Acid victim spelled out ex’s name with his tongue on chart
He was asked who did it... but was unable to speak
AN engineer who killed himself 15 months after his ex-girlfriend hurled acid over him was so injured by the attack he had to use his tongue to spell out her name, a court heard.
Mark van Dongen, 29, was left unable to speak, paralysed from the neck down and all but blinded.
Giving evidence yesterday, his father Cornelius van Dongen told the court that he used an alphabet chart to get his son to identify Berlinah Wallace, 48, as the attacker.
Wallace is alleged to have thrown sulphuric acid over him while he slept in their flat in Bristol. They had a row earlier that night because Mr van Dongen had started seeing another woman.
Speaking in a police interview before he died, Mr van Dongen said that during the attack she mockingly told him: ‘If I can’t have you no one can.’
Although Mr van Dongen eventually regained his speech, he endured 15 months of pain and was returned home to his native Belgium where he was granted euthanasia. He died at a suicide clinic in January.
Unusually, prosecutors charged fashion student Wallace with murder on the grounds the acid attack in September 2015 directly led to his death.
Four months after the attack, Mr van Dongen used his tongue to choose letters on an alphabet chart, meaning he could identify Wallace as the culprit.
His father told Bristol Crown Court: ‘I had prepared an A4 sheet of paper with the alphabet on it. I called out all the letters and once he reached the right letter he stuck out his tongue.’
Jurors were told that Mr van Dongen eventually lost the use of his arm but had hoped to regain semblance of a normal life through physiotherapy. However, after a long stay in hospital, he was transferred to a home in Gloucester which provided him with constant care.
But his father considered the care to be sub-standard and he arranged for his son to be taken by ambulance to Belgium.
He fought back tears as he recalled the day his son told him he wanted to die.
‘He said that, “my life has come to nothing and there is nothing left. All I have is a different ceiling to look at”, he told the jury. The court also heard that Mr van Dongen was afraid of Wallace. His father said: ‘In the last six months, Mark called the police several times, but he got no support from the police. He was scared, he was afraid, of her. You can see what happened.’ Neighbours of Wallace also gave evidence yesterday. They told of waking up to Mr van Victim: Mark van Dongen Dongen’s screams. Thomas Sweet said: ‘My initial thought was perhaps he had paint on him and I thought he had been at a party or rave.’
He was joined by other neighbours and they took him to a flat directly above Wallace’s home for a shower. ‘I helped him into the shower. He said, “this b**** did it to me”. Her name began with a “B”, he said, “my ex did it”,” Mr Sweet said.
Another neighbour, Nicola White, said: ‘I looked into the flat and I saw a lady on the sofa on a mobile phone. She looked very sullen and serious and it was strange.’
Mrs White said as she helped Mr van Dongen into the shower, he said: ‘I told her I was leaving her and she did this to me.’
PC Thomas Green and PC Matthew Griffin said they arrived at the flat where there was a ‘potent’ smell of chemicals.
Mr Griffin said he went into the front room to ask Wallace what the substance was and she replied: ‘Acid … I’d been distressing some fabric.’
Wallace denies murder and applying a corrosive fluid. The trial continues.