WEARING large sunglasses and a scarf tied tightly around her head, Joanne Minto looked every inch the glamorous model as she was driven to a lunch appointment in a Lotus Elise sports car.
However, rather than aiming to emulate the Hollywood style of Grace Kelly, Joanne was covering up the horrific bruising and cuts she had suffered in a glass attack.
"I had refused to go out looking like I did but my friend insisted on taking me ou
t for lunch and picked me up in his sports car," explains Jo. "I still had all my stitches in and, as far as I was concerned, looked like Frankenstein's bride."
It took just seconds for attacker Alexander Varndell to destroy the bubbly young woman's sight in one of her eyes and leave her face permanently covered in scars.
The attack happened after the funeral of a mutual friend when both Varndell and 20-year-old Jo, then a model for designer label Diesel, were at the New Plough pub in Tranent.
"It was a really sad day but it was also good to see a lot of faces I grew up with and catch up with old friends," says Jo, who now lives with her fiance Jamie Drummond in Danderhall, Midlothian.
"I knew who Alexander was but I would walk past him on the street and we wouldn't speak.
"I can't tell you how I'd react if I saw him now but I really, really despise him for what he's done to me."
The glass attack happened after Varndell, of Ormiston, East Lothian, became angry after a Welsh rugby fan began talking to his girlfriend.
He decided to launch a revenge attack on the man but missed his intended target. Jo was sitting next to the man and the glass hit her with such force that it shattered, leaving her bleeding badly and with shards sticking out from her eyes and face.
"The glass just came out of nowhere," says Jo quietly. "It was launched full force and was obviously meant for the guy but he missed and hit me."
In the aftermath of the attack, Jo remembers being terrified, unable to see because of all the blood and glass in her eyes.
"I was petrified," says the former Holy Rood High pupil. "Because I couldn't see, that was making everything worse because I could only hear everyone screaming and panicking.
"I was like a pin cushion with all these bits of glass sticking out my face – I must have looked like something out of Hellraiser."
The rugby fan turned out to be a paramedic and although Jo doesn't even know his name, she says she's grateful to him for staying with her until the ambulance arrived.
Doctors at the accident and emergency department at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary immediately realised that Jo needed specialist attention and she was referred to plastic surgeons at St John's Hospital in Livingston.
She remained there for four days as surgeons delicately removed the shards of glass from her face and gave her 35 stitches.
"I had glass sticking up out of my face which was all covered in dried blood because the surgeons needed to clean it," says Jo. "My whole face was swollen and bruised."
After she was released from hospital, Jo went to stay with her mum Julie Gunn, 42, and four-year-old brother Finlay at The Inch, where she found her bedroom full of flowers and cards from well-wishers. "My face was all purple and yellow bruises and was all swollen and it stayed like that for ages," recalls Jo, studying the pink diamond ring her fiance Jamie presented to her after getting down on one knee at the end of last year.
"I was really lucky in a sense though because if I had got glass a little bit further into my eye, I would have had to get a glass eye."
Looking at Jo now, the fact she still cannot see out of one eye is not immediately obvious, but she complains of dizzy spells and excruciating headaches.
You also won't see the lump on her forehead, hidden under her blonde hair, where a piece of glass remains lodged, too dangerous for the surgeons to remove.
There are hard patches of scar tissue on her nose and cheeks and in the corners of her eyes that are carefully covered with make-up and so well disguised that Jo hopes they won't stop her from resuming her modelling career.
"At first, because everyone else was getting upset, I felt I had to stay strong and I never cried once," adds Jo. "But over the last couple of months, I've been crying a lot more.
"After it happened, I had to get the courage to phone the photographers I'd been working with and explain to them why I couldn't work for them anymore. That was really hard.
"They were being really nice and supportive and saying they didn't think it was the end of my career but I had it in my head that they were just putting icing sugar on it."
In the last year, Jo has taken up a job in an office at the Jewel and Esk Valley College. She also works to promote the Boom Box club nights at Lunar on Picardy Place, where Jamie is a DJ.
However, she says she sometimes has to take time out as she finds strobe lighting overpowering and the thought of lots of people drinking out of pint glasses overwhelming.
The pair got together almost a year ago – six months after the glass attack – and Jo says Jamie has been instrumental in her recovery.
"He's been very supportive," beams Jo. "Although he wasn't around when it happened, and we haven't been going out for long, it feels right."
She is now awaiting an appeal to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board after she rejected the first offer it made.
Although she won't reveal how much money was put on the table, Jo describes the sum as "an insult".
Jo, who is 5ft 4in tall and has also posed for glamour photographs, also hopes to start modelling again as she believes it will help regain her confidence.
"It was a tough decision but I did a shoot last week and being in front of the camera was such a buzz," beams Jo. "I'd forgotten what it was like being in front of the camera.
"I really hate seeing pictures of myself but I love being in front of the camera. It's brilliant fun and it gives me confidence."
'AN ACT OF VIOLENT STUPIDITY'WHEN Alexander Varndell was jailed for two years for the glass attack on Joanne Minto, Sheriff Kenneth MacIver described the incident as "a reckless and drunken act" of "violent stupidity".
The attack took place at the New Plough pub, Tranent, on February 8, last year, and Varndell admitted culpable and reckless conduct, leaving Miss Minto permanently disfigured and severely injured.
Varndell appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last September when the sheriff was told that the 20-year-old had been arguing with a man. Shortly after the argument Varndell, of Ormiston, East Lothian, aimed a pint glass at the man but missed and it struck Miss Minto in the face and shattered.
Sheriff MacIver said: "The public recognises that the courts must deal responsibly with that type of drunken loutish behaviour which in this case has resulted in you losing control and picking up the glass and hurling it.
"You missed the man who was your intended target and instead hit a young lady beside him who had not been involved in anything at all.
"The consequences have been very serious for the young lady."
The full article contains 1294 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
