Glasgow, February 2007

An Italian man was originally charged with the Scottish offence of reckless conduct in 2005 and was found guilty in 2007 of passing HIV and Hepatitis C on to his former female partner. This was the first successful prosecution in the UK for sexual transmission of Hep C. During the case it was alleged that the man had repeatedly refused to use condoms and that he did not tell his girlfriend that he had either HIV or Hep C. Although the man admitted all the charges against him except one, he consistently denied refusing to use condoms and so the trial pitted his word against that of the complainant.

The judge in this case said that if the man could prove that he followed medical advice and even though he didn’t disclose his status he always used condoms, he could not be considered to have acted “recklessly”. However, this was never proved in court and in April, the man was sentenced to nine years in prison.  This is one of the longest sentences given so far in the UK for an offence of this kind. The judge also recommended that he be deported back to Italy after serving his sentence.