Dr Yvette Russell provided expert commentary in interviews about the court case against Berlinah Wallace, who threw acid over her ex-partner, Mark van Dongen, causing him such grievous injuries he chose to end his own life through euthanasia in Belgium.
In an interview with Sky News on 17 May Dr Russell said:
“There is some case law that tells us that as long as it can be proved to a criminal standard that the original act committed by the defendant is a substantial and operating cause of the victim's death that can be causation for homicide charge. There is a way that it can be proved, but obviously in this case jury did not think the facts here met that legal threshold.”
“We have not seen a murder charge before for facts like these, and also euthanasia is not legal in the UK, but we have seen some cases of manslaughter, where the causation was proved between the criminal act of an accused and the suicide of a victim. But they are very rare, and I do not think we will see another case like this for a while.”
Speaking on BBC Points West on 17 May Dr Russell commented:
“It’s that causation for homicide which would have been very difficult here, so making out that beyond reasonable doubt that the throwing of the acid here by the defendant was both a significant and operating cause of the death, but also that it was reasonably foreseeable when she threw the acid that the deceased would choose to end his own life via voluntary euthanasia, and that threshold I think it's very hard to overcome.”
After a three-week trial at Bristol Crown Court, Wallace was found not guilty of murder and manslaughter but was convicted of throwing a corrosive substance with intent, causing grievous bodily harm. On 23 May she received a life sentence for the offence.
Commenting again on BBC Points West, Dr Russell noted that while Wallace would be subject to the sentence for life, her ‘tariff’ or non-parole period in prison would be 12-years. This tariff was at the upper-end of what the court could impose for the crime, though far less than what she would have been subject to had she been convicted of murder.