‘An act of pure evil’ – acid attack lover given life sentence
A JEALOUS woman has been jailed for life after her acid attack on a former lover left him with such terrible injuries he ended his life at a euthanasia clinic.
Berlinah Wallace, 49, had been found guilty of what the judge called ‘an act of pure evil’ after she threw sulphuric acid on Mark van Dongen, 29, as he slept.
At a sentencing hearing at Bristol Crown Court yesterday, Wallace was silent as she was given life with a minimum term of 12 years for throwing a corrosive liquid with intent.
Speaking outside court, Mr van Dongen’s father Kees said: ‘I am very pleased she is going to be locked up for at least 12 years, but really this is too little, as we as a family have been sentenced for life.
‘This has completely ruined our lives. Our home has fallen apart. I hope we can start to pick up the pieces and rebuild when I go back to Belgium.’
‘I hope she never qualifies for parole and never comes out.’
In a harrowing three-week trial, jurors heard fashion student Wallace carried out the attack in their flat in Bristol in September 2015 after Mr van Dongen ended their five-year relationship and started seeing another woman. She hurled sulphuric acid she had bought on Amazon over Mr van Dongen in fit of rage, telling him: ‘If I can’t have you, no one can.’
The Dutch engineer’s injuries pushed him to the ‘limits of tolerable pain’, doctors said. Paralysed from the neck down, utterly unrecognisable and with acid ceaselessly burning his nerves, he told his father: ‘I can’t take it any more.’
He ended his life at a euthanasia clinic in Belgium in January last year.
In a victim impact statement read in court, Mr van Dongen’s father, who had branded Wallace ‘the devil personified’, said: ‘I promised Mark I would be here in his name, that I would not miss one minute of the trial and I would make every effort to make sure that she gets the sentence she deserves.’
The conviction marks a legal first, as never before in England and Wales has a person who carried out an acid attack been handed a life sentence.
Mrs Justice Nicola Davies told Wallace: ‘Your intention was to burn, disfigure and disable Mark van Dongen so that he would not be attractive to any other woman. It was an act of pure evil.’ She added: ‘Having carried out this horrific attack you then told lie after lie.
‘When interviewed by the police, you sought to place the blame upon Mark van Dongen, falsely alleging that he had poured the acid into the glass on your bedside table intending that you should drink it.’
Wallace and Mr van Dongen started a relationship in 2010.
She was studying for a fashion degree at the University of West England in Bristol, although she would later drop out after seeing psychiatric nurses about crippling anger management issues that made her want to ‘destroy everything’.
Mr van Dongen started seeing another woman, Violet Farquharson, in the summer of 2015.
Enraged, Wallace began targeting her with silent phone calls, and threatened to tell her that he had once been a male prostitute, the court heard.
New legislation from July will mean anyone who wants to buy sulphuric acid will require a licence.
For help, call the Samaritans on 116 123 or log on to samaritans.org.
‘Intention was to disfigure’