Acid attack victim Adele Bellis says positivity drives her

Adele Bellis was scarred for life when acid was thrown over her in August 2014

A woman left scarred for life after her ex-boyfriend arranged an acid attack on her has said that after more than six years, she is now "taking the positives" from the experience.

Adele Bellis, then 22, had sulphuric acid poured on her in August 2014 at a bus stop in Lowestoft, Suffolk.

Anthony Riley was jailed for life and three others were also sentenced.

Ms Bellis said the attack had left her family "broken" but she was determined to be positive about her own future.

Riley, of Raglan Road, Lowestoft, paid a friend £500 to attack Ms Bellis. The friend and two others were also jailed for the attack.

Recalling the moment it happened, Ms Bellis told the BBC: "I instantly knew it was acid - it was burning, I felt I was dying - I was melting."

She "could not describe" the pain, but said even now she "can still smell the smell - but I can't describe that, either".

"It is something that will stay with me forever," she said.

Ms Bellis is still having operations to help the flexibility of the scarring on her neck

She lost an ear, had scars to her head, face, neck and hand, and was left partially bald after the attack.

The beauty therapist has undergone a range of operations, more recently to help improve the flexibility of scars on her neck and arm.

"I was 22, I had a life to live - but I kind of got the fight, I thought, I've got to win this - otherwise he'd [Riley] have won and he's never going to win this," she said.

"Every hospital, every operation, every police investigation - I just took the positives from everything."

She lost her ear, but not her hearing - the acid went in her eye, but she retained her sight - these are "the positives", she said.

She met Riley when she was just 16, but she said it was an "evil" and abusive relationship.

Her ear "melted off", Ms Bellis said

Mr Bellis said she had split from him a year before the attack, but "I think he just thought if he couldn't have me, he didn't want anyone else to have me".

He tried to sue her for writing a book about the attack, she said, and was appealing against his sentence every year.

"It's like he's still trying to control me... I don't think I'll ever be free of him, to be honest."

Her story is being told again, this time in a Sky Crime+Investigation programme - Survivors with Denise Welch at 21:00 BST on Monday - in which she says her "scars represent [her] freedom" and in which she hopes to raise more awareness about abuse within relationships.

"I'm just using my story in the hope of helping someone, and I think that's helping me," she said.