RedHanded - Episode 161 - Naomi Oni & The Acid Attack Epidemic

Episode Date: August 20, 2020

It was after midnight on the 29th of December 2012 when 20 year old Naomi Oni was walking home in East London. Suddenly out of the darkness she saw a figure appear and a splash of liquid hit her face. The excruiating burning pain was immediate, and the horrors that followed would only be topped when she discovered just who had carried out this brutal revenge acid attack. Sources: www.redhandedpodcast.com   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Suriti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to your... Welcome to your red-handed. Welcome to your red-handed. Your specific personal red-handed. Here for another week of true crime for your ears and your brains.

I just opened a scab on my elbow so now I'm bleeding. Hooray! Oh good. So everything is covered in some sort of liquid. Oh my god! I meant the rain. It's absolutely pissing it down. It's gone from being like 38 degrees to just heavy thunderstorms and I fell asleep with all of my windows open and now everything I own is soaking wet. So that's good including all of the toilet roll that was on my bathroom windowsill. Oh no. I know. No that's the worst. I know. And I didn't even realize I went to use it. I was like,

oh, that's just pulp. Cool. Sick. Anyway, you guys don't want to hear about that. What you do want to hear about is the fucking case that we've got for you today. It's a lot. So let's jump right in. Unless you've got any other AOBs, any other, any other business. Nope. I'm just fantastically happy that it's not 35 fucking degrees. So everyone's a winner. I went for a wax yesterday and the woman was like, oh my God, like you don't move at all. Like you stay so still.

And I was like, mate, I'm just happy I'm not doing it myself. Just go nuts, babe. Don't worry about it. Use two hands. Just rip it all out. Oh my God. I'm impressed with you. I'm such a jerker.

I'm a jerker all over the place. And I've told you, I think I may have said it on the show before, that one time I kicked the woman like properly in the face when she did it. No. Did I not tell you? She just pulled and I'm such a jerker. I really am. I can't help it.

It hurts. It was like, you know, when they do like reflex tests on you and stuff. It was like my knee just went whoop and like my leg just went in the air and just whacked her under the chin. I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I left her a tip. I was like, I'm so sorry. Oh, wait, that's so funny. Violent wax client.

Oh, mate, that poor lady. She was very good about it and she just smiled and carried right on. But I did feel very guilty. Anyway, enough wax chat enough toilet roll chat let's get on with today's show I think. At 11 30 p.m on the 29th of December 2012 20 year old Naomi Oney had just finished work. She was excited to go home it was Christmas time and everyone else in her family was already at her house and she knew that her mum would be

cooking up a storm. And as much as Naomi loved her new job at the Victoria's Secret store in the Westfield Shopping Centre in London, all she could think about as she closed up that evening was rushing home. And it was a bit of a journey from Stratford to her home in Dagenham, East London. So after leaving the shop, Naomi quickly got herself going on her usual route home. She got the tube from Stratford to West Ham, and here she changed lines and headed to Barking, where she arrived just after midnight. From Barking, Naomi got the 386 bus for the final leg of her journey.

As she was coming out of Barking Station though, Naomi realised that she was absolutely starving. So before she got on the bus, she nipped into a shop to grab some chips. Then, when she got on the bus, she nipped into a shop to grab some chips. Then, when she got on the bus, she did what a lot of us always do. You know, it's late, she's bored, she's on her own. So she called up an ex-boyfriend for a quick chat. The bus took Naomi to a stop right outside her front door on Bromhall Road in Dagenham. She was now just meters from her house. Naomi got off the bus and started walking down the dark street. When suddenly, something caught her house. Naomi got off the bus and started walking down the dark street. When suddenly,

something caught her attention. She turned to see someone walking beside her. It was a dark figure wearing a face veil. They caught eyes and the veiled figure returned only a cold, hard stare. Naomi was a bit freaked out, so she tried to put some distance between her and the mystery character. But as Naomi went to cross the road, she saw an abrupt movement out of the corner of her eye and suddenly felt a huge splash of liquid hit her face. She gasped and as fear took over, she ran down the street screaming. Naomi's face was burning. Naomi ran to her house and banged on the door. She was screaming that someone had thrown acid in her face. Her mum was the one to answer, and when she did, Naomi could see the look of absolute horror on her face. Naomi's family, including her uncle,

aunt and godmother were all at the family home, and the scene erupted into one of complete chaos. Naomi was petrified. She could feel the skin on her face dissolving, the smell was unbearable, and her family could actually visibly see her skin deteriorating. Naomi's godmother, who was at the house that night, was also a pharmacist. And luckily, she knew just what to do. She got Naomi into a shower and started dousing Naomi's face, neck and body in cold water. Before their very eyes, Naomi's jeans and top were shredding apart and falling away. Naomi described her skin as cracking and breaking like when you put hot glass into cold water.

As her godmother washed her, Naomi's face had completely changed colour to a raw, angry, reddish-purple. The acid was eating through everything. All the while, as her family stood in the bathroom panicking, pacing and calling 999, Naomi said that she was trying to stay calm. She was humming in her head to try to stop herself from freaking out when the ambulance arrived Naomi asked her auntie to go with her she knew that it would all be too much for her mum and she didn't want to scare her in the ambulance paramedics had to remove all of Naomi's clothes and cover her tearing face in gauze I mean I think just immediately what Naomi's clothes and cover her tearing face in gauze. I mean, I think just immediately what Naomi's decision making is, even in the moment of like utmost fear and panic, the fact that she

still puts her mum first, she doesn't want her to come with her because she knows it's going to be terrifying. She says in this interview I watched with her, which we'll link below, she was like, I was humming songs in my head to calm myself down. I mean, how? My mind would not, I don't think, go there immediately in this moment of sheer panic. So I think this tells you a lot about the kind of person Naomi is at such a young age. She's only 20 years old when this is happening. Yeah, it's a self-preservation thing as well. Like, you know, when you're in like a life and death situation, like everything slows down and you can think so incredibly clearly. I think it's an adrenaline thing maybe, but you are

right, like she's incredibly brave. So when Naomi arrived at the hospital, she was rushed through A&E. She was immediately surrounded by dozens of doctors and nurses. They removed the gauze and placed Naomi into a giant shower. They washed her in this freezing cold water for an hour. The pain was excruciating. Naomi was shaking and crying. There was still so much of whatever that substance was on her body. Finally, when they pulled Naomi out of the shower, two nurses told her that the problem now was that there was still a lot of the acid in her eyes that the shower hadn't been able to get out, so they were going to have to clean Naomi's eyes out manually. By this point, the skin on Naomi's face was shredded

and her eyes were swollen shut. The nurses had to stretch Naomi's eyes apart and clamp them open so that they could pour saline solution into them. As they were doing this, Naomi said that she could feel mucus pouring down her face and this eye wash went on for almost 40 minutes. After this immediate care was provided Naomi was transferred to Broomfield Hospital in Essex to the serious burns unit. As they transferred her Naomi said that her vision started to go

and she said that at this point she started to feel like she was giving up. She felt like her body was shutting down and as her vision went and the darkness took over, she said that she could only hear voices in the background. I mean, imagine. I cannot. I was going to say imagine. I cannot even imagine the horror and the fear that you would be feeling. Like your eyesight is going.

The pain. Just the panic. You don't even really understand exactly what's happened to you. But you know it's bad because she says in the interviews she could feel her skin fizzing and dissolving i mean this case just really got to me in a way that few have previously so it turned out that the substance that had been used in the attack on naomi was strong sulfuric acid and the injuries that naomi had suffered were widespread. The damage covered

her face, scalp, neck, forearms and legs. The burns were deep and the damage to her face was severe. The acid had worked its way through the full thickness of Naomi's skin. Naomi lost all of her hair and her eyelashes. Over the next few weeks, Naomi had two major facial reconstruction surgeries. Doctors had to take skin from her thighs for skin grafts across her face and arms. Almost half of Naomi's face had to be grafted back on. She had also totally lost both of her eyelids. So surgeons had to rebuild Naomi's eyes with skin from behind her ears, and they didn't think she would get her sight back. But thankfully, over time, she did. The first day her sight came back to her Naomi said that she picked up the phone to use it and caught sight of herself in the screen

the shock of seeing her new face hit Naomi like a ton of bricks I think that's the worst bit for me it really is it's that point of like seeing your face completely altered in a way that makes you unrecognizable to yourself. And just that everyday moment that it's going to happen when you catch sight of yourself in your phone screen or in a shiny toaster or fridge or something, that it's always that shock. But especially in those first few days, I can't even imagine how Naomi coped with that. It's so much. It's so overwhelming to even read about. So obviously from the description we've given, you can tell that Naomi's injuries were incredibly severe. But it could have been even worse if it wasn't for her godmother getting her into the shower as soon as Naomi got home that night.

And this is going to sound really grim. And I did toy with whether we should include this or not, but I do. I feel like it's important. I want to include in this episode what you should do, according to official guidelines here in the UK at least, if you see somebody who has become a victim of an acid attack. Firstly, the most important thing, immediately call 999 or, you know, whatever your emergency services are then really really crucially make sure firstly that it is safe to intervene apparently sometimes people rush in as soon as they hear people screaming and they end up becoming secondary victims if the attack is

still ongoing this stuff is just being splashed around everywhere so make sure that it is safe before you go and try to provide help so So then when you are able to help, the important thing is that you find a clean source of water. All of the recommendations say not to use just something like a wet cloth and try and like pat it down because all you're going to do is spread it further around into other sort of unaffected places. Ideally what you need is like a continuous stream of cold water that you can pour over wherever the acid has touched the victim's skin. So this is either like by tipping bottles of water over them or getting them into a shower like Naomi's godmother did as quickly as possible. According to all of the

reports, it says that this needs to happen within 10 seconds of the attack happening so that the damage can be limited. That is, I i mean what are the chances you know i know we're saying this but like 10 seconds fuck and the other thing that all of the reports do say is that if you can see that the victim's clothes or any jewelry has been touched by the acid to remove it because it's just going to sit on their skin and make it worse basically and importantly don't pull this jewelrywellery or these clothes off if they've got acid on them. Cut them away if you can, because, again,

you're just going to risk smearing it further all over that person. So, yeah, very quick rundown. We're going to talk later about how fucking prevalent acid attacks are as well. They may not be where you live, but just some handy information if you're ever in that situation. It's just not something you ever think about, is it? No, never, ever. But after doing this, I feel like, yeah,

I feel like I have thought about it so much this week, but I'd never previously thought about it. So yeah, anyway, back to the case. So after the surgeries, Naomi was still in hospital with no idea who had done this to her. And at first, the local police in Dagenham were the ones who dealt with the case. And they were completely stumped. Firstly, it's important to say, as we all know, as all true crime, you know, average consumers of true crime know,

over the holidays, police resourcing is low. It's not the best time for a crime to happen to you, basically. It's not going to be peak policing time. And also throw in the fact that Naomi was the only witness to what had happened. And even she hadn't seen much more than just this random dark figure. And no one else who had been on the street that night had seen anything except Naomi screaming and running down the street. When they checked the CCTV, that didn't help much either. The suspect had been wearing a full niqab. Naomi couldn't think of why someone would have done this to her. She was just a normal young woman.

She went to work, she saw her boyfriend, she saw her family. She barely even saw her friends now that some of them had gone off to university. With Naomi and her family stalling over who could have done it, the police started to raise suspicions of their own, mainly around the idea that Naomi was involved with gangs. Naomi was clear she was not, nor had she ever been involved with gangs. The police continued to dig into this idea for a while, and while some felt that it was racially tinged, given that Naomi is a black woman,

the majority of acid attacks in the UK are gang-related. Naomi's family even agreed that they felt the police had to explore all possible avenues. So let's talk about acid attacks here in the UK, especially in London. They have been on the rise for the past decade. And in 2016, they reached epidemic levels as acid attacks increased by 70% from the year before, with two attacks occurring every day on average in the UK. That is fucking unbelievable. Two acid attacks occurring every single day in the UK. I mean, what? I just can't get my head around it. Like, you know, if I'm walking home at night, I mean, number one, I worry about getting raped. Like that's the first thing. But then secondly, it's getting stabbed. That's all I think about. I would never even consider that I would be at risk of someone throwing acid on my face.

Definitely. And there are some interesting documentaries on YouTube that I will link below where journalists are speaking to people who have committed acid attacks. They've never been convicted of them. They freely admit that they've done it. Their faces are blurred. Their voices are changed. And they say, I would stab a guy, but I would throw acid on a girl. And when she asks him why, he says, well, those girls, they love their faces. They love their beauty. They care about that. That's what I would want to take from them. So now after my fear of being kidnapped and being sexually assaulted, acid attacks have jumped to number two, possibly number one. I'm not worried about being stabbed anymore. It's fucking terrifying. And also,

I didn't know this explicitly. I felt like I had sort of heard stuff about how bad it was, especially in London. But I didn't know that London today still is the acid attack capital of the West. That is fucking terrifying, specifically East London, specifically the borough of Newham. That is where it is apparently the worst. Newham is London's poorest borough. Yeah. By a long way, actually.

And this is kind of what we're talking about. I never really thought about acid attacks that much, especially in this country. My previous experiences or understanding even of acid attacks had always actually been in India, like many other countries outside of the UK especially, women are usually the main for a long time, it's always been the sort of weapon of choice for scorned lovers or rejected marriage proposals. And it's a way to get back at a woman, especially in countries where women are still, or have been for a very long time, only thought of based on the value they bring because of their appearance. So I never really thought about it here. But what is interesting is that in the UK, incidences of acid attacks go against this kind of general global

data that we see where it is predominantly women who are the victims, because actually here in the UK, two thirds of victims are men. And I think it's because, you know, of what the police do know is that the majority of acid attacks are related to gang violence. I think that explains why the majority of victims in this country seem to be, at the moment at least, men. So I think the thing that's really terrifying about acid attacks is not just the kind of sheer numbers of attacks that seem to be occurring here, but also just the absolute randomness of it like i've watched videos of it just like happening at train stations happening as people are walking outside of clubs walking around in the middle of the day and it does seem to be like we said in the uk predominantly sort of the weapon of choice these days for gang initiations or gang warfare

but terrifyingly it's also started to emerge as being used for petty crimes like muggings, which is fucking mind-boggling. Like, you want to steal my phone? Don't throw acid at me. You're probably just going to get it anyway. Like, it's terrifying that people would resort to such an extreme weapon for such a petty thing? I think the attack on Katie Piper in March 2008 and the Mangled Nightclub attack in Hackney in 2017 are probably two incidents that brought acid attacks into the public consciousness in a big way. I mean, Katie Piper is, yeah, hella famous. She was at the podcast awards one year when we were there, I think. She definitely does do a podcast. I think she does, yeah. For those of you who don't know the Katie Piper story, it is probably the most famous acid attack case in the UK.

So if you don't know, here's a quick rundown. Katie was a beautician from Hampshire in the south of England. In her 20s, she started doing a bit of modelling. She worked as a ring girl at boxing matches, and she was even runner-up at the 2006 Miss Winchester beauty pageant. In 2008, when she was 25, she met a guy named Daniel Lynch online, and the pair started chatting, but within a couple of weeks, Katie got a bad feeling about him and wanted out. But Lynch wasn't about to let her go. Soon after Katie pulled the plug on their

relationship, Lynch paid an accomplice of his, a man called Stefan Sylvester, to attack Katie. Sylvester threw a bottle of sulfuric acid into Katie's face as she left her flat in London one afternoon. The attack left Katie blind in one eye and caused full thickness burns across almost her entire face. London plastic surgeon Mohamed Ali Jawad carried out pioneering surgery on Katie. He removed the skin from Katie's face and replaced it with a skin substitute called Matroderm and then carried out a full skin graft. This procedure had never been done in the world before in a single operation. It was, however, just the start of Katie's long road to recovery. But now, Katie is once again a model, a TV presenter and a spokesperson and campaigner

for victims of burns and disfigurement injuries. If you want to know more about Katie's journey, there's a documentary out there called Katie, My Beautiful Face. So yeah, like as you can see, we still do have those kind of intimate revenge attacks here in the UK. And when I was looking at the statistics of the type of attacks that are happening, it seems to be about 20% of acid attacks that happen in the UK, especially in the capital, seem to be around that kind of mugging slash petty theft, and the rest of it is direct attacks. So either gang initiations or people like David Lynch, or people like Daniel Lynch and what he does to Katie.

David Lynch. Whoops. Did you see that someone, I think it was on Instagram, they just put a sticker on their window and said directed by David Lynch and you're like oh now 2020 makes sense uh that's funny I like it maybe it'll be M Night Shyamalan and there'll be a big plot twist in like October and actually we were all dreaming all the time oh my god you're right we'll wake up and it will be fucking December the 31st 2019 wouldn't that be glorious I was thinking about New Year's Eve, like the New Year's Eve we just did. Everyone was like so full of hope.

They're like 2020's it, man. 2020 is the one. It's the year. It's going to be everyone's year. And we're all singing and dancing. I'm so excited. We could touch each other. I was hugging my friends.

I was trying to flog t-shirts on Instagram. And look at us now. Husks of who we previously were. I know. We'll bounce back. Just waiting for that twist. just waiting for that Shyamalan twist everybody it's gonna come I believe in it oh god right so yeah like Hannah said there is a documentary that you guys can watch we will link it below hopefully everybody is able to watch it but the thing I felt most overtly I feel like when I watched Katie's documentary, was acid attacks, to me

anyway, and this is just a personal thing, feel worse than a knife attack. Oh, one bajillion percent. Hundred bajillion percent. Because I just feel like it's not just the physical damage that you would obviously have. And I'm not saying that if you got stabbed, you wouldn't have psychological damage. Of course you would. It would be fucking awful and terrifying. But this is like a psychological harm to another level to me. And what's terrifying about the people carrying out these attacks is that like with a knife attack, they aren't aiming to kill you. That's not the purpose of somebody who's carrying out an acid attack. They are trying to permanently disfigure you. That is what they're aiming to do. And that is what's so terrifying about the psychology of somebody who would do something

like this. It's like they want you alive. They want you to survive it. They want you to suffer, to destroy your life in a way that you can never get away from. Let's be honest. It's your face, the part of you that you identify with most. It's who you are. It's how the world sees you, how other people react to you. They want to change all of that completely and totally control the rest of your life. That's how it feels. And like they want you to be like a permanent victim of theirs. There's something about the power that they're trying to sort of exert over you that is really, really sickening. And I also feel like, and this is just my opinion, again, I don't know how other people feel about this, but I also feel like maybe it's easier for perpetrators

to use acid to some extent. Because stabbing somebody, you've got to hype yourself up for it, you've got to get in close, you've got to look them in the face sometimes, be really up close and personal with them. But here, you just chuck the liquid and you run. I feel like it's more detached. So maybe that is a reason. And like we said, these acid attacks are spreading rapidly. There have been incidents all over the place. And there have been cases with victims as young as 12 in school playgrounds. That is horrific. And I don't know, I feel like this is probably again related to the gang violence side of things, but apparently only a quarter of acid attacks that have occurred in the UK have led to charges being brought against offenders. And I don't know, I feel like that's got to be because like, you'd be scared to quote unquote, go snitch on whoever did it to you. And also, I think it's, you know, if you're looking at CCTV to identify these people, if they're just throwing liquid and running, they're not in the shot long enough, like they

would be if they were in a fight or they were stabbing someone or whatever. They can literally just cut and run. So I'm not surprised that it's very rare that they get caught. Absolutely. And I think the other thing is also because there's no tangible weapon that can be found. You know, you've just got it in a plastic bottle, you throw it, you chuck the bottle, the bottle is now an inconspicuous piece of everyday plastic. This isn't like when someone uses a knife or a gun and it can be tracked and traced back to an individual. It can be tested for fingerprints or DNA, whatever. There's none of that here. And I think it's for reasons like this, as well as also just the sheer ease of getting your hands on corrosive substances and also how fucking cheap it is and also the fact that walking around you

know the street carrying a bottle of acid or drain cleaner or whatever is not automatically a criminal offense like it would be if you were carrying a knife so i just think that gangs are naturally moving away from knife crime towards acid crime. At least that's what we're seeing here in this country. And, you know, I did look into this and this is just so horrific to know that if you wanted to buy something like industrial strength drain cleaner from like your local DIY shop or whatever, it can be up to 91% sulfuric acid. And it would cost you less than a tenner.

And you wouldn't even need ID to buy it. That's shocking. But did you see a woman died this week from using the wrong, like, combination of cleaning products in her bathroom? She died from the fumes. Oh, my God, no. That is something I think about all the time and continually mix different chemicals I probably shouldn't in my bathroom.

What? That's horrible. Oh, God. Yeah, you can buy some really nasty shit in fucking savers. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lanie Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together they were trying to break into the movie industry.

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as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. So there's obviously a lot of talk about what can be done to combat acid attacks here in the UK. Campaigners have called for these kind of corrosive substances to only be sold when credit cards are used, presumably so it makes it easier to track the purchaser if you need to, so that means no cash. And also there's an idea about a register that would need to be signed when you do buy corrosive substances,

and there's also calls to change the sentencing guidelines around acid attacks. Generally speaking, if you attack someone with a knife and they live, you would be charged with attempted murder. But if you attack someone with acid, it's only GBH. And this again makes it a much more attractive weapon of choice for offenders. So really, while people talk about education, etc, and of course that does play a part, but what we actually need quite urgently is more regulation and legislation. But of course, our government, the ever-regulation-destroying

Tories, have actually made it easier since they've been in power to buy acids and stuff like that. Back in 2015, just before acid attacks in the UK hit their peak, pig fucker David Cameron and the Tories actually made it no longer necessary for shops selling dangerous substances like acids or high strength drain cleaner to register with their local councils. Their own advisory board warned them not to, but they did. So that means that the guy who runs the one stop at the end of your road, like the corner shop, he can be selling the most corrosive substances and he won't have to tell anyone that he's doing it. He doesn't have to register. No. So if an attack happens and they're trying to trace where it was maybe purchased from,

the police have literally no idea who's even fucking selling the stuff in that local area.'s mind-boggling who were they trying to help don't tell me they're trying to help small businesses because they can save on the paperwork of registering with their local council like literally who was that legislation for i don't understand fucking hell and can it be a coincidence that they did this in 2015 and then between 2015 and 2016 acid attacks rose by 70 percent can it be a coincidence i don't know i feel like prob's not i don't think it is the relaxation of this regulation absolutely led to the sales of large amounts of acid and those sales are completely untrackable before i just like have a fucking rage aneurysm let's get back to naomi so after the police had satisfied their concerns that na Naomi wasn't in a gang

and that this attack most likely wasn't gang affiliated, it sent them back to square one. Naomi had been convinced all along that there was no way anyone she knew could have done this to her. But when the police asked her specifically, has anyone ever threatened you with acid before? Naomi realized that it was actually something that she had heard before. From secondary school, Naomi had a group of friends, Vida, Phyllis, and Mary. They'd all grown up together, and they had actually known each other since the age of just 10.

But like all teenage friends, they had argued from time to time, particularly Mary Conye. And a while back, Naomi and Mary had actually fallen out when Naomi had discovered that Mary was texting her boyfriend. During the subsequent argument, Mary had told Naomi that she was going to throw acid in her face. But Naomi was sure that Mary had just said that as a random comment thrown out in the heat of the moment. After all, Mary had been texting her and calling her

since she'd been in hospital. She was concerned for Naomi. And anyway, that argument had happened a year ago, and they'd made up since. In fact, according to Naomi, Mary had called her the very morning after the attack when she was still in hospital. Naomi had returned her call that night to tell her what had happened, and Mary had insisted on coming into the hospital, and only backed down when Naomi told her that she wasn't allowed any visitors. But since the police didn't have much else to go on, six weeks after the attack, on February 22nd 2013, Mary was brought in for questioning. During her interview, Mary told police that she and Naomi were close friends, they'd known each other for a long time.

And while she confirmed that the two had indeed argued over a year ago, Mary said that she could not remember ever saying anything about throwing acid at Naomi. And throughout the interview, Mary was adamant. Why would she have done such a thing? She told the police that she was as horrified by what had happened as anyone else. What could possibly make her do this to her friend? And to be honest, the police couldn't think of any real motive for such an extreme attack. And with no other evidence, Mary was released. Despite having told police about the comment Mary had made to her, Naomi still couldn't actually believe that it was Mary. But her other friends weren't so sure. Vida and Phyllis, Naomi's other two close friends from

school, also knew Mary well, and they strongly suspected her. At school, Vida and Phyllis had always been slightly scared of Mary. She was prone to mood swings and she could go from being chill one minute to being completely aggressive. The two friends also remembered that back when they were in school, Naomi had been really insecure. She was bullied and so was Mary. In fact, they said that Mary was bullied even more and that this had actually shaped the bond between Mary and Naomi. Naomi was her mum's only child and her mum had albinism and therefore her mum had poor eyesight and so from a young age Naomi had always been her mum's carer like we showed even at the start when she doesn't want her mum to come in the ambulance with her. This is just really

indicative of Naomi's caring personality that how looking after other people is almost second nature to her. And according to Vida and Phyllis, this caring personality that she has led Naomi to take Mary under her wing when they were kids, even though others could see that Mary was slightly troubled. But despite the friend's suspicions, the Mary lead was going nowhere. So the police then took a very strange new angle. They had taken Naomi's laptop as part of the investigation. And when they had searched it, they had found various Google searches on there,

including for Katie Piper and eyelid surgery. After seeing this, the police turned their focus onto Naomi. And they started asking Naomi if she had done it to herself. Naomi couldn't believe what they were asking her. Who in their right mind would pour acid on themselves? But this police theory of self-harm leaked to the press and of course they ran with it. Their headlines were filled with accusations

that Naomi had planned the attack as a way to get press attention. She wanted to be a celebrity and praised as a survivor. Naomi tried to set the press straight, but no one wanted to listen to her story. They wanted to sell papers, and this made for a far more interesting story. And what's really horrific is the first day that these accusations by the press, and what I mean, like, they're properly fucking accusing her. They're just saying that she did it herself and putting in quotes like in quotation marks as if like that absolves them of what they're actually fucking saying that this poor girl did to herself the day that that first

hit the headlines Naomi had just had her eyelid surgery so she comes out of that surgery and she finds this out like fuck off the media here the fucking tabloids here are trash. We've said that enough times, but just to reiterate. I had to put my profession down on a form at the waxing place yesterday and I put journalist just to really piss them off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to buy buildings and like contents insurance and I was like, what I putting I put journalist down fuck you take that I don't really think we need to unpack this theory about Naomi throwing acid on herself it seems like an absolutely outrageous thing to suggest especially considering she's had absolutely no previous evidence of like behaving erratically no never never never ever ever has

anybody ever said anything about Naomi doing anything like that. Aside from Katie Piper, who else has actually become famous from an acid attack? Can't think of one. It's not a tried and tested avenue to fame, is it? There are much easier ways of doing it, like going on American Idol. Precisely. I mean, this was fucking 2011. She could have just started a bloody YouTube channel. Exactly like you said, I can't think of one other person who has risen to fame.

And also Katie Piper was already doing things. She was already modelling, she was already doing things. Her fame has just continued after the acid attack. But no one else has used this to propel themselves into stardom. It's such a weird thing to say. And furthermore, after the attack, Naomi didn't even tell her closest friends, Vida and Phyllis, who were away at uni. She didn't tell them what had happened because she said she couldn't.

She didn't want to see anyone and she didn't want to say it out loud. She didn't want to make it real. And to me, that doesn't really sound like someone who went through a horribly life-changing attack for attention and fame. No. Thing is, I can believe that people lie about stuff or makeup attacks or stuff like that. I've definitely watched documentaries and people have pretended to be kidnapped to try and get a story. But this is something that is going to change the rest of your life.

Really? Really? For 15 minutes of fame? It just makes absolutely no sense. So Naomi was left with little choice but to go on TV to defend herself. Naomi went on this morning and she gave her first interview a few months after the attack. The police saw this interview. I'm not talking about the local police in Dagenham who were dealing with the case and failing to get anywhere with the investigation. I mean Scotland Yard. So apparently Scotland Yard are regularly monitoring TV appearances,

anything that's going on in there to pick out cases that they maybe need to intervene in. And this rung major alarm bells for Scotland Yard. The press interest around this case exploded after Naomi did this emotional appearance on this morning. And yeah, Scotland Yard were like, okay, we have to do something. Now, I think this was more motivated by the fact that there was a huge public outcry of what happened to this young girl rather than they were just like we should do the right thing but naomi's case was reopened for review and it was actually given to a homicide team which shows you that they were at least taking it seriously incredibly seriously at this point so this new team had to start the investigation all over again. They went back and examined every bit of CCTV from the

route that Naomi had taken that night that she had been attacked. They wanted to trace every step that she had taken. They saw Naomi on CCTV coming out of the Victoria's Secret shop and walking from Westfield through Barking Station. As Naomi passed through the barriers, police saw someone in a full niqab and face veil following her 10 seconds behind. So the police continued to follow Naomi on CCTV. They could then see her getting off at Barking station and get on the bus to go to Dagenham. And again, there was the veiled figure. Whoever it was also got off at Barking and got on the same bus as Naomi. To the police, it seemed like way too much of a coincidence that this person had been at Westfield and then taken the exact same route as Naomi

all the way to the exact same stop in Dagenham and the fact that this person was wearing a full niqab like the person that Naomi said had attacked her. The figure didn't reveal too much about who it was, but the veiled person was wearing a handbag over their shoulder. When the police checked CCTV from Dagenham Police Station, they were surprised to see that when Mary had come in to be interviewed, she was wearing the same bag.

So they got a warrant and searched Mary's home, and they found the bag. The inside of the bag showed damage consistent with that of strong acid spill. And the police also discovered within hours of the attack, Mary had made some odd social media choices. She had changed her picture on WhatsApp to Freddy Krueger and changed her status to who looks like wrong turn now. She changed it back the next day, but people had already seen her little updates.

This bit of story, just as the horror connoisseur that I am, really upsets me. You fucking mixing and matching horror films. They're not the same thing. Fucking hell, Mary, you idiot. Freddy Krueger picture and then a status that says who's wrong turn now. That's Nightmare on Elm Street and the other one's just fucking wrong turn. Like she's trash. She's a trash person. I hate it. Get in the bin with Mary. So the police arrested Mary. Naomi and her family were shocked. Naomi was distraught when she found out that it was Mary who'd been arrested. Mary had been texting her and calling her on a daily basis.

After the incident, Mary had even come to a birthday party for Naomi that her family had organised to try and cheer her up. Mary had come and spent most of her day comforting Naomi. So to think that it had been Mary under the veil that night scared Naomi more than the idea of it having been a stranger. All she could think was, how could I have thought I knew someone for 10 years for them to turn out like this?

Naomi was heartbroken and it shook her entire sense of self. If Mary could have done this, how could she ever trust anyone ever again? As for motives, Naomi knew that she and Mary had argued about that guy over a year ago, but to Naomi it seemed unbelievably trivial. But Vida and Phyllis thought that there may be more to Mary's motivations. They thought that ever since school, Mary had been obsessed with Naomi, maybe even in love with her. So had this obsession turned dark and led to such a brutal attack, the police

needed to prove that it was Mary. And luckily for them, Mary had always had a very distinctive walk. So when you watch Mary walk in like the CCTV, you can see what she's doing. She's like putting too much pressure on one side of her foot. And this makes her walk with like a bit of a roll. And Vida and Phyllis and Naomi said that she had done this since they were kids. So the police had an expert in gait analysis testify in court after analyzing the CCTV of Mary coming into Dagenham police station with the person in the full niqab following Naomi through the train stations that night and this expert said that in her opinion it was almost certainly Mary and so given the walk and the acid damaged bag at trial,

Mary didn't even try to say that it wasn't her in the veil that night. She admits it. It was her and it was her that threw the acid. But she chose to go with the same story as the press. Mary told the court that Naomi had told her to throw the acid on her that night. She said that the two had planned the attack together and that Naomi, just like the press had said, had been motivated by a desire for fame. Mary accused Naomi of even calling her that night to discuss the arrangements and she used the information that had been reported in the press

to piece together her defence. But Mary had absolutely nothing to support her theory. In fact, Naomi told the court that Katie Piper's ordeal had a profound impact on her, and that's why she'd been Googling it. I think everyone in Britain has Googled Katie Piper at least once. So I actually tried it, and I just obviously Googled Katie Piper anyway because we talked about her today. But when you do, the thing that does come up again and again

is the eyelid surgery, because it was quite pioneering surgery at the time in this country. So the fact that you would start off by reading about Katie Piper and then click through a link to read about the eyelid surgery, as the police say that Naomi did, doesn't seem weird to me at all. No, me either. It's just a horrible coincidence. And Naomi said that she'd actually spoken to Mary in the past about how sick the attack on Katie Piper had made her feel. Mary continued to try and claim that Naomi had instructed her to carry out the attack, but no one believed her. And on the 23rd of January 2014, Mary Cogné was found guilty. Before the sentencing took place, Naomi delivered her victim impact statement to Snairsbrook Crown

Court. She said, I'm reminded what I look like every day I look in the mirror or see the reaction on people's faces. The whole traumatic experience has changed my life. At times I felt suicidal and thought about ending it all. It is only my mother who has kept me going. It was bad enough believing it was a random attack. Knowing Mary planned this is beyond belief. I don't trust people in the same way anymore. The following day, Mary Connye was sentenced to 12 years. She just looked straight ahead the entire time, showing no reaction or emotion at all as she was sentenced. Judge David Radford told Mary Connye the consequences of her quote, deliberate and wicked act had been devastating to Miss Oney. He said, quote, it was a premeditated and callous plan to burn

and disfigure someone who reasonably believed that you were a true friend. Even Mary's own lawyer, Sally O'Neill QC, told the court that Mary is an immature 22-year-old with a possible personality disorder and that this incident will always be shrouded in mystery and doubt. And she's right. We can confirm that it was absolutely, of course, Mary. The evidence is pretty overwhelming and she admits to it. But the motivations for why she really did it, if it was just about a petty attack, if it was about jealousy, if it was about an unrequited secret love, we just don't know. Mary has refused to talk about it. She's never offered any explanation. I think a year later after she was sentenced, she offered

Naomi an apology. She wrote her a letter. But Naomi was clear. There is no apology that I want to hear from you right now. It would be an insult to hear an apology. So Naomi, as we said, remember, was just 20 years old when she was attacked. And the life that she had planned for herself was torn from her in just seconds by a cruel and vicious attack and I think this is the worst bit by someone she thought was a friend for seemingly absolutely no reason. Now Naomi's 30 years old and she says that she has come to terms with her new reality although it took her at least five years to do so. She now still has painful laser treatments three times a year to try and smooth the skin on her face and as we've referred before, there is a BBC Three documentary that we'll link below that Naomi took part in a few years ago. And in that she said, quote,

I have gone through all the stages, grief, resentment, anger, but in the end, you're just left with you and acceptance. Every day is different. Every day you have to find a new type of strength. And something that I felt really deeply when watching Naomi speak in this documentary was when she's putting her makeup on and she says that no one ever taught her how to apply makeup to burns damaged skin and Naomi before the attack had happened she was working in Victoria's Secret but she was working in the beauty department at Victoria's Secret makeup beauty that had been passion. And now she says that even putting makeup on is scary because she has to be so, so careful with her skin. And she's, you know,

had to experiment in so many different ways to try and hide some of the damage that's happened to her. And it just really made me sad when you watch her putting it on and her really struggling to come to terms with how she's having to change that complete part of her life. And I did actually find a makeup artist on YouTube who is a burns survivor. So I'll link it below. I watched a few of her videos and I found it really inspirational in a way that I didn't expect to. So I don't know. I'll share it because why not? And I also have to say that when I was trying to find makeup tutorials for burns victims, the thing that really upset me was that when you search that, the majority of the first page of posts on Google aren't for what I just searched, which is makeup tutorials for burns victims. They are makeup tutorials for like gory Halloween looks to make yourself look like a burns victim.

That's absolutely vile. And it really shocked me because when I typed that into Google, I typed it in with the most like naive sentiment of trying to find exactly literally what I was looking for. And when that popped up, it really hurt me, especially after having sat with Naomi's story for a whole week. And I think that we as society, we so badly stigmatize facial disfigurement, burns or scars, especially facial scars of any kind. In movies and media, we so badly stigmatize facial disfigurement burns or scars especially facial scars of any kind in movies and media we so often vilify people with conditions like this or we specifically write and characterize bad guys or bad people to have such facial issues and while i of course do understand that it is just human nature we fear what is different especially when like it's an altered

human face but the pain this kind of thing causes people who have already suffered so much and continue to because of the social isolation, that stigma, I just feel like that must pile on so much pain every single day. And I think we could definitely try and do a bit more to be a bit more creative about how we write bad people or how we write scary things. And the one thing I am certain of after this week's research, Naomi, Katie and every single survivor like them, they are absolutely the strongest among us. I don't know if I would have come out of it the way that Naomi has when you listen to her speak all these years later. Yeah, it really, really moved me. And I can't tell you how much it upset me when I saw those makeup tutorials, Halloween makeup tutorials. So yeah, that's that case. Sad. It is really sad. The big sad. It is indeed. Also,

just full fucking credit to those people for being so incredible. So yeah, that is the case of Naomi. Only like we said, we'll link a bunch of stuff below so you guys can go check that out. And then yeah, if you want to come follow us on all the social medias, you can do that at Red Handed The Pod. We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on Instagram. And if you would like to get your hands

on some lovely extra content, we've got a lot of it over on patreon.com slash redhanded, including this month, we're gonna be doing another live over on patreon.com slash red handed including this month we're going to be doing another live stream on the susan powell case so if you guys haven't heard of it we've definitely talked about the cold podcast before on this show go listen to it we're going to be doing a live stream talking theories about what happened to susan powell because she's never actually been found so if you want to come check that out come do it other than that we had a bonus

patreon episode this month go out for ten dollar and up patrons on a German sex medieval cult. There's all sorts of stuff going on in that episode. So yeah, come check it out. There's loads. And also, immediately after this show, we'll try to cheer you guys up with an under the duvet that is a bit more lighthearted. She claims. Actually, this under the duvet is fucking cracking i haven't even told you yet

i'm excited i'm pretty pleased with myself oh well there you go guys you've heard it straight from one of the horse's mouths and so if you would like to check that out you can do so and here are some lovely people who have been supporting the show on patreon so thank you so much laurie pickett ethan novak helen dickinson chloe boyce ali brooke kat para sophie whiteford i have taken my trousers off so i am now just recording in this fucking boiling hot box in top of my pants i'm so hot fucking out so many names nicole dirks molly s marina emily laurie works abigail bait rob board andrea emma williams becca Molly S. Marina, Emily Laurie Works, Abigail Bate, Rob Board, Andrea, Emma Williams, Becca Mwanja, Rebecca Grant, Emma Haywood, Helena Rook, Cassie Rennie, Kristen Brown, Hannaby W, Joe, Lisa Lorenz, Laura Staple, Stephanie Boschmuth, Leslie Green, Jan Moa, Miranda Rivera, Laurie K. Vergara,

O'Brio, Jackie Ryan, Eleanor James, Vanessa Dimmock-Panoza, Gemma Barkley, Charlotte, Katie Grandori, MJ Escribano, Sherry Fatedad, Alania, Gemma Barkley, again Gemma Barkley, three Gemma Barkley, Charlotte Arundan, Megan Stables, Thank you. Jessica Hollenbeck, Jolene, Moira O'Keefe, Kelly Juwaria, Emily Minch, Claire Grills, Kayla Knoweth, Deborah Gresham, Ruby Carmela, Dee Constable, Anna Saryclay, Alison Memory. Oh, what a nice name. Erin Jones, Kristen, AJ Hannistrid, Elisa, Ashley Walker, Fluffle, Adi Shusnik, Jamie J, floofle adious shusnick jamie j javon brown brit

dorian jaff nikita katherine hearty lindsey webster victoria bland eric zamorippa agwenny

megan wick what a fucking jesus god and lauren thank you for your nice easy name lauren thank you all so

much whether you have an easy name or a hard name we love you so yep that's that. We will see you guys in Under the Duvet immediately after this or next week at some point. Goodbye. I'm Jake Warren.

And in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go.

A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall,

that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts.