Scarred by TV Ferne’s acid attack boyfriend
Arthur Collins, ex of Towie star Ferne McCann, is convicted over club attack
REALITY TV personality Ferne McCann’s former lover was last night facing a long jail sentence for an acid attack in a crowded club.
Arthur Collins, 25, left clubbers with lifelong scars as he hurled the liquid three times across the dance floor after a row.
Two of his victims feared for their eyesight following the callous attack.
Collins was convicted of five counts of grievous bodily harm and nine of actual bodily harm yesterday after a six-week trial at Wood Green Crown Court in London.
The trial judge, Noel Lucas QC, told him he faced a “very substantial, immediate custodial sentence” when he appears again next month.
Police could not prove what Collins threw but said it had a PH level of one, similar to hydrochloric acid used in the strongest of drain cleaners.
Just hours before the Easter Monday attack, Collins and Ferne – a former cast member of Towie and I’m a Celebrity contestant – had told their family she was pregnant.
The 27-year-old gave birth to their daughter last month. She has refused to talk about Collins other than to say she will raise the baby with her mum’s help.
Among the victims of the attack at the Wringer & Mangle club in east London was Lauren Trent, who was celebrating her 22nd birthday.
She and her friends were about to leave the club and were at the side of the dance floor when Collins sprayed the
acid. Lauren said she heard a “fizzing sound, like a can of Coke being opened” as she bent down for her bag.
She recalled yesterday how the acid hit her a second later. She said: “My neck was stinging so I touched it and my skin came off in my hand.
“Looking around, skin was hanging off other people’s faces – that’s when I was sure it was acid. Nothing makes your skin blister, bubble and peel like that.”
Lauren, who works in recruitment, said: “I really wish I could ask him what he would do if someone threw acid at his daughter on her 22nd birthday in a nightclub?
“What he would want to happen? How he would feel? I’m pretty sure he would want them to go to jail for life.
“My parents and my twin brothers had to deal with it, the early morning call saying I was in hospital. Now he’s a parent, can he imagine going through that, taking that call?
“I want the sentence not just for me but for all the other girls having heard what they had to go through, how some of them are so depressed they can’t get out of bed in the morning. All they did was go to a club for a good night out with friends.”
The attack has left Lauren, originally from Bournemouth, wary of going out and of crowds.
“I’ve tried not to let it stop me,” she added. “At first I didn’t think it had affected me but for the first couple of weeks, I didn’t leave the house.
“Now if we go out, I’m a lot more anxious. If I see a fight I’m always thinking, ‘What are they carrying?’ and if someone spills a drink, I’m scared of what it is. It flashes back to that moment.”
Another victim, Phoebe Georgiou, from north London, was left with severe burns to her chest.
She said: “I’m a 23-year-old girl, I should be living my life.
“Last year I was going on party holidays but this year I’ve been glued to my mum. I’m still going through the mental wounds of it.
“I’ve been left with a life sentence of scars.” Detective Chief Supt Simon Laurence, borough commander for Hackney, said: “The use of the acid came from nowhere. Collins knew it was there, and knew it was readily available to use.
“It was a barbaric and cowardly attack.”
Collins went on the run after the attack and was found living in a house that was being renovated 60 miles away from his home in Hertfordshire.
He jumped from a bathroom window in just a T-shirt and his pants when police caught up with him, forcing them to Taser him twice.
He refused to answer any questions and only put forward a defence after finding out he had been caught on the club’s crystal clear CCTV.
He claimed then that he had taken the liquid from two men because he believed it was a date-rape drug and they were planning to spike a girl’s drink.
As he told his far-fetched tale from the witness stand, one of the jurors openly laughed at him.
Collins’s co-accused, Andre Phoenix, 21, of Tottenham, north London, was cleared of any involvement in the attack.
No clear motive was put forward at the trial for Collins’s actions.
But a preliminary hearing was told it was a result of a drug feud.
Prosecutor Ciro D’Alessio told a bail hearing in April: “The Crown say this was essentially an incident between one set of gang members against another set of gang members.”
How would he like it if someone threw acid at his daughter like this? LAUREN TRENT