The comments, by Ruth Lowbury of the Medical Foundation for AIDS and Sexual Health and Dr George Kinghorn of Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital, were picked up on in a broadly supportive article in the Daily Mail – possibly a sign that some public attitudes are changing.

Lowbury and Kinghorn were responding to the recent Crown Prosecution Service consultation, which Gay.com reported on recently.

However a recent case in Merseyside where a psychologically-damaged ex-soldier was persuaded to plead guilty to infecting his 49-year old girlfriend, herself with mental health problems, continues to raise disturbing questions about the attitude of the judiciary to so-called ‘ADS assassins’ and the expertise of lawyers called to defend them.

In the BMJ piece, Lowbury and Kinghorn say that the threat of prosecution will deter people with HIV from being tested, or, when tested from disclosing their status to their partners.

They say: “Those who take the test may not agree to their partners being notified for fear of legal repercussions, thereby jeopardising essential public health control efforts.”

Criminalisation will also damage the doctor/patient relationship, they add: “Health professionals can advise and assist, but their patients, if fearful of prosecution, may be unwilling to tell them if they are having difficulties avoiding unprotected sex.”

Lowbury and Kinghorn may be right. The Department of Health (DH) recently issued a public consultation on confidentiality and disclosure of patient information in cases of HIV.

It posits the situation where a doctor knows a patient with HIV is having unprotected sex with another patient and asks if it would be “appropriate…to inform the partner directly that they can report their partner to the police for reckless transmission of HIV or other serious STI?

“Would this be likely to deter people from using sexual health services?” asks the DH.

Gay.com readers who may want to give an answer can access the DH consultation here.

Meanwhile in Liverpool the 10th person in the UK to be jailed for transmitting HIV was Clive Rowlands, a 43-year old Bosnian war veteran. He was jailed after pleading guilty to infecting a 49-year-old woman during an eight-month relationship.

Rowlands said he loved her ‘very much’ and intended to marry her, and met her family, who discovered that he had HIV when they found disability benefit forms among his belongings.

Both Rowlands and his partner were psychologically fragile: the woman in the case had long-term mental health problems and was described by her family as “vulnerable” and “like a five-year-old girl.”

Rowland’s defence lawyer said his client had post-traumatic stress disorder due to his war experiences and was in denial of his illness: he maintained he had got HIV from giving someone the kiss of life, which is unheard of. However Judge Brian Lewis told Rowlands, "It is absolutely no excuse for the arrogant selfishness you displayed years later."

The woman’s family, who described Rowlands as “low, callous and dirty”, maintained he had been her first lover. However there are odd aspects to the case such as the fact that she was already on HIV drugs despite being recently infected and her brother claiming she ‘took 17 pills a day’.

George House Trust, the largest HIV organisation in the north of England, said the case raised worrying questions, in particular the quality of Rowland’s defence.

“George House Trust advises that people should not plead guilty without getting highly expert advice. A recent case in Kingston, SW London, was thrown out on the orders of the judge because the scientific evidence was shown by an expert virologist not to be good enough.”

GHT Chief Executive Michelle Reid told Gay.com: “Encouraging people to plead guilty won’t encourage public debate or testing the law in this highly contentious area.”

She called for a panel of legal experts to be set up to advise solicitors who came across an HIV case for the first time.

****

More articles from Gus Cairns: www.guscairns.com