Woman jailed for throwing acid on ex-boyfriend's face in revenge attack
A fashion student who poured sulphuric acid over her former partner’s face when he left her for another woman has been jailed for at least 12 years.
Berlinah Wallace was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 12 years for throwing a corrosive substance with intent following a four-week trial at Bristol Crown Court, but was acquitted of murder.
Mark Von Dongen later died by euthanasia.
Wallace, 48, purchased a bottle of 98 per cent concentration sulphuric acid and viewed 82 websites about it – including post-mortem images – after her former partner said their relationship was over.
She threw the liquid over the engineer as he slept in bed at her flat in Westbury Park, Bristol, in September 2015, and laughed as she told him: “If I can’t have you, no-one else can.”
The 29-year-old was left in a coma for four months, suffered extensive burns to his body, was blinded in one eye, paralysed from the neck down and had to have his lower left leg amputated.
He died by euthanasia January 3, 2017 after his application was approved by three consultants who decided he met the criteria of “unbearable physical and psychological suffering”.
When jailing Wallace, Mrs Justice Nicola Davies told her: “Your intention was to burn, disfigure and disable Mark van Dongen so that he would not be attracted to any other woman.”
“It was an act of pure evil.
“You chose your moment for the attack.”
She said the attack occurred when Mr van Dongen was wearing only boxer shorts and asleep in the bed they had shared in Wallace’s flat.
“Vulnerable, almost naked, he awoke but had no real opportunity to avoid the focus of your acid attack, namely his face and then his body,” she said.
“Immediately before you threw the acid you said to Mark, ‘If I can’t have you, no-one can’.”
In the days before the attack, Mr van Dongen’s new girlfriend, Violet Farquharson, had received a series of silent phone calls in the middle of the night.
