'It lit a fire in me' - the barrister who was told she'd never amount to much

It has been the craziest of weeks for Leonie Hughes.

A video of her expressing delight at becoming a barrister and the challenges she's overcome has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media, leaving the 30-year-old overwhelmed.

"The amount of people saying they're really proud of me [has been amazing]," she tells the BBC.

Those kind comments are reactions to the heartfelt honesty of Hughes' story, and her struggles to get to the Bar.

One of three children, she grew up on a council estate in Hillingdon, north-west London, watching her mother suffer domestic abuse. In that environment, a lot was expected of Hughes around the house. When she was 11, she says she effectively became her baby sister's mother.

"I had to step up and do the jobs that my mum couldn't do, everything you can imagine that a six-week-old baby needs: pick them up, change them, whatever," she tells the BBC.

Living in a pressurised household took its toll, and when Hughes was 15, she was expelled from school. "I had a lot of anger in me as a child, [which was] the outcome of dealing with trauma, abuse and neglect at home.

"I didn't really know what to do or how to process things, so I ended up channelling it all within myself. I became disruptive, a nuisance, and I ended up getting kicked out."

Faced with the prospect of being educated in a school for disruptive pupils, the Year 10 student instead opted to go to the local library three times a week for an hour each day to study English, maths and science.

Seeing her commitment, her school allowed Hughes to come in to sit her GCSEs, "escorted in and off the premises to sit the examinations and then leave".

Sixth form was another hurdle. She didn't get enough GCSEs to take A-levels, so accepted a one-year BTEC Business course at her old school and knuckled down, passing with the top grade. Her success allowed her to study A-levels, in Business and Sports Science, and she became deputy head girl.

'I went into law out of spite'

Aged 19, Hughes faced a choice. Her passion was to become a personal trainer, but on her council estate, she says, people were "putting my mum down" telling her that her daughter would never amount to much.

"It lit a fire in me," she says. "My mum was already going through all this stuff, and I didn't want people thinking that [of her]. My mum did her absolute best for us with what she had. So that's why I wanted to try harder at school. I knew I wanted to attend university."

Qualifying as a personal trainer didn't require a degree, so Hughes decided to study law. "You could say I actually went into law out of spite, to prove to people that I could do something successfully. However, it was the best decision I ever made because I really and truly found my passion and I absolutely love it."

No-one from her family had previously gone to university but Hughes got accepted to study at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2015. Moving 200 miles (320km) away was as much about getting a fresh start as anything.

"I wanted to get as far away from London as possible. Home life wasn't great, the type of crowds that you could easily get involved with, the area that I was brought up in had a lot of delinquency."

Moving to Manchester has been the making of her. She worked alongside her degree, mainly doing bar-work - not to be mistaken with Bar work - and is a trained mixologist, an expert in making cocktails. She has also been working for an international bank in their financial crimes division and has funded all her studies, which have cost tens of thousands of pounds, through work and student loans.

Many aspects of Hughes' background have been obstacles to her success, particularly in the legal profession. The latest data shows that barristers are at least three times more likely to have been privately educated than the wider population. Annual figures, recently published by the Bar Standards Council, show that while on average just 6.6% of pupils in England attend independent schools, at least 19.3% of barristers did so.

Separately, just 6% of people who are expelled from school, like Hughes, have any A-levels by age 19; the same low figure are attending higher education by age 24.

Hughes' original passion, sport and fitness, still lingers. She is a regular gym-goer and enjoys hiking, having conquered Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) several times. She also owns a motorbike, and her London roots are evident in her ongoing support for Arsenal.

But her focus remains her career, and she will soon start seeking pupillage, essentially a paid apprenticeship for barristers. She is not yet sure, however, in which area of law she would like to specialise.

"I do have a particular interest in criminal law, purely based on the experiences that I've had in my life," says Hughes.

"I would like to be someone that can support the judicial system at a time when people are at their most vulnerable. I know when I was at my most vulnerable, I didn't have many people around me, so I would like to be able to give something back that I was lacking at a crucial time."