An engineer who suffered horrific injuries in an acid attack allegedly carried out by his jealous ex-girlfriend died in a euthanasia clinic having decided he could not face a life of pain, her murder trial has been told.
The attack in Bristol left Mark van Dongen, 29, paralysed from the neck down, unrecognisable and all but blind.
Berlinah Wallace, 48, allegedly threw acid over his face and body after telling him: “If I can’t have you, no one else can.”
Dutch-born Van Dongen suffered 15 months of pain before being granted euthanasia in Belgium, where his family lived, in January 2017.
Wallace denies murder and applying a corrosive fluid with intent. The prosecution alleges that Van Dongen was driven to euthanasia by the physical and mental torment he suffered because of his former partner’s actions.
Adam Vaitilingam QC, prosecuting, told a jury at Bristol crown court that Wallace carried out the alleged attack at her flat in Ladysmith Road, Westbury Park.
“On 2 September 2015, the defendant had bought a bottle of sulphuric acid. She kept it in her kitchen,” Vaitilingam said. “At around 3am in the morning on 23 September, as Mr Van Dongen was sleeping in bed, she took the acid into the bedroom.
“She then went into the bedroom and woke him up. She laughed and said: ‘If I can’t have you, no one else can,’ and she threw the glass of sulphuric acid into his face.
“It covered his face and parts of his upper body and dripped on to his lower body as he moved about. Covered in burning acid, Mr Van Dongen ran out into the street in his boxer shorts, screaming for help.”
A neighbour took him upstairs, put him in a shower and called 999, and he was taken to Southmead hospital in Bristol.
“The injuries that he suffered were grotesque and horrific. His face and much of his body was grotesquely scarred,” the prosecutor said. “He lost the sight in his left eye and most of the sight in his right eye. He lost his lower left leg, which was amputated.
“He was confined to a hospital bed, for a long time unable to move anything other than his tongue. His physical condition improved a little. He regained the power of speech, though never the ability to move.
“But 15 months later, deciding that he could bear it no longer, he asked a euthanasia clinic in Belgium to assist him in taking his own life. He was examined by three consultants, who confirmed that this was, in their terms, a case of unbearable physical and psychological suffering despite maximum medical support.
“They agreed that the test for euthanasia was met, and on 2 January 2017 they inserted a catheter into his heart, which brought about his immediate death.
“It is the prosecution case that the defendant deliberately threw acid at Mr Van Dongen, intending to cause him serious harm. She admits throwing it but denies any intent to cause him harm. She says that she believed that what she was throwing over him was a glass of water.
“It is the prosecution case that the physical and mental suffering that he sustained from that deliberate acid attack were what drove him to euthanasia. Put simply, he could not bear to live in that condition. If that is right, we say, then she is guilty of murder.”
The high court judge Mrs Justice Nicola Davies told the jury the case was likely to attract publicity. “This case is likely to cause emotion,” she said. “Emotion cannot play any part in your deliberations. You have to put emotion to one side. Your approach to this case is to be cool, calm and objective.”
The court heard that Wallace was a part-time fashion student at the University of the West of England in Bristol, while Van Dongen worked in the construction industry. The pair had been in a five-year relationship, but split a few weeks before the alleged attack, with the victim moving in with his new girlfriend, Violet Farquharson.
Before the alleged attack, Farquharson began receiving silent phone calls and Wallace was given a police warning about harassment.
Shortly before his death, Van Dongen told his colleagues that Wallace had been violent toward him and had threatened to stab him, the court heard. They said he “was genuinely frightened” of her.
When paramedics arrived at the scene, Van Dongen was in the shower and a neighbour said it looked as though he had had grey paint poured over him, the court heard.
“He kept saying he couldn’t see and asked if he still had eyelids,” Vaitilingam said.
Police found Wallace with a paintbrush and a piece of cloth. Asked what had caused Van Dongen’s injuries, Wallace replied: “Acid. I was using it to distress some fabric.”
The jury was shown harrowing videos of interviews in which van Dongen described to police what had happened. Burns could be see on his chest and at times his voice was barely audible
He said: “I was wearing just boxer shorts. She threw acid. I was crying ‘Help!’
I was running in the street. Neighbours took me into a house and called police.”
When asked why Wallace threw the acid over him, he said: “It was because she was jealous.”
The first person to go to Mark’s aid was a neighbour, Thomas Sweet, who initially thought the “agonised” sounds he was making was foxes fighting.
He said: “He was talking about acid. Initially I thought he had taken LSD and was having a bad time on it.”
During police interviews, Wallace denied deliberately throwing the acid at Van Dongen, denied she had intended to hurt him and alleged that he had assaulted her.
“She said that it was Mark who had poured the acid into the glass, encouraging her to drink it with her tablets, but that she had not realised that it was acid,” Vaitilingam said.
Wallace had, however, carried out internet searches, including: “Can I die from drinking sulphuric acid?” and for news stories about people who had been victims of acid attacks, the court heard.
In hospital, Van Dongen, having seen his face in a mirror, screamed at doctors: “Kill me now. If my face is going to be left looking like this, I don’t want to live.”
Defence barrister Richard Smith told the jury Wallace had previously reported Van Dongen to police as a result of their volatile relationship.
Smith said: “It is understandable when you see someone covered in acid running from a building, you can understand that looks like a victim. It might not be all that it seems.”
By pouring the acid into the glass Van Dongen became “the author of his own misfortune”, he said.
The trial continues.
