Mark van Dongen wanted to end life after alleged attack by former partner, court hears

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

An engineer died at a euthanasia clinic after being left “at the limits of tolerable pain” following an alleged acid attack by his former partner, a court heard.

Berlinah Wallace, 48, is charged with murdering Mark van Dongen, 29, by leaving him with such “horrific and catastrophic injuries” he asked for assistance in ending his life.

Bristol crown court heard Wallace threw acid over Van Dongen’s face and body in September 2015 and he died at the clinic in Belgium in January 2017.

Adam Vaitilingam QC, prosecuting, told a jury the trial was “not a typical murder case” and said Wallace had intended to cause Van Dongen “really serious harm”.

He said she had intended to scar him for life, “to make him less of a man and unable to have a relationship with another woman”, he said.

“She had, in just the past few days, looked online at images of acid attack victims, she knew what a sulphuric acid attack would do to him.”

The court heard Dutch-born Van Dongen and Wallace, from South Africa, began a relationship in 2010 and lived together in Westbury Park, Bristol.

In August 2015, Van Dongen began a relationship with another woman but was persuaded to give it “another go” with Wallace in September.

Vaitilingam said Van Dongen went to stay at the flat in Westbury Park on 22 September and awoke around 3am to hear Wallace laugh and tell him: “If I can’t have you, no one else will.”

Wallace then allegedly threw acid over Van Dongen, who ran screaming out into the street in pain and was later taken to Southmead hospital in Bristol.

“His face and much of his body was grotesquely scarred. He lost the sight in his left eye and most of the sight in his right eye,” Vaitilingam said.

“He was confined to a hospital bed, for a long time unable to move anything other than his tongue. He lost his lower left leg, which was amputated.”

After seeing himself in a mirror at the hospital, Van Dongen allegedly said: “Kill me now, if this is what I am going to look like, I don’t want to live.”

“We will invite you to take the view that Mark van Dongen had euthanasia because of what Berlinah Wallace had done to him,” Vaitilingam told the jury. “The doctors diagnosed that he was at the limits of tolerable pain.

“And it can be no surprise, least of all to the attacker, if someone as horrifically scarred and injured as Mark van Dongen was, should choose to die rather than to live on in that condition.”

Richard Smith QC, representing Wallace, a former fashion student, said his client believed the liquid she was throwing at Van Dongen was water.

The court heard the trial was previously heard last week, when that jury was discharged after a day for legal reasons. A new jury was sworn on Monday and the trial continues.

Wallace, of Westbury Park, Bristol, denies charges of murder and throwing a corrosive substance with intent.