Happiness and joy for the survivor of an horrific acid attack.

By SHAUNA ANDERSON

Warning: This post deals with details of sexual assault and may be distressing for some readers.

In March 2008 the life of Katie Piper, a television presenter and model, changed in an instant.

A man she had met on Facebook raped and beat her.

He held her hostage for eight hours — threatening to take her life, to cut her throat. Stabbing her repeatedly before releasing her.

Shocked and terrified, Katie refused to go to the police.

She had been dating the man, Daniel Lynch, for two weeks.

After weeks of apologies and phone calls Katie, from Hampshire in the UK, agreed to go to an internet cafe to read an email Lynch had sent to her.

She had no idea what Lynch had planned.

Katie was approached by a hooded man hired by Lynch who threw sulphuric acid in her face.

The attack was caught on CCTV and both Lynch and the attacker Stefan Sylvestre were arrested – and later jailed.

Katie was hospitalised for months, enduring 40 surgical operations to treat her injuries. Her entire face was rebuilt in an historic operation which had never been done before – but she was left blind in her left eye.

Now, six years later, Katie Piper has fought back and written about the one thing that has turned her life around – the birth of her daughter.

She writes in her book Beautiful Ever After, in a segment republished in the The Daily Mail:

“In the aftermath, I was horrified by my own reflection, barely recognising the image of myself in the mirror. I would play back memories of all the relationships I’d ever had, trying to ingrain in my mind what it felt like to hold hands, to kiss. I was sure I’d never be attractive to anyone again, never be intimate. Never be loved.”

Katie says that she never thought she would find someone to love her.

“Often I’d get chatting to a guy and he would seem interested in everything I said. I’d get excited, feeling sure we’d really connected. Then the next day I’d be gutted when a text message arrived asking me to open his village fete or draw the raffle ticket at his work Christmas do.”

Katie singles out one particular experience when a man abandoned her mid date in a restaurant saying it was humiliating.

“I didn’t want to cry but the more I tried not to, the more tears pricked my eyes. My voice wobbled when I asked for the bill, my hands shook as I paid. The coward hadn’t even had the decency to leave money with the waiter.”

But then life changed when she met a carpenter, James who she says “was proud to be with me and didn’t care what other people thought. “

The birth of their daughter, Belle has now brought Katie more joy and happiness than she could have ever imagined.

“I learned the hard way in my mid-20s that you simply can’t control everything that happens to you, and you have to accept that some of it just won’t make sense.

If you try to change the things you can’t, you’ll tie yourself in knots – and you may miss out on the good things and new opportunities that might be right in front of you.”

We wish the inspirational Katie and her family many, many more smiles and happiness in the future.

For more on Katie’s new book, visit .