What happened to Katie Piper? Acid attack, ex Daniel Lynch’s involvement, eye injury and her story explained

TV presenter Katie Piper has opened up about the acid attack that changed her life in 2008, including what her life was like before and after the attack.

Piper, who is a panellist on ITV talk show Loose Women, was speaking about what happened to her during Tuesday’s edition of the show.

She was speaking just days after receving emergency surgery for a hole in her eye at the weekend.

Piper, now aged 38, suffered life-changing injuries to her face and neck in a pre-planned attack by her ex-boyfriend and an accomplice when was 24.

So, just what happened to Katie Piper, what has she said about her life on Loose Women and why did she need emergency surgery on her eye?

Here’s everything you need to know.

What happened to Katie Piper?

Piper was attacked by her ex-boyfriend Daniel Lynch and Stefan Sylvestre in March 2008.

Lynch and Piper had been in a relationship since February of the same year after meeting on social media site Facebook.

Two weeks in to the relationship, Lynch raped and beat Piper.  She was treated for her wounds at hospital but did not reveal the truth about the incident to doctors and police, because she was afraid of him.

Lynch apologised to Piper multiple times, and persuaded her to go to an internet cafe to read an email he had sent to her Facebook account.

This was a set-up. Lynch gave her details to Stefan Sylvestre who was waiting to attack her.

Wearing a hoodie to conceal his identity, Sylvestre approached Piper, who thought he was going to ask for money,and then threw sulphuric acid at her face.

The sulphuric acid, some of which Piper had swallowed, blinded her in her left eye, and caused partial thickness and full thickness burns.

She was rushed to hospital, put in an induced coma for 12 days and had to undergo skin graft procedures.

Speaking on Loose Women about how her parents dealt with her attack, Piper said: ‘It was quite complex because when people think of burns, you think of military heroes or burns in the kitchen or fireworks.

“I don’t think any of us realised how much it affects so many functions and so many other internal medical problems that we had to educate ourselves on

“It wasn’t an accident that happened to me. A long legal trial, several different charges that the whole family was affected - my siblings, my parents.”

What did Katie Piper say about the attack on Loose Women?

Piper told her story as part of a ‘Life Before Loose’ series which sees several panellists speak about their life before they joined the lunchtime chat show.

Talking to fellow panellists Christine Lampard, Coleen Nolan and Janet Street-Porter, she detailed how her world changed after the acid attack which left her disfigured 14 years ago.

She said: “’When I look back on it and reflect, it does feel like two separate lives. I’m 38, but I sort of feel in my 70s or 80s.

“Because what’s happened to me, I’ve condensed so much into such a short period, and that happens to some people in their whole lifetime.

“In some ways you can take that as a positive - life experiences enrich us, they build our character and we can go onto use that in our future, but in other ways it was a lot.

“It took its toll on me mentally and physically. Some of the physical changes are still ongoing in my medical journey.”

She added that her life was changed dramatically in seconds following the attack.

“Nobody prepares for that. It was like my life was turned upside down in a matter of seconds.

“Lots of different things happen to people and what’s happened to me is obviously more visual, but we all experience trauma in varying degrees. Trauma’s a fact of life, but it needn’t be a life sentence.”

What did Katie Piper say about her childhood?

During Loose Women, Piper also spoke fondly about her “great” childhood and her family.

She said: “I was a tomboy. I had a dreadful haircut - a bowl haircut. My dad was a barber in the local village, and my mum a teacher, so you either had a haircut from my dad or detention from my mother.

Referring to her siblings Paul and Suzy and the childhood they shared, she said: “It was innocent, I never had any real pain or trauma at all growing up.

“My mum and dad were invested in us. They weren’t about big ambitions, but about independence and making your own way in life.”

Piper, who grew up in Andover, Hampshire, said she felt she was a “disappointing” teenager.

She said: “I grew up in such a small town, I really wanted city life. I rebelled, I was the smoker, the drinker, I used to jump out of the window to go out at night, I pierced my nose, used to dye my hair with food colouring because I couldn’t access hair dye.”

She went on to say she studied a college hair and beauty course.

“I wasn’t really academic. It wasn’t because I wasn’t bright, I just wasn’t interested - I was more interested in going out and boyfriends.”

Piper said she moved to London “to seek out a different life”, moving into a house shared with actors, dancers, those in theatre, promo girls, which then became the path she took.

She said: “It felt exciting, who knew where it may or may not take me? I worked on shopping telly selling solar panel lights, quiz shows until 4 in the morning, furniture catalogues and adverts.”

She added that there was “a lot of partying”.

She said: “Monday toThursday; clubbing, drinking, eating. I’ve always been a real people person. I’ve always grabbed life and loved glamorous things.”

Why did Katie Piper need emergency surgery on her eye?

Piper took to Instagram ahead of her pre-recorded interview being played on Loose Women to share how she was left in “extreme pain” on Sunday 14 August and her husband noticed a black spot in her eye.

This resulted in her not being able to tolerate light anymore and as her condition worsened she had to be rushed in to hospital.

She wrote “Emergency Operation for me! On Saturday my husband noticed a small black circle in my blind eye, I was excited thinking I had a pupil again.

“By Sunday my left eye was extremely painful and couldn’t tolerate light, so I patched it up and put it down to old injuries. I’m used to being in some level of discomfort and I went to work.

“‘By Sunday night I felt nausea and in extreme pain. I got in touch with my eye specialist and unfortunately he confirmed the black circle was a hole in my eye and the eye had perforated. This had always been a fear that it would happen.”

She added that her doctor, ophthalmologist Sheraz Daya, sourced some tissue and was able to successfully operate on her.

Who is Katie Piper?

Katie Piper, aged 38, is a writer, activist, television presenter and model.

In 2009, Piper gave up her right to anonymity in order to increase awareness about burn victims.

Later in the same year, she established a charity, the Katie Piper Foundation, aimed at raising awareness of the plight of victims of burns and other disfigurement injuries.

She was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list in recognition of her services to charity and burns survivors.

Piper became a panellist on Loose Women in July 2021, and now has her own Breakfast show on ITV which began in August 2022.

She married carpenter Richard Sutton in 2015, and the pair have two daughters; Belle Elizabeth, born March 2014, and Penelope Diane, born December 2017.

What happened to Katie Piper’s attackers?

The attack was caught on CCTV, and both Lynch and Sylvestre were later arrested.

Lynch received two life sentences, and will serve a minimum of 16 years.

Sylvestre received a life sentence, and was told he would serve a minimum of 6 years. His parole application for release was approved in 2018 and he was released in October of that year.

Lynch will remain behind bars until at least 2025.