A medical student named Milad Rouf was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday after he was found guilty of throwing sulfuric acid on his ex-girlfriend, The Guardian reported.
He reportedly dressed in a disguise so that the victim would not recognize him.
According to The Guardian, the attack occurred in May in Brighton, England. Rouf—who donned a fat suit, makeup and sunglasses—arrived at the home of his ex-girlfriend Rym Alaoui and threw sulfuric acid over her and a former colleague when she answered the door.
Rouf reportedly handed Alaoui a note to read before throwing the acid on her face. After he fled, he threw his disguise in trash cans across town before returning home.
Despite the attempts to conceal his identity, Sussex Police said in a public statement that their officers were able to track Rouf down via CCTV footage. The Guardian added that a police search of Rouf's residence revealed a shopping list that contained elements of his disguise, including the fat suit and a black morph suit.
Alaoui has undergone multiple surgeries since the attack, the BBC reported. However, she is now blind in one eye, and she lives with damaged skin on her neck, back and arm. She told the court that she continues to live "in constant physical and psychological pain," since the attack.
Rouf and Alaoui briefly dated before Alaoui ended the relationship and moved to Brighton in April, The Guardian explained. Because of this, Judge Christine Laing QC said she believed Rouf's motive was "simple jealousy and anger at being rejected."
The United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics revealed that, for the crime year ending in March 2020, "a greater proportion of violent offenses against women were committed by an intimate partner.
"[F]or female victims, 49 [percent] of suspects were intimate partners, compared with 22 [percent] for male victims," the office continued.
In a separate report in September, the BBC said that about 57 percent of female victims killed between 2008 and 2018 in England and Wales were killed by someone they knew. Of those killed, 32 percent were killed by a partner or ex-partner.
The judge, who "told Rouf she had no doubt he was a danger to women," sentenced him to an extended prison sentence of 15 years, said The Guardian.
According to the U.K.'s sentencing council, extended sentences are "imposed in certain types of cases where the court has found that the offender is dangerous, and an extended license period is required to protect the public from risk of serious harm."
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