Acid attack victim chose euthanasia after jealous ex-lover mutilated him, court hears

Nearly a year after his death, an acid attack victim has given his testimony to a jury at Bristol Crown Court .

Mark van Dongen, 29, described in a video interview from his hospital bed how Berlinah Wallace, 48, was consumed with jealousy and describing the attack, said: "If I can't have you, no-one else can. And she laughed and just threw the acid, it was a square box of acid with about an inch of acid in it. I only went back because I felt sorry for her."

Speaking via a video filmed shortly before his death, van Dongen, 15 months after the attack in September 2015, described the unbearable agony he was suffering, before choosing to end his life at a euthanasia clinic in Belgium in January,

In the attack, he was left paralysed from the neck down, lost half of his left leg, the sight in his left eye and most of the sight in his right eye.

He decided to end his life after doctors told him that he would require a "lifetime of constant and dedicated care".

The video was filmed in July 2016, and jurors were warned that they may find it "shocking and disturbing."

Struggling to speak, he revealed that it wasn't the first time that she had attacked him. In 2014, Wallace threw boiling water over him after the pair had had an argument.

At the time of the 2015 acid attack, van Dongen, a Dutch citizen, had moved into a hotel and had started seeing another woman.

But concerned about Wallace's welfare, he visited her and fell asleep at her house, which was when she threw the glass of acid over him.

He woke instantly, running out onto the streets screaming where neighbours tried to help him, before being taking to a specialist burns unit at Southmead Hospital.

Prosecutor Adam Vaitilingam QC told jurors: "The physical and mental suffering that he sustained from that calculated acid attack were what drove him to euthanasia.

"Put simply, he could not bear to live in that condition. If that is right, we say, then she is guilty of murder."

Wallace, who was watching from the dock, claimed that she thought that the glass was filled with water rather than acid.

But internet searches showed that she had researched about the dangers of drinking acid.

Wallace denied murder charges and applying a corrosive substance.

The trial continues on Thursday 9 November.