Katie shared this journey with her followers on Instagram, expressing both hope and nervousness about adapting to the prosthetic.

"After many years battling with my eye health, I've reached the end of road somewhat, and the decision has been made to try a prosthetic eye shell," she shared on Instagram.

"This marks the start of a journey to have an artificial eye, with an incredible medical team behind me. As always I'm incredibly grateful to all those in the NHS and private health care system for their talent and kindness."

Prior to this, in October 2024, Katie underwent emergency surgery at Centre for Sight following the discovery of a perforation in her left eye.

At the end of 2024, Katie reflected on the year that had been.

"Whilst it hasn't all gone in my favour, it's been an incredible year of opportunities both personally and professionally. I've connected with incredible new people and strengthened current relationships and hope to continue that in 2025," she wrote.

"Happy new year beautiful people, and thank you all for being you and being here, it's become a community I've come to rely on and I never take it for granted."

Featured image: Katie Piper Foundation/Getty.

If you think you may be experiencing depression or another mental health problem, please contact your general practitioner or in Australia, contact Lifeline 13 11 14 for support or beyondblue 1300 22 4636.