Teenager jailed for acid attack using love rival’s viola case

A TEENAGE schoolgirl was jailed yesterday for permanently scarring a fellow pupil with acid in a music room after discovering she had started dating a former boyfriend.

Emily Bowen poured drain cleaner into a viola case owned by Molly Young, who was severely injured when she pulled it from a shelf and acidic liquid poured from the case over her legs.

The victim was left “screaming in pain” as the acid drain cleaner burned her clothes and onto her skin during the incident at a music room at Knox Academy, in Haddington, East Lothian.

Sentencing Bowen to 21 months’ imprisonment at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Sheriff Michael O’grady described the acid attack as “utterly wicked”.

The court had previously heard how the girls were both talented musicians, with Bowen playing the clarinet and Miss Young the viola in the school orchestra. However, they fell out over Miss Young’s new boyfriend.

Bowen admitted recklessly and culpably pouring sulphuric acid into a viola case in the knowledge it would be removed from a shelf by the victim, causing her injury and permanent disfigurement.

Both girls were 17 at the time of the attack in September 2016, which restricted previous reporting of the case under Scots law, but both can now be named as they have turned 18.

Sheriff O’grady told Bowen: “In the period leading up to these events you actually researched this topic and you of all people should have been aware of the potentially horrendous consequences for any young woman maimed by this mechanism.

“You have left a young woman to suffer a terrifying ordeal and she will be both physically and mentally scarred for the rest of her life.”

He added: “It must be plain to anyone who resorts to acid for whatever purpose that the courts will not tolerate its possession or use for any criminal act. It is with considerable regret that I have come to the conclusion that nothing but a custodial sentence is appropriate.”

The sheriff also banned Bowen from contacting her victim after sentencing her to a five year non-harassment order.

The court heard how Bowen bought a bottle of drain cleaner online last September and hid it in her locker.

She then sneaked into the school’s music room, where the pupil’s instruments were stored and poured the drain cleaner into Miss Young’s viola case.