Acid victim ‘named attacker with his tongue’

AN ACID attack victim identified his ex-girlfriend as the culprit using his tongue, a court heard. Mark van Dongen’s father told jurors his son used an alphabet sheet to name Berlinah Wallace, 48, as his attacker.

The 29-year-old victim was left paralysed from the neck down and virtually blind after sulphuric acid was poured over him. Wallace, 48, is accused of throwing the substance at him while he lay in bed because he had started seeing another woman. She denies murder and throwing a corrosive fluid with the intention to burn, maim, disfigure, disable or do grievous bodily harm.

Cornelius van Dongen told Bristol Crown Court his son was able to name his attacker using his tongue. He said Mark used an alphabet chart to spell “Berlinah” when asked who had attacked him. He told the court: “[Mark said] he was lying in his bed and she was standing behind his bed and she shouted ‘she will not get my life. If I cannot have it, no one else will get it’.”

After hospital treatment in 2016, Mark was transferred to a care home in Gloucester. Mr Van Dongen later moved his son to a hospital in his native Belgium but, after three weeks, Mark developed an acute lung infection. Doctors agreed on euthanasia on Jan 2 this year. The trial continues.