'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.

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.