Love rival’s acid attack felt like a blow-torch being held to my legs
Schoolgirl relives horrific moment she was scarred for life and reveals burns
Sheriff Court this month heard that the girls were both talented musicians – Bowen played the clarinet and Miss Young played the viola in the school orchestra.
The court was told the girls fell out over a boyfriend. In a planned revenge attack, Bowen bought a bottle of One Shot drain cleaner online and hid it in her locker.
She crept into the music room at Knox Academy and poured the cleaner into the viola case before placing it back on a shelf.
But she was identified as the culprit after a schoolboy spotted her crouching down inside the deserted room ten minutes before the incident.
In a bizarre twist, the court was also told that Bowen concocted a poisonous letter two months after the acid attack, which appeared to demand that she take her own life and made it look as though Miss Young was the author.
Prosecutor Aidan Higgins told the court: ‘On November 10 last year, Emily Bowen prepared a letter which appeared to come from Molly Young in which she talked of Emily Bowen killing herself. Subsequently, Emily Bowen admitted it was she who was the author of the letter.’
Sentencing, Sheriff Michael O’Grady described the acid attack as ‘utterly wicked’ and said Bowen’s ‘careful and premeditated actions’ combined with the penning of the note ‘casts a very disturbing light on your thinking’.
While Miss Young is hoping to move on with her life, Bowen’s actions have proved ruinous to her own ambitions.
The 18-year-old had been due to study law at Aberdeen University, and hoped to follow in the footsteps of her well-respected QC father, Andrew Bowen.
Mr Bowen, who sat beside his daughter in the dock when she pleaded guilty, works for Edinburgh legal firm Terra Firma Chambers, which specialises in property, planning, commercial and administrative law. He has worked for the United Nations in a legal capacity in the Gaza Strip, Kosovo and the West Bank.
Speaking after Bowen was sentenced, one friend – who asked not to be named – said: ‘What Emily did to poor Molly was really bad and she deserves everything she gets. It was cold and calculated and not something you would expect from a fresh-faced, well brought-up young teenager.
‘The letter caused Molly a lot of added heartache at a time when she should have been recuperating.
‘Emily is a very intelligent girl and she would have sailed through any degree.
‘She has always looked up to her father, Andy, and I think it was a dream of hers to follow him in his profession.
‘She had everything in front of her, she has a great family and didn’t want for anything, but you really cannot excuse what she did.’