The devastating case of Mark Van Dongen

Imagine this. It's 3 a.m. in the morning, and the peaceful night's air is broken when you hear desperate screams and cries for help coming from outside. You rush down the stairs and fly out the front door to be confronted with the sight of a severely distressed, half-naked man running chaotically in the street. He appears to be covered in what you think looks like dripping clay or mud. The man is clearly in agony and in need of urgent assistance, so you ring emergency services still trying to assess the situation.

Then the man shouts to you that his ex has thrown acid in his face. It's at this moment, horrifyingly, you realise the dripping clay-like substance is actually the man's skin, burnt and peeling from his body. This is the devastating case of Mark Van Dongen. Hello everybody and welcome back to Unthinkable, a True Crime Podcast. Thank you for joining me today. My name's Lisa. I hope you are all well. So today's case, it's truly horrific. What this poor man went through, it's just so awful, and the hours, days, weeks, and months of agony he had to live with.

It's unbearable to think about. And what I also find shocking is how readily available acid was to buy. You could literally get it off Amazon. If you don't know this case, it's truly harrowing and it makes you really angry. Um, I'm furious. Uh anyway, so let's get started. So Mark Van Dongen. So he was born on the 15th of August 1987 in the Netherlands in the Netherlands. His father is Cornelius Van Dongen, known as Keyes. I couldn't find any information on his mother, um, only his stepmother Rita, and he has a brother called Bart.

So Mark grew up in the Netherlands, and in 2011, when he was 23, he moved to the UK to study civil engineering at the University of Bristol. After he completed his degree, Mark remained in Bristol and worked as an engineer. Mark was described as highly driven, intelligent, and vibrant. His family were extremely important to him. He was very close to his dad, and his brother Bart was his best friend. Now, before Mark made the move to the UK, he'd been chatting to a woman on an online dating website, a lady called Belinda Wallace.

Now, Belinda was quite a bit older than Mark, so she's 41. And when they first started talking, they shared something quite significant in common. They both had HIV. Now, nowadays, HIV isn't the death sentence it once was. People living with HIV can live a long and healthy life. But to someone like Mark, who had been recently diagnosed, it was very daunting for him. So Belina, she had been HIV positive for 20 years, so she was a huge support to Mark, offering him help and advice. So Mark contracted HIV during a short relationship with a woman from Hague.

Although the diagnosis was incredibly traumatic for Mark, how Belinda contracted the virus was more brutal. So she grew up in South Africa, and when she was 20, she was violently gang raped by a group of youths, and this is what led to her contracting the virus. Her life before this horrific event was full of trauma and heartache. She experienced abuse within the family. When she was just 14, she gave birth to a son. Her boyfriend then unexpectedly died, and tragically, a few years later, her son died.

I can't find any details into what happened to them, but it's incredibly sad, isn't it? Now, after her boyfriend and her son died, Belinda met a man called Ray Wallace and they quickly married. And Ray was a British national, and soon after they married, the couple relocated to the UK. Sadly, the marriage didn't last. Shortly after moving to the UK, the couple divorced. Belinda then moved to Bristol and enrolled at the University of the West of England as a part-time fashion student. And I live in Bristol, and where today's crime happened is about 15 minutes from my house.

So after chatting online for a few months, Mark travelled to Bristol to meet Belina in person for the first time. The pair were elated to finally meet and they got on really well. They really enjoyed each other's company and they talked about the sadness of them having to be apart again. Mark's trip had been brief, and after a few days, he returned back to the Netherlands. The couple continued to keep in contact, chatting on the phone every day and sending messages. And after a few weeks after Mark had returned, Belinda called him with some surprising and unexpected news.

She announces that she's pregnant with Mark's child. And although initially shocked, Mark made a sudden snap decision in January 2011 to pack up his belongings, he left his hometown to move to England permanently. Now he enrolled himself into Bristol University and he moved in with Belinda straight away. But this is very quick, isn't it? But Mark's a good man, he thinks he's doing the right thing. However, shortly after Mark uprooted his entire life to stand by Belina, she then announces that she had suffered a miscarriage.

Now this is incredibly heartbreaking for the couple. However, unfortunately, this was the start of Belinda's emotional manipulation tactics she would use to get what she wanted. Belinda was never pregnant. She faked the pregnancy to get Mark to commit to her. The couple's promising relationship quickly became turbulent. Belinda became increasingly jealous and controlling behavior began to emerge. Before long, Mark realizing he'd made a terrible mistake, he tried to leave her very early on. But Belinda was threatened to kill herself to guilt him into staying, and he stayed.

Remember, he's very young compared to Belina. So Mark, he graduated from Bristol University in the summer of 2011. So he completed the majority of his studies back home, meaning he completed his degree in just a few months of moving to Bristol. He then began working full-time as a civil engineer and gained the role of site manager, working on local roadworks and infrastructure projects. Mark's colleagues noticed that he was almost always covered in scratches and bruises on his face and on his body.

And on a number of occasions, they noticed what looked like bite marks. Now, initially, Mark lied about the reason for his wounds. He'd say that he was clumsy and he was always bumping into things, and after a shocking incident in October 2011, where Belinda actually pours boiling water from a kettle over his arm during a dispute. Mark explained the burns were due to him spilling a hot cup of tea on himself. Who's throwing boiling water on another person? They haven't even been together a year yet, and the abuse has already escalated to these kinds of attacks.

But Mark did eventually open up to his colleagues. They notice a drastic shift in his character. He appeared more frightened and jumpy, and one afternoon he lifted up his shirt to reveal a deep scratch mark on his back, and he simply said, She attacked me. Now they encouraged Mark to leave her. He didn't need to stay in this. Mark explained that the last time he tried to leave her, she repeatedly punched herself in the face, splitting her lip, and she told Mark she'd have him arrested for domestic violence if he left her.

So he stayed.

Unbelievably, Mark stayed in a relationship with Belinda on and off for five years. He endured this abuse for five years. Belinda coercively controlled Mark and emotionally abused him. She threatened suicide whenever he tried to leave. She subjected him to years of severe physical violence, and she even financially abused him by forcing Mark to give her the majority of his wages. Now we get to the summer of 2015 and something gives. With the support of his work colleagues and family, after a particularly violent outburst from Belinda, Mark somehow manages to finally take a stand.

After years of escalating domestic abuse, Mark finally broke things off with Belinda. He packed his things and after securing himself a new flat in Easton, he left. He ignored all of Belinda's threats, he changed his phone number so she couldn't contact him, and finally tried to make a fresh start for himself. It seemed he'd finally broke free of Belinda's grip, and she was furious. She threatened to destroy his reputation, she threatened to go to the police and falsely accuse him of downloading child abuse images.

She said that she would out him as a paedophile, she threatened that she would report him for bank fraud. But with support, Mark stood firm. He was leaving her for good. When her usual manipulation and emotional abuse tactics didn't work, Belena, worrying she couldn't afford the flat, she stated that if Mark didn't provide for her financially, then she would reveal a secret that Mark had confided to her in confidence about something that happened to him when he was a teenager. But Mark agreed to help her with money.

He promised to financially support her through the remainder of her fashion studies. I mean he shouldn't, but he did. And there are text messages between the pair. And Belina is so aggressive and cruel, and Mark is always trying to calm a situation. Like when she's threatening him, he's texting back things like, I just want peace. Please don't be like this. I will help you. Let's keep peace between us. And she just responds, hurling abuse at him. So he's left the relationship because of her behaviour, but he's saying he will financially support her.

So what more does she want? Now, towards the end of July, Mark meets a lady called Violet online, and he's cautious, but it's an attempt of him trying to move on. And so on the 15th of August, they meet in person for a coffee date, which goes well, and they arrange a second date a few days later and they go to the cinema together. But Lena, still determined not to let Mark go, she's hacked into his emails, and this is how she's got his new phone number. But this is where she also discovers that Mark is seeing someone else, and she just lost it.

Her behaviour escalated into a severe campaign of jealousy, stalking, blackmail, and we will go on to see the premeditated ultimate act of cruelty. Elena, she bombarded the couple with silent phone calls. She managed to find Violet's phone number in Mark's emails and she started targeting Violet, harassing messages, and more silent phone calls, often in the middle of the night, just heavy breathing at the other end of the line. Now, by the 2nd of September, Mark had had enough. He tried being calm and trying to pacify her, but he wasn't getting anywhere.

So he goes to the police and he tells them everything. He formally reported her for blackmail, emotional control, and harassment. Based on Mark's statement, the police officers visit Belina and issued her with a formal harassment warning. So I looked into what a formal harassment warning is. So for those who don't know, a formal harassment warning is a police information notice to alert an individual that a complaint of harassment or stalking has been made against them. And if the individual ignores the warning, they will be arrested, interview, and interviewed and charged with criminal harassment.

But tragically, the police warning did not stop Belena. She did seem to be backing off initially, but in reality, things were spiralling out of control. On the same day of her receiving the warning, Belena, she goes online and she researched acid. She looked at the effects of acid, what happens if you drank acid, and she looked up information on acid attack victims. And unbelievably, she ordered 98% concentrated sulfuric acid on Amazon. Literally buying it on Amazon. You'll be pleased to know that you can no longer buy 98% acid online following a string of attacks.

But why were you ever allowed to buy it on there in the first place? So uh after a few days of respite, Belena soon began messaging Mark again. And this time she preyed on his compassionate nature. She continuously threatened to self-harm or suicide in order to get him to come to the flat. On one occasion, Mark called paramedics to go to her to check on her because she'd called him distressed, saying she'd taken an overdose. But when the paramedics arrived, she said that he had made it up, and this just continued.

I feel so bad for him. Like having to put up with this is so tough. And plus, he said he will help her. He's trying to be as nice as he can. Oh, she's just awful. Okay, so now we get to the night of the 22nd of September, and Mark has reached his limit. After another day of phone calls and text messages from Belena, he decides to go to the flat and firmly reiterate their relationship is over. He is hoping that if he can sit down and talk to her properly, he can put an end to her relentless campaign of harassment.

However, when Mark arrived at Belena's flat, she becomes deeply distressed and she's acting scarily erratic, sobbing uncontrollably and then lashing out in anger. Now Mark tried to de-escalate the situation, he tried to calm her down, but she was completely out of control, threatening if she leaves, if he leaves, sorry, she will kill herself. Eventually, Mark not knowing what to do, he doesn't want to leave her in this state. He's terrified of what she'll do to herself. I mean I'd just leave her, wouldn't you?

He agrees to stay in the flat with her overnight to make sure she's safe, but they are to sleep separately. After hours of tirelessly trying to get through to her, Mark finally believes the situation has calmed down and that they've reached an understanding, so he decides it's time to go to bed. So he goes and gets into bed wearing only his boxer shorts. Now Belena, she had not gone to bed. Instead, she waited downstairs for Mark to fall into a deep sleep. She took the acid out of the cupboard under the sink in the kitchen and poured it into a regular size drinking glass.

She calmly crept upstairs and entered the room where her unexpecting Mark was asleep. She turned on the light and Mark woke up and sat up confused. Belena she started laughing, and then she shouted, If I can't have you, no one can. And then she threw the acid in Mark's face, covering his upper body and parts of his legs, and the reaction was immediate. Within seconds the chemicals began burning and actively dissolving Mark's skin. He jumped out of bed and ran into the street, screaming in absolute agony.

By the time he got outside, one of his ears had gone. It had been completely dissolved by the acid. It began burning through the physical structure of his eye socket, dissolving his left iris, rendering him blind. Mark's screams were heard by a neighbour, Thomas Sweet, who was in his garden having a cigarette, and he rang to Mark, and he initially had no idea what he was witnessing. Thomas said in court, but when he ran to Mark, he found him screaming in agony in just his boxer shorts, and it looked like he'd had paint chucked over him, or he was covered in clay or mud.

It was only when he got closer that he realized it was Mark's skin just melting off him. Now Thomas immediately dialed 999, and you can listen to the phone call on YouTube. And whilst Thomas is on the phone, you can hear poor Mark's desperate cries for help. It's just awful. By now more neighbours have arrived to offer aid. Mark was crying but he couldn't see. He asked if he still had his eyelids, which he didn't. The acid will keep burning through, dissolving the skin. Mark is pleading for water, so the neighbours take him to one of their apartments and they put him in a cold shower to try and wash the acid away and soothe his burns.

The neighbours stay with Mark until the paramedics arrive. Now, when they arrive, Mark is still in the shower. They reported that Mark had sustained significant chemical burns across his body and that he was frothing at the mouth, and they noted his skin was discoloured. It was like an abnormal grey. Now, despite being in agonizing pain and drifting into shock, Mark told paramedics who had done this and where she was. Now he was rushed to Southmead Hospital in Bristol. Police enter Belena's flat.

They first go into the bedroom where Mark was attacked, and it's horrific. I'll put pictures on my Instagram, but the bed sheets and the pillows that were white are nigh black? It looks like someone's thrown black paint on them, but it was the acid. Honestly, it's so scary. They find Belena sitting casually on the sofa. She didn't display any signs of shock, distress, or confusion. Whilst Mark's been running around outside screaming in unimaginable pain, she didn't attempt to call the emergency services.

She just sat there quietly waiting. Oh she's just she's evil. She's so evil.

She told them that he wanted to burn me from the inside out. She then said that they had gotten into a heated argument and she'd thrown the glass of what she thought was water over Mark to calm him down. And when they asked her why is there acid in the house in the first place, she claimed that it had been bought for household chores. Really? So who's cleaning the house with acid? Belinda, of course they don't bite her story, and she's quickly arrested and taken in for questioning. Now, following an agonizing ambulance ride, Mark arrives at hospital and is immediately rushed to the decontamination room.

Doctors assess Mark's condition and confirm that he has sustained full thickness chemical burns, which means the chemical has destroyed the entire depth of the skin. And this is on 25% of his body, his head, his neck, his chest, arms, and upper thighs. Now, to preserve his organs from failing due to the extreme pain, Mark was placed into a medically induced coma. He remains in this coma for four months. And I mean, at least that gives him some rest from the pain, doesn't it? So the next morning, Mark's father Keys arrives at the hospital.

After receiving the phone call, he travelled through the night from Belgium, which is where he now lives, to be by his son's bedside. After arriving, he he rushed to the intensive care unit and he walked through the six-room ward and looked in every room to the person that was in the bed, and he couldn't find his son. So he walked up to one of the nurses and he said, There must have been some mistake. My son's not here. But heartbreakingly, the nurse led him back to the first room where he checked and revealed that the severely disfigured patient was Mark.

Can you imagine he's so badly burnt that his own dad didn't know who he was? Now, this next part is even more or I don't even know what the word is, it's awful. So after four months, Mark was born out. Of his coma. He woke up to find that he was completely paralyzed from the neck down. He couldn't speak. He was almost completely blind. He completely lost the sight of his left eye, and he lost most of the sight in his right eye, but he did have a tiny bit of vision. He had to be fed through a tube.

He had to have the lower part of his left leg amputated. This was because the acid had eroded into the bone, and the bone damage could not heal, which threatened his life as he would suffer multiple infections leading to sepsis. His foot had turned black. Oh, it's just so horrific.

They had to amputate his leg. So Mark is living in constant pain because the acid burned through the skin to the nerves. He was in constant nerve pain. The painkillers he was given couldn't relieve him. And then there was the itching. So Mark suffered relentless itching all over his body. He's paralyzed, he can't do anything. And his father, bless him, he stayed by his bedside, moving his limbs around to try and help relieve in some way. I feel like he'd be better off staying in the coma whilst his body was healing.

Just so horrific. The poor man went under painful skin grafts, and even just wound dressing and physical movement were extremely painful for Mark. But to add further misery, Mark suffered repeated serious infections. He spent a year in intensive care. Now, through medical intervention, Mark regained the ability to speak. So this is good. So they fitted him with a speaking valve attacked attached to his oh godostomy bag, tube, trachostomy tube, his feeding tube. This allows air to pass through the vocal cores, which enabled him to speak.

So now he's able to talk directly to his family members, doctors, and the police. And it's amazing what they can do, isn't it? So we now get to the 22nd of November 2016. After spending 14 months in hospital, Mark's condition has stabilised as much as medically possible. He no longer needed hospital treatment, but because he's paralysed and nearly blind, Mark could no longer live independently. And this is just so sad. He's a young man who had his whole life to look forward to, and Belena has taken it away from him in the cruelest, most agonizing way possible.

Now all he really has to look forward to is being confined to a bed, having 24 hours support with everything. So in November, hospital staff informed Mark and his family that the time had come for them to transfer to a care home. They found one in Gloucester, and they stated that they had found the best facility in England to accommodate his severe 24-7 long-term care needs, and Mark appears happy to go. He's apparently looking forward to the physiotherapy, holding on to a small hope that he would regain some sort of independence.

However, Mark would only stay in the care home for four days. The environment was not suitable for Mark's care at all. He felt incredibly unsettled and became highly distressed by the reality of his confinement and lack of specialized rehabilitation. He caused his father in utter panic. When his father arrived at the care home, heartbreakingly he found Mark covered in his own feces with staff failing to help him. His dad cleaned him up himself, and he was so shocked by the way his severely injured son had been treated.

Keyes immediately made arrangements for a private ambulance to bring his son to Belgium. The next morning, on Saturday, the 26th of November, Mark boarded into an ambulance. They departed the care home and they made the journey to St. Mary's Hospital in Overpelt, Belgium. So after being at the hospital for around three weeks, poor Mark develops an acute lung infection. To treat the lung infection, they would have to go undergo a procedure that required inserting a tube into his throat. Doctors warned that this procedure carried a 95% chance of taking away his speech again permanently.

I mean, how much suffering can one person endure? If he didn't have the operation, the infection would eventually lead to sepsis, leading to death. And a painful one. Mark, he adamantly refused the surgery. The voice was all he had left. He said to his father that he didn't want any more pain. He didn't want any more operations, and he wanted to be able to speak to his family until the very last second. Keyes later said that his son didn't want to go any further. He just wanted to die. And in my opinion, you can't blame him at all, can you?

How much more can he go through? Now in Belgium, euthanasia is legal, and that's Mark's final wish. Euthanasia would allow Mark to pass away peacefully under his own terms. Mark and his father finalized the paperwork, and on the 2nd of January 2017, 15 months after the attack, Mark passed away. After he died, his family held a private funeral service and they kept his resting place private to grieve and to keep it hidden from the media so Mark could rest in peace. So as for Belina, so I really don't want to talk about her.

She's so disgusting, but I will discuss briefly what happened at the trial. So the trial took place in May 2018 at Bristol Crown Court. The prosecution wanted a murder charge. They argued her actions led to the relentless, unbearable suffering that drove Mark to end his life, but the jury found her not guilty. She was, however, found guilty of the acid attack. She maintained that she had thought it was water in the glass and not acid. But the evidence that she made 82 internet searches regarding the lethal effects of acid and that she bought a litre bottle online, the court rejected her defence.

And on the 23rd of May, Belena was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 12 years before she could be considered for parog. 12 years. Ridiculous. She should be in prison for life. For life. Mrs. Justice Nicola Davies, she delivered a scathing assessment of Belena's actions, telling her your intention was to burn, disfigure, and disable Mark so that he could not be attractive to other women. It was an act of pure evil. She described the act as premeditated, sadistic, malicious, and callous.

And more infuriatingly, this woman, she showed absolutely no remorse whatsoever. She literally put him through hell. She even tried to claim that Mark was physically and racially abusive towards her. Oh, go away, Belinda. Oh, I cannot tell you how much I despise this woman. And just to be clear, Mark was not abusive towards Belinda. Mark's poor dad, Keys van Dongen, made his anger clear, slamming the sentence as too lenient and way too little. When he's speaking of Belena, he stated he hopes she never comes out.

She's a danger to society. I hope she stays inside for the rest of her life. And you have to really feel for Mark's poor dad, don't you? And his brother Bart. Keyes gave up his job and exhausted his life savings to help his son. Towards the end, he was unable to afford accommodation whilst he was in the UK and he would sleep in his car in hospital car parks. In his victim impact statement, Keyes stated, I feel like a broken man. I have lots of problems with my health, my memory has deteriorated, and my hands shake.

I have aged 30 years as a result of this. My son Mark was gentle, sensitive, accommodating, and too good for this world. The fact that Mark, a 29-year-old recent graduate, decided to commit euthanasia says something about the condition he was in and the amount of pain he was suffering. And it's really hard to find anything positive to end Mark's stories. I guess the changes in the law are the one only good thing. In 2018, the Home Office reclassified high-concentrated acid under the Poison Act 1972.

It is illegal for members of the public to buy or process sulfuric acid without having a valid Home Office EPP license. Mark's case directly shaped the creation of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, which fundamentally altered how corrosive substances are treated in criminal law. Mark's case also created tougher sentencing guidelines, known as the Two Strike Rule. Okay, I don't get this, so I'm just going to tell you. So acid has now been categorized as a highly dangerous weapon. Under the new Two Strikes rule, any adult caught carrying acid in public for the second time using it to threaten someone will now face a mandatory minimum sentence of six months.

What? Six months. In what world is this a long enough sentence? Acid is deadly, it destroys lives. Mark's features literally corroded away from this substance. And they think six months is a long enough sentence if you get caught threatening someone with it twice. Oh I just don't know. Okay, so please let me know what you think of this episode. Come and share your thoughts with me over on Instagram at Unthinkable TrueCrime. And if you'd like to leave me a review or any feedback, I'd be very grateful.

And also recommendations would be great as well. I'd love to hear about any cases you'd like me to cover. I want to dedicate this episode to Mark Van Dongen and his family. Thank you very much for joining me today. And I like to end, as always, by saying in a world where you can be anything, be kind, but not to the Lena. Take care, guys.

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