Update: Katie Piper’s acid attacker fled the country 2-months ago after being recalled to prison for breaching licence conditions

English TV presenter and model, Katie Piper’s acid attacker fled the country more than two months ago, as police release a new image of the criminal as part of their global manhunt to find him.

                                                                Stefan Sylvestre

Stefan Sylvestre, from Shepherd’s Bush, west London, was given a life sentence in 2009 for the attack which left former model Katie, then 24, with horrific injuries.

Sylvestre was jailed for life with a minimum of six years and became eligible for parole in 2015. At the time he was deemed unfit for release but a further application in 2018 was successful and he was freed aged 30, but ordered to stay away from Katie. 

In 2019 he was recalled to prison over a string of car thefts but got parole again in 2020 and was released after prosecution errors came to light. 

Sylvestre has now been recalled to prison once again but the criminal left the country on Tuesday, August 2, the Met Police has revealed. 

Officers from the Met Specialist Crime Command are now leading an investigation into his whereabouts, alongside partner agencies thought to include the National Crime Agency, the Mirror reports. 

This evening Scotland Yard issued an appeal for information to find Sylvestre. 

The statement said: ‘Officers are appealing for information to find a man wanted for recall to prison.

‘Police were notified on Friday, 23 September, that Stefan Sylvestre, 34, had been recalled to prison. His last known address was in north London.

‘Being simply happy and content, is what I’ll continually search for in all areas of my life. The feeling of not particularly always needing more, but to feel happy with what you have, both personally, materially etc. Does anyone else feel like this? I’m so intrigued If this is a shared sentiments’.

Daniel Lynch was jailed for life with a minimum of 16 years for sexually assaulting Katie and telling Sylvestre to throw acid over her. He cannot be considered for release until 2025.

                  Daniel Lynch. 

The pair had dated briefly before steroid-fuelled martial arts fan Lynch, who had a previous conviction for pouring boiling water over a man, became obsessively jealous.

In court, Lynch and Sylvestre were told by Judge Nicholas Browne QC that they were ‘the face of pure evil’.

Model and TV presenter Katie had to wear a mask after the attack and needed 40 operations to treat her severe burns in a long and painstaking process which included pioneering surgery which completely removed the damaged skin from her face and replaced it with a substitute. 

In July 2019, 12 years after the attack, she had further surgery to cauterize the blood vessels in her left eye. She was again taken to hospital for emergency surgery in August this year after she was left in ‘extreme pain’ and her husband Richard Sutton noticed a black spot in her eye.

In her heart-rending victim impact statement in the aftermath of the attack, Katie said: ‘When the acid was thrown at me, it felt like I was burning in hell. It was an indescribable, unique, torturous pain.

‘I have lost my future, my career, my spirit, my body, my looks, my dignity – the list goes on.

‘All I am left with is an empty shell. A part of me has died that will never come back. This is worse than death.’