True Beauty

Katie Piper is in the process of setting up a charity for burns and acid attack survivors. We will update the website accordingly.

Full transcript:

STORY -

TARA BROWN: So, Katie, when you look in the mirror, what do you see?

KATIE PIPER: I see a face that tells a story...

TARA BROWN: Viciously attacked with acid, Katie Piper's story is a harrowing and heartbreaking one. Do you ever yearn for the Katie of old?

KATIE PIPER: I do look back and it's like a bereavement, and one that I can cope with, and one that I can deal with. So, maybe I feel sad, but that sadness doesn't overcome me and make me feel distraught.

TARA BROWN: Katie's face was her future. A model and TV presenter, the 25-year-old Londoner was a girl used to being noticed. But, in March last year, as captured by this CCTV footage, sulphuric acid was thrown in Katie's face, destroying it forever.

KATIE PIPER: A lot of the publicity around me has been headlines of, you know, "beautiful girl lost her face and is now scarred for life." And, yes, that's really hard but that's not the worst thing about this attack. It goes deeper than that. It's about destroying who you are as a person and how you lived your life, and all the things you could do. It's not just my face that was stolen, it's my identity - Katie, the person. Everything was taken away from me.

TARA BROWN: But this is also a story of discovery and an incredible medical breakthrough that not only rebuilt Katie's face, but also helped redefine her life. She's found an inner strength that makes her far more beautiful than she ever was.

KATIE PIPER: I'll have days when my appearance gets me down more than others, but I'll always try and tell myself, "Oh, stop being so shallow because you're lucky you have your eyes in the right place, you can see, you've got a nose, lips." I can walk, I can talk, so, I try to be grateful for what I've got.

TARA BROWN: This is the man who tried to destroy Katie's life - 33-year-old Danny Lynch, whom she'd met and began dating through Facebook just two weeks earlier.

KATIE PIPER: After, sort of, the brief two weeks I started to think, "I don't think we've got a lot in common." He's not really the person I thought he was and that's when I tried to back away.

TARA BROWN: As you tried to back away, what did he do?

KATIE PIPER: He took it as an insult and became very angry.

TARA BROWN: Danny violently raped Katie for eight hours and threatened to kill her.

KATIE PIPER: He wanted to hang me and slash my face with a razor blade, and he was - he was just like a monster unleashed. He was just - not, not just violent, but he was unhinged because he was violent one minute, then he was crying the next minute.

TARA BROWN: So, how did you escape?

KATIE PIPER: He sort of said had he messed things up between us, had he lost me forever, and I didn't want to die. I knew I had to try to 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."

TARA BROWN: Katie escaped to her own apartment and locked herself away for the weekend. But Danny called constantly, begging her to check her emails at a nearby Internet cafe. She was terrified of what he would do if she ignored him.

TARA BROWN: What made you leave the apartment that day?

KATIE PIPER: He said to me, "OK, I understand that I've hurt you and I'm going to leave you alone forever if you go and check this one message."

TARA BROWN: She agreed to go to the cafe. Over and over, Danny called to check exactly where she was and what she was wearing. Little did she know he was tracking her movements because he'd enlisted his friend, Stefan Sylvestre, to attack her. It was broad daylight in what seems to be a pretty safe area. Katie was completely and understandably unsuspecting. A man walked towards her. His arms were outstretched, holding a cup. She thought he was begging. As she rummaged though her bag, looking for money for him, he threw what turned out to be sulphuric acid all over her face. It's hard to imagine a more horrific or cowardly attack.

KATIE PIPER: I was on the phone to Danny and I just put the phone like this and I had my bag like this, and I leaned like this side of my face, all like this, and went to get the money and, as I did, he got really, like this close to me, and said something to me, then just threw it all over me. It was just - and Danny stayed on the phone and listened the whole time. He never hung up.

TARA BROWN: When the acid hit your face, do you remember what you felt?

KATIE PIPER: Yeah. I was just burning. I 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. And I remember hearing this really, really loud noise and it was like all of my ear was coming off and really hurting and there was the noise - the noise was so loud and it was really hurting me, and I remember thinking "I wish the noise would stop", and then I realised it was my voice screaming and screaming.

TARA BROWN: When you saw her lying in hospital.

DIANE PIPER, MOTHER: It was just a person in this intensive care unit with a doctor washing her face, pouring water onto her face. Her face was swollen, orange, black. She had a tube in her mouth. Her tongue was so swollen, it couldn't fit in her mouth.

DAVID PIPER, FATHER: And her eyes were welded together.

DIANE PIPER: And her eyes were welded together. She was totally unrecognisable.

TARA BROWN: The acid had burnt through all the layers of Katie's skin. She had fourth degree burns and was blind in her left eye. Doctors couldn't even tell Diane and David if their daughter would survive. In those early days, she didn't want to.

DIANE PIPER: She wrote things on this clipboard they'd given her, things like, "Am I blind?" "Where am I?" "Am I dead?" "Help me, I can't breathe." And she used to sort of put her hand up to our face and then she'd go, she's write, "Don't cry," and "I'm sorry," and then she wrote "kill me" because I think she realised what a terrible predicament she was in.

TARA BROWN: What Katie didn't know was she was in the hands of the best reconstructive surgeon in the country. DR

MOHAMMAD JAWAD, SURGEON: What I wanted to do is preserve as much healthy tissue, if it was there.

TARA BROWN: Was there much there?

DR MOHAMMAD JAWAD: Unfortunately, not.

TARA BROWN: For six hours, Dr Mohammad Jawad led a team of eight trying to save Katie's face. In the end, they had to remove most of it and start again. In a single operation, they built a brand-new face using synthetic skin and skin grafts from Katie's back. It's a world-first, but what Katie saw in those early days repulsed her.

TARA BROWN: When you looked in the mirror for the first time, what was your reaction?

KATIE PIPER: Why is my reflection not there? Didn't even look like a man or a woman or an adult or a child. It was just like a corpse. 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?" And I've always wanted to get married and have children and, to me, that was like - would be a big purpose to my life. And I remember thinking, "You know, nobody's ever going to want to be with me so, really, what is the point in going on? And, and I'm just going to be a burden on my family." And there was times I found it really hard, really difficult.

TARA BROWN: But Katie did find a way to go on. In the last 18 months, she's rediscovered her sense of humour.

KATIE PIPER (DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE): These are quite heavy, aren't they? How funny is this, how much my life is changed? I now have more medical supplies than I do shoes and handbags.

TARA BROWN: Wearing a plastic pressure mask 23 hours a day isn't funny, nor are the 32 operations she's since had, but her mum and dad have helped her get through the tough times.

DIANE PIPER (DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE): And I do understand, and I think you're being really, really brave.

KATIE PIPER (DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE): Yeah. Thanks, mum? I want to hug you but I can't.

TARA BROWN: But perhaps her greatest rehabilitation is seeing her attackers in gaol. Both got life sentences, and Danny Lynch was also convicted of raping Katie...

KATIE PIPER (DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE): Oh, my gosh!

TARA BROWN: ..news delivered by her dad.

KATIE PIPER (DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE): Yeah, OK, I'll speak to you later. Alright. Bye. I can't believe it. I'm so surprised. I'm so shocked, I can't -

TARA BROWN: What was that moment like?

KATIE PIPER: Just overjoyed 'cause I was so worried that he would be able to be released and kill me, and it was just relief, a massive relief. It really was. Yeah.

TARA BROWN: Do you hate him?

DAVID PIPER: Yeah, and I think I always will.

DIANE PIPER: I find it very hard to call him by his name because that makes him human by naming him and, to me, he's not human. He doesn't deserve a name - he's just the man that attacked Kate.

TARA BROWN: There are the physical scars, and then there's the psychological trauma of what Katie's been through, and sleep offers no protection.

KATIE PIPER: I think the hardest part would be feeling like a child again, losing your independence, moving back home, not being able to work and just the daily things an adult would probably take for granted.

TARA BROWN: Home with her parents is still the safest place for Katie. She moved here from hospital and it's only now, 1.5 years after the attack, she feels slightly more comfortable venturing out. That's sad, isn't it?

KATIE PIPER: It's got better and I do go out more, but I take the dog with me. But I wouldn't walk the dog alone. Like, I'm with you...

TARA BROWN: Her attacker may be in gaol, but Katie's greatest fear is she will be targeted again.

TARA BROWN: So there is a part of you still scared?

KATIE PIPER: Yes, there is, but I'd rather be scared than risk getting attacked again, 'cause I couldn't go through that again.

TARA BROWN: Katie's also anxious about people's reactions when they see her new face and, rightly so, going on past experiences.

KATIE PIPER: People said things to me and laughed at me, and more so younger people and children followed me 'round if I went out and things like that.

TARA BROWN: That must have been hard?

KATIE PIPER: Yeah, it was difficult, but I can understand why...

TARA BROWN: Will there be a day when Katie will be scar-free?

DR MOHAMMAD JAWAD: She will always have scars, ah, but there's no reason why she should not achieve the Katie who she was. Not necessarily in 100%. I think we're going to get 90%, 95%. I think it will be a great breakthrough.

TARA BROWN: 90% to 95% of what she was?

DR MOHAMMAD JAWAD: I think so.

TARA BROWN: Katie's progress so far is quite extraordinary, but she has another six months of wearing this mask, which helps flatten out the scars, and there's more surgery to come on her cheeks and nose.

KATIE PIPER: I want to restore a good quality of life. I want to be able to shout and laugh and my face to feel loose and moist, and that's what's important for me, not restoring what, you know, society says is beautiful, because I feel beautiful.

TARA BROWN: You are beautiful. She is beautiful, isn't she?

DR MOHAMMAD JAWAD: Absolutely, absolutely.

TARA BROWN: When you look at her, do you see the daughter you raised and love?

DIANE PIPER: I do, I do sometimes. If I was honest, I do sometimes get a bit of a pang when I look at her because I remember what she used to look like, what she should look like. And sometimes I do think, "It's not right that you don't look like that."

DAVID PIPER: I feel the opposite. I actually think it was always Kate because, even in hospital with no face, she was still joking and still saying daft things that I'd expect her to say, and I look at her now and I think, "It doesn't matter, it's still her." Whatever he's tried to do to her, he's not won because it's still her.

TARA BROWN: No doubt Katie's life has changed but, perhaps surprisingly, not for the worse. Every day she looks more like the Katie of old, but she is a new woman. In her opinion, a better one - more tolerant and happier and now able to face the world.

KATIE PIPER: I've lived two very extremes in life. I've lived a life where people wolf whistle at me and men gave me their seat on the Tube, and women were jealous of me, and I had that life for a few years. And then I walked on the other side - the total extreme - to where people were disgusted by my appearance, people were scared to get in the lift with me. It made me think, "This is crazy! Why - how can society perceive me like this? Why do people discriminate against me? I need to do something about this." I want to show people that, big or small, you can get through anything in life if you stick at it and don't let things destroy you. The human spirit is an amazing thing and, with positivity, I believe you can get through adversity.