Katie:My beautiful face

Systematic, cold and calculated; he knew where she would be, he knew what he had to do.

I look at Katie with an expressionless face. I cannot imagine being attacked with acid. I can not imagine the pain. But to suffer what she suffered and for the person responsible to never be punished for there crimes? It's amazing she even bothers getting out of bed in the morning. Maybe she's stronger than most. Maybe she's braver than us all. Or maybe the savagery she endured gave her a tighter grip on reality.

Katie: My Beautiful Face, was on channel 4 earlier this evening and I can honestly say that- even though the tone wasn't overly-depressing and the theme more about hope and the future than the morbidity of her past- it was the saddest documentary I have ever seen.

It followed the life of Katie Piper in the year after she was brutally attacked with a beaker of Sulphuric acid whilst walking onGolders Green High Street by the friend of a man who had raped and beaten her only days before.

At 24 she was destined for bigger and better things until she met a man over the internet and her life, as she had known it, changed forever. In the documentary Katie talks movingly and frankly to Channel 4 about her ordeal and what it's like living with her scars. It took eighteen months for her attacker to be brought to justice, when finally, a year after the attack, a 19 year old man was given a double life sentence for throwing a beaker full of Sulphiric acid into her face.

Responsible for organising the attack was a man named Danny who had seen Katie on TV and had decided to ask her out over Facebook. Katie took a liking to Danny and met with him for drinks. After 2 days he told he loved her. She tried to cool things down between them, arguing that she was busy and couldn't meet for a while.

The infatuation, however, did not stop there. Two weeks later she agreed to meet Danny and the couple checked into a hotel together. Later in the evening Katie did not feel well and declined sex, rolling over to go to sleep.

Danny raped and beat her for the following eight hours. Cleverly, Katie managed to convince Danny that she was okay, that it was all fine and that they could remain a couple. Danny accepted this and they left the hotel together. Katie headed home and decided not to call the police, realising that she had no proof of the attack and that she had willingly gone into the hotel with Danny. She remained in her flat for the subsequent two days receiving hundreds of calls and texts from Danny telling her to check the her facebook down at the local internet café.

Unable to take the barrage she gave in, got dressed, and walked to the café. Moments after leaving her apartment she received a call from Danny asking her where she was...

"I'm in the street outside my flat..." she told him.
"What are you wearing?" he asked.

She told him what she was wearing and the call ended. Katie began to panic and walked hurriedly down the road, calling her friend in the process, when a young man in a hoodie came walking towards her.

Looking back now she says she noticed him because he stood out to her, Because of the way he was walking... With his arms locked out in front of him, holding a coffee cup in his hands. Assuming he was a begger Katie rested the phone under her the right-hand side of her chin and went to grab some spare change from her bag.

The man was not a begger and the cup contained skin melting sulphuric acid, not coffee.

With her phone under her chin and her left cheek openly exposed the man threw the cup of acid into Katies' face. Blinding her in one eye and removing all of the skin on her face and chest in an instant...

We moan, day after day, about that which doesn't really matter. But look at her face. Do you think she moans her toast is burnt? That she doesn't want to Vacuum the living room? that her boyfriend put last nights Chinese in the bin when she wanted to eat it? No. She does not moan. She is grateful, more grateful than ever for the life she'd never truly appreciated before. But look at what it cost her.

We should all take a leaf from her book.

Catch Katie: My Beautiful face on 4OD.