British schoolgirl attacked by love rival with acid reveals horrific burn photos

Molly Young was attacked by classmate Emily Bowen after falling out over a boy.

A schoolgirl left permanently scarred after an acid attack by a love rival has described the pain she endured as "like someone holding a blowtorch" to your skin.

Molly Young, 17, was left with severe burns on her legs after the attack at Knox Academy in Haddington, East Lothian, in September last year.

It came after fellow pupil Emily Bowen,18, poured drain cleaner containing sulphuric acid into Young's viola case, causing it to drench her legs when she retrieved her instrument from a shelf.

The attack came after Bowen fell out with Young when she started dating her ex-boyfriend.

Speaking to ITV's This Morning on Thursday (17 August), Young said of the day she suffered the attack: "I came back to school from an appointment and I had music class and one of my friends said to me, 'you better go up and check your viola because I've just seen Emily in the string room'.

"As soon as I went into the room there was an eggy sort of smell ... I remember looking at my viola and shrugging my shoulders and I thought there was nothing wrong with it.

"I took it off the shelf ... and my tights just started to disintegrate."

Describing the agony she endured as the acid burnt her skin, she continued: "It was like someone holding a blow torch to your leg.

"If you burn your hand on an oven or something you can take it away and then run it under the cold tap and it's fine. But with that, I couldn't really pull it away because it was stuck to me ... it kept burning."

A teacher tried to ease the pain by pouring mugs of water over Young's legs while someone called an ambulance.

Young was taken to hospital with serious burns to her right leg. She has been left with a permanent scar.

The teenager has also had to get counselling for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after struggling to adjust to normal life.

"I couldn't concentrate on anything. I would start just screaming for no reason. I didn't know was going on in my head and I felt frustrated," she said.

Bowen, from Haddington, was jailed last week for 21 months at Edinburgh Sheriff Court for the incident.

She admitted to having recklessly and culpably poured sulphuric acid into the viola case.