UK police now suggesting acid victim Naomi Oni threw the liquid on herself

Posted by: stiphbami in GIST, News Feb 24, 2013

Police are believed to have seized a computer belonging to a young woman who was badly scarred in an acid attack amid suspicions that she may have caused the injuries herself. But her family fear that detectives are not doing enough to catch the perpetrator of the attack and are focusing on a ‘crazy’ line of inquiry.
Naomi Oni, 20, was left with horrific injuries following the incident which happened as she left work at the end of last year and was in hospital for nearly a month receiving treatment.
Police are understood to have taken Miss Oni’s laptop and are said to have discovered that she had searched the internet for websites about acid attacks before she received her injuries.

Searches are said to include material on Katie Piper, the former model who has campaigned for facial disfigurement victims since she was scarred in an acid attack in 2008, according to the Sunday Times.

Officers are said to have asked Miss Oni’s relatives whether she may have inflicted the injuries on herself but her boyfriend Ato Owede, 23, has dismissed that line of inquiry as ‘crazy’.

He told the Sunday Times: ‘They (the police) need to keep investigating.
‘They’re concentrating on the wrong things at the moment in terms of (her) researching acid attacks and stuff like that. ‘They are just coming to a silly conclusion.’

Naomi suffered horrific burns to her face, leg, arm and head and was left partially blind after a person dressed in a niqab threw acid over her as she returned to her home in Dagenham following a shift a the Victoria’s Secret store in the Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford.

She also lost her hair and eyelashes in the incident and has undergone several operations since.

Doctors had initially feared that she would be permanently blinded, but following intensive treatment at a specialist burns unit she recovered sight in her left eye and partial sight in her right eye.

Miss Oni made an emotional appearance on ITV’s This Morning.
It is understood that police sought to retrieve her laptop from her home on January 28, but were unable to find it. It was handed over to officers by Miss Oni’s disabled mother Marian Yalekhue.

She is believed to have told detectives that she had searched websites relating to acid attacks but has dismissed that she injured herself.

A family friend, Sheila Maclean, described it as ‘innocuous’ that Miss Oni may have watched a Channel 4 documentary on Miss Piper on her computer.

She said that her interest in Miss Piper was fuelled by an interest in make up.
Miss Oni’s case has attracted much sympathy and top American cosmetic surgeon Cap Lesesne has offered to operate on her injuries for free.

She is said to be due to meet Miss Piper soon.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said that officers are ‘continuing to look at a number of articles of evidence’. No arrests have yet been made in the case.