Scarred in her body but never in her soul; MEMOIR.(Features)

Byline: JANE SHILLING

BEAUTIFUL

BY KATIE PIPER

(Ebury Press [pounds sterling]6.99)

THE PRETTY, damaged face with the downcast eyes on the cover of Beautiful probably looks familiar.

You may remember Katie piper from the Daily Mail's Inspirational Women Of the year awards, in which she was a finalist. Or you might have seen her on last year's Channel 4 documentary Katie: My Beautiful Face, in which she told her shocking story.

At 24, she was a beautiful, ambitious girl with a bright future, modelling and working as an extra on tV's hotel Babylon, eastenders and Ashes to Ashes, and enjoying a buzzy London social life.

The only thing missing was a boyfriend. Which is how she came to meet Danny Lynch.

He first contacted her on Facebook. his profile picture 'showed a good-looking, mixedrace guy in a blue martial arts uniform'. Katie didn't recognise him, but they had Facebook friends in common.

Danny showered Katie with online compliments, and she agreed to meet him.

More than 6ft tall, muscular and smartly dressed, he seemed to be a real gentleman, chivalrously insisting on escorting her to the Ladies, and waiting for her until she emerged.

Gradually, Katie began to learn a little more about her new beau. he came from a broken home and had a difficult childhood.

Katie, whose own childhood had been idyllic, was overwhelmed with compassion, but she was taken aback when, on their first weekend together, Danny said that he loved her and suggested moving in together.

DURING their second week as a couple, other odd things began to trouble her, such as his possessiveness and tendency to fly into violent rages at the slightest provocation.

'He's getting a bit stalkerish', said one of her flatmates. Katie agreed. 'Life was full of possibilities and my future was wide open, but I was starting to suspect Danny wouldn't play a part in it.' At this moment, Katie's story took a turn so dreadful that it makes very difficult reading, though her account of it is admirably restrained.

After a day's shopping in town, Danny suggested they spend the night in a hotel. But in their room, his mood changed. he assaulted her so violently that she lost consciousness, and he raped her. eventually, he released her, threatening to kill her or hurt her family if she told the police.

Soon afterwards, he tricked her into visiting an internet cafe to read an email from him. On her way there, she was approached by a man who flung a cup of sulphuric acid into her face.

She suffered third-degree burns, losing most of her nose, her eyelids and half her left ear. her eyes, mouth, tongue, oesophagus, arms, legs, hands, neck and cleavage were burned. her injuries were the worst her medical team had ever seen.

While enduring 60 operations to repair her internal and external injuries, Katie and her wonderfully supportive family had to endure a further ordeal: the prosecution of Danny Lynch and the man he had employed to attack her.

The first jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charge of rape, and even after he was convicted and imprisoned for life, Lynch contrived to obtain a mobile phone and post a comment about Katie on a social networking site.

Extraordinarily, this isn't a misery memoir. Katie's account of her experiences is unflinching, but marked with a deeply impressive dignity and courage.

She gives a clear-eyed account of the misery, indignity and pain she suffered: her realisation that she didn't resemble her family any more; the occasion on which she was ordered out of a shop because of her looks.

But through it all shines a truly remarkable quality of grace: she learns from her ordeal, reflects on it, even manages to be funny about it.

Her courage attracted the admiration of the media.

She attended a Buckingham palace garden party with her beloved surgeon, Mr Jawad, posed on the red carpet at the Bafta awards, and Simon Cowell called and offered to help her find a presenting job.

She turned him down. 'the old me would have sold her soul for an offer like that. But I wasn't tempted for a second. those ambitions had died long ago.'

Instead, she threw her energy into setting up the Katie piper Foundation, a charity for burns victims, even sacrificing a relationship with what sounds like a nice boyfriend to its demands.

'I'd seen what was truly important in life, and found a strength I never knew I had,' she writes on the final page of her book. 'I knew my life was going to be beautiful, in every single way.'

CAPTION(S):

Positive: Katie Piper has endured 60 operations