Mary Konye, 21, guilty of acid attack that disfigured Dagenham woman Naomi Oni

Naomi Oni before the attack and after surgery following the incident (Image: Archant)

The jury took just over a day to convict Konye, of Throckmorton Road, Canning Town, of applying corrosive fluid with intent to disfigure, maim or cause grievous bodily harm.

Konye, 21, was told to expect a substantial sentence. She will be sentenced on March 7.

The student broke down in tears in the witness stand last week, claiming she had been the victim of a “conspiracy” and that the evidence against her was “all lies”.

But the jury this afternoon decided Victoria’s Secret shop worker Ms Oni, who was left permanently disfigured, was the victim of a deliberate attack by Konye as she walked home in Lodge Avenue, Dagenham, in the early hours of December 30, 2012.

Under questioning from prosecutor Gareth Patterson, Konye openly sobbed at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Thursday, January 16, claiming Ms Oni had dropped her in it by denying her involvement in the plans.

“She left me in here. We planned it together and she left me here,” she said.

“Naomi wanted the publicity, because that was the whole point of what we planned, so that she could gain the publicity as well as the money that comes with media attention.”

Earlier in the case Omolola Vincent, 20, told jurors her college friend Konye also threatened to get lingerie shop assistant Naomi Oni raped.

“Mary said that she was going to mess up the one thing that the girl had which was her looks,” university student Ms Vincent told the court.

“She said she was going to throw acid over her.”

Ms Vincent said she had been friends with Konye at Southgate College where during a string of conversations over a month in 2011 they discussed Ms Oni.

She said Konye had sent a message to Ms Oni’s boyfriend claiming she was using him “for money and somewhere to stay”.

Then a student of chemistry, Ms Vincent claimed the defendant asked her if she could get hold of acid.

“She asked if the lab was open or if it was closed and then she said she would find some online,” she told the jury of four women and eight men.

Ms Vincent claimed Konye later laughingly told her she had bought acid on “one of those dodgy websites from dodgy places” and had it stored in her home.

During a separate conversation Ms Vincent said University of Hertfordshire business and finance student Konye said she “wanted to get the girl [Naomi] raped” before another mutual friend talked her out of it.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard how Konye had approached a group of Muslim girls in a college sociology class to ask where she could get a niqab (full length Muslim veil) for a pretend funeral.

“She went up to them one day and said to them that she had a relative who was Muslim that died and she wanted to know where she could get the full Muslim outfit,” she said.

Ms Vincent said Konye, who used to work at fashion store New Look and shoe shop Kurt Geiger at Westfield Stratford City, changed the profile of her Blackberry phone messenger service to a picture of horror character Freddie Krueger.

She said next to the Nightmare on Elm Street film character was a message which read: “That’s what you’re going to look like when I’m finished with you.”

A police statement will be issued shortly.