A woman accused of murdering her former partner by throwing sulphuric acid over him has told a jury she bought the liquid to clean out the drains and dismissed the allegation that she intended to use it to harm him as “nonsense”.
Berlinah Wallace, who was a fashion student, said she bought the “best acid” she could find on Amazon to clear “smelly drains” at her home in Bristol, and also used it to distress fabric.
Wallace told the jury she could be “mouthy” and “nasty” with Mark van Dongen. She would call him names such as prostitute and paedophile, and would scratch and bite him and throw things at him.
She said she regretted the way she had acted but also claimed that Van Dongen, an engineer, had hit, kicked and racially abused her and cheated on her with another woman.
Bristol crown court has heard that Van Dongen died at a euthanasia clinic after being left “at the limits of tolerable pain” following the alleged attack.
Wallace, 48, is charged with murdering Van Dongen, 29, by leaving him with such “horrific and catastrophic injuries” that he asked for assistance in ending his life.
Van Dongen told police he woke at 3am to hear Wallace laugh and tell him: “If I can’t have you, no one else can,” before the acid was thrown.
Richard Smith QC, representing Wallace, has said his client believed the liquid she was throwing at Van Dongen was water rather than sulphuric acid.
In the witness box, Wallace said she had been born in South Africa and had a difficult early life. She said her mother was abusive and her stepfather beat her.
She married an English man who was living in South Africa and they moved to the UK. After they split, she met Van Dongen on a dating site for HIV-positive people. They began to live together and wanted a family, at one point going to the Netherlands for IVF treatment.
She said he was verbally and physically abusive towards her. “He called me names,” she said. “Being racist, really offensive, attacking my family.” She said she found this “really hurtful”.
Police were called in April 2011 when Van Dongen kicked her in the back and hit her in the head, Wallace said. At that time he had shaved his head and etched a swastika on to one of his hands, the jury heard. Asked how she felt about the swastika, she said: “Really, really sad.”
Once, while they were in the Netherlands in 2012, Wallace said, Van Dongen threw her outside on to the street naked. “I was really humiliated,” she told the court.
Asked why she stayed with him, Wallace’s voice broke as she replied: “I loved him. I had no one in this country – Mark was my family.”
The court heard that Wallace told a counsellor in 2014 that she felt an adrenaline rush when someone said the “wrong thing” and she felt she “could destroy everything around her”. She said this anger was directed towards her mother or family rather than Van Dongen.
Wallace denied a claim from Van Dongen in an interview with police after the alleged acid attack that she had once thrown hot water over him. “That’s rubbish,” she said.
Asked in court whether the way she had treated him was wrong, she said: “I feel so bad, I should have known better.”
By the summer of 2015, Wallace said, there was lack of intimacy between her and Van Dongen and she found out he had been on a date with another woman he had met online. “I was shocked,” she said.
Wallace admitted making silent phone calls to the woman and sending Van Dongen messages calling him a prostitute, paedophile and tax defrauder. She said she felt Van Dongen was a “disgusting liar”.
On 3 September Van Dongen complained to police that Wallace had been harassing him and an officer visited her. “I was not stalking Mark. He called the police on me unfairly. Mark knows I’m scared of the police from back in South Africa. I felt dirty.”
The hearing had to be delayed when Wallace collapsed in sobs. When the trial resumed, Wallace said she tried to kill herself. “I wanted to die,” she said.
The court has heard Wallace allegedly threw acid over Van Dongen’s face and body in September 2015 and he died at the clinic in Belgium in January 2017.
Wallace, of Bristol, denies charges of murder and throwing a corrosive substance with intent. The trial continues.
