Victim took his own life due to injuries
BY SARAH LUMLEY A WOMAN has been jailed for life for throwing acid in the face of her ex-boyfriend – who was so badly wounded he ended his own life.
Berlinah Wallace, 48, tipped sulphuric acid over her ex-lover Mark Van Dongen, 29, after the couple split up and he started seeing someone else.
She was found not guilty of murdering Mark, who died by euthanasia in a Belgian clinic, 15 months after the attack.
But a jury convicted her of applying a corrosive fluid with intent and she was sentenced to spend a minimum of 12 years behind bars. Dutch-born Mark was left paralysed and only able to move his tongue.
His left leg was amputated and he suffered 25 per cent burns.
Judge Mrs Justice Nicola Davies told Bristol Crown Court Wallace had chosen not to help Mark as he lay injured and had told “lie upon lie” to put the blame for the attack on him.
Mark died in January last year after his application to end his life was approved by medics who agreed he had endured “unbearable physical and psychological suffering”.
Wallace attacked him at 3am as he lay in bed wearing only boxer shorts, shouting: “If I can’t have you, no one else will.”
Sentencing Wallace, Judge Davies described the attack as “an act of pure evil”.
She said: “Nothing better demonstrates your malicious and callous intention than your refusal to provide any help, even when Mark was screaming in pain.”