Acid attacker cleared of ex-boyfriend’s murder
AFASHION student has been acquitted of murdering her former partner, who died by euthanasia after she threw acid over him as he lay sleeping.
Berlinah Wallace, 48, meticulously researched the effects of sulphuric acid before purchasing a bottle and throwing it over Mark van Dongen, 29, in September 2015.
Mr van Dongen died by euthanasia 15 months after the horrific attack in September 2015.
Bristol Crown Court heard that Wallace – described as controlling, jealous and vindictive – attacked the engineer at her flat in Westbury Park, Bristol, after he left her for another woman.
Mr van Dongen was left grotesquely scarred, lost the sight in his left eye, his lower left leg had to be amputated and he was paralysed from the neck down.
A jury of 10 men and two women acquitted Wallace of Mr van Dongen’s murder or manslaughter but found her guilty of throwing a corrosive substance with intent. The unanimous verdict was delivered yesterday afternoon following 15 hours and 30 minutes of deliberations.
The injuries to Mark van Dongen were so bad that the officer leading the inquiry did not show the members of his investigation team the pictures.
Detective Inspector Paul Catton kept the photographs of what Berlinah Wallace did to her ex-boyfriend during those few seconds of brutal violence under lock and key and away from other Avon and Somerset officers.
When Wallace poured the sulphuric acid into a glass and then threw it over the sleeping Dutch engineer, it left him with catastrophic injuries.
It was the culmination of a campaign of domestic abuse that Mr van Dongen suffered at the hands of his ex.
When he ran into the street, screaming in agony and begging for help, he was able to tell neighbours and the first police officers on the scene that his ex-girlfriend was responsible.
“Mark’s injuries were catastrophic and were so serious that I kept the extent of them from the investigation team,” said Mr Catton, of the major crime investigation team.
“I kept the photographs under lock and key because they were that bad.”
It took eight months for Mr van Dongen to be well enough to be interviewed at his bedside at Southmead Hospital in Bristol.
When quizzed by the police, Wallace was “very talkative” in her interviews and tried to blame her ex-boyfriend, claiming he was trying to make her drink the acid.
“She was very much along the lines of she was the victim,” the detective said.