Mary Konye to be sentenced today for Dagenham acid attack

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

The student, 21, from Throckmorton Road, Canning Town, was found guilty in January of throwing concentrated sulphuric acid in the face of childhood friend Naomi Oni, also 21, leaving her disfigured for life.

After a jury took just over a day to deliver their damning verdict, Judge David Radford told her she should expect a “substantial custodial sentence” when she returned to Snaresbrook Crown Court.

Konye, a former business and finance student at the University of Hertfordshire, repeatedly protested her innocence throughout the trial.

She claimed Victoria’s Secret shopworker Naomi had plotted with her to fake the attack which happened in the early hours of December 30, 2012, in Lodge Avenue, Dagenham, as Naomi got off the number 368 bus.

She said the pair had used disfigured model Katie Piper as a “reference” and wanted to win fame and fortune as a result of media attention from the attack.

Breaking down in court at one stage, Konye claimed Naomi had dropped her in it by denying her involvement and claimed she was the victim of a “conspiracy”.

Naomi told the jury of eight men and four women that in fact Konye had threatened to throw acid on her before, following an argument in which she called the attacker ugly.

It was revealed on cctv shown in court that Konye stalked her former school mate in a black Niqab — which covered her face and body — from Westfield Stratford City, where Naomi worked, all the way to the scene of the attack.

Witnesses also told how Konye had asked them where to get hold of acid and said she later told them she had got hold of some from a “dodgy website”.

They said she changed the profile picture on her Whats App — a social messaging service — to that of horror icon Freddie Krueger from the Nightmare in Elm Street films.

Next to it was a message with the words “she better not mess with me or I will make her face look like this”.

Konye was found guilty of applying corrosive fluid with intent to disfigure, maim or cause grievous bodily harm.