Unbelievable bravery of acid attack victim

Patricia Lefranc was left terribly disfigured after her jilted lover sprayed sulphuric acid on her face. The 48-year-old woman spent three months in a coma. She lost the sight of one eye, became partially deaf, and had to endure 86 surgical operations. Two years have passed since the attack; still the acid continues to erode her skin and eat away her nose. Being mocked by her son’s school friends, being stared at in the street, being cited as example to unyielding girls by threatening lovers..., the horror and shame of it haunts her in innumerable forms.

Remes has ruined my life as a woman. I am determined to seem to be him in the eye and show the jury what he has done to me. I would also appeal to his wife. She paints me as a manipulator who hooked her husband. I think that's an insult - a dagger in my back. ‘Richard Remes, the accused, has apologized for the attack; but he denies that he planned to murder or even maim her, confessing that he did not realize that the acid would have such horrible consequences.

The story goes that Ms. Lefranc was a janitor in the apartments where the accused Mr. Remes had been living with his wife and children. There he fell into an affair with her, and when she wanted to close it after two years, showered the attack.

Patricia Lefranc arrives at Justice Palace to attend the trial of Richard Remes in a court in Brussels March 12, 2012. Remes, a 57-year-old Belgian, faces charges of attempted murder of Lefranc, his ex-girlfriend, in 2009 by spraying acid on her face and body.