At an age when other girls spend hours experimenting with the latest hairstyles and make-up in front of their bedroom mirror, 14-year-old Faith Hawley is only just able to look at her own reflection.

Gone is the long fair hair that was once her pride and joy.

Gone are her eyelashes and eyebrows.

Faith became totally bald six months ago after falling victim to a vicious campaign of bullying at school – and doctors have warned her that her hair may never grow back.

Her problems began almost three years ago, when she went to secondary school.

“My dream is to be a vet, so I knew I had to do well at school,” she explains.

“But people in my class didn’t like the fact that I was serious about my studies and called me a geek.”

The bullying got worse last year when Faith was attacked on her way home from school by a group of classmates who set fire to her fringe and eyebrows with a lighter.

“On another occasion one boy held me while the other punched me, and another boy hit me round the head with a wooden pole.

"The girls in my class deliberately excluded me from their conversations and weekend plans.

"I didn’t have a single friend in my class,” Faith recalls.

Her horrified parents, Carol, 44, and Shaw, 49, contacted the school to report what was happening to Faith.

The bullies were reprimanded, but sadly the abuse continued.

Faith, from Newcastle, was so traumatised that her weight dropped from 7st to 6st over the course of six months.

She spent sleepless nights anxiously counting the hours until she had to face the bullies again.

In June 2007, almost two years after the bullying began, Faith noticed a small bald patch on her scalp.

Over the coming weeks her hair began to fall out at an alarming rate, and by August she was struggling to conceal the bald patches.

Tests confirmed that Faith was suffering from stress-induced alopecia.

Watching clumps of her hair disappear down the plughole, she felt anger as well as sadness.

“I stopped going out of the house and avoided looking in mirrors.

"My hair was my best feature so without it I felt ugly, and my self-esteem was at rock bottom,” Faith says.

It was hard for Faith’s mum Carol, too.

She explains: “I started to wash Faith’s hair for her because so much of it was coming out every time it got wet.

"I’d cry my eyes out as I washed it, hiding my red eyes and the clumps of matted hair from her afterwards.

"It was horrendous.”

Soon afterwards, Faith’s parents made the difficult decision to take her out of school so she could be tutored at home.

Just weeks later, in September 2007, Faith woke one morning to discover the last of her hair had fallen out and that she was now completely bald.

“In some ways it was a relief because it meant I wouldn’t have to endure it falling out any more,” she says.

The NHS provided Faith with a wig but she hated it. “It was scratchy and looked fake,” she says.

But then she heard about wig specialist and hairdresser Neville Ramsay.

She had a consultation with him, and now wears a natural hair wig made especially for her.

“When Neville put the wig on my head for the first time, I felt overcome with emotion,” says Faith.

“He’d recreated the way my hair used to be from old photographs I’d shown him. It looked amazing.”

Faith is now having injections in her scalp to try to stimulate hair regrowth, but doctors have warned her it may never grow back.

“Coming to terms with that has been hard, but all I can do is think positively and hope it will,” says Faith.

“I want other victims of bullying and other alopecia sufferers to see they’re not alone.

"If I can survive what I went through and emerge stronger, so can they.”

Photography: Rhian AP Gruffydd; Make-Up: Julie Pattinson at NE Representation