Sydney man accused of deliberately infecting boyfriend with HIV, convicted
A 65-year-old man who faced Sydney Court on Friday charged with maliciously infecting his boyfriend with HIV has been convicted on a lesser charge. The man who cannot be named for legal reasons was accused of maliciously causing a person to contract a grievous bodily disease was found not guilty by a jury but guilty of a lesser charge, that of maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm. The jury returned the verdicts on Friday after less than one day of deliberating.
It is alleged that man infected his former partner a 47-year old nurse sometime between January and July 2004. The man admitted he knew he had the disease when he had unprotected sex with his former lover, but he said the victim may have contracted the disease from a liposuction operation or from a genital piercing.
The nurse took the stand during the trial, saying the pair had met on Gaydar in 2003. Both of them had ticked the box saying they had always had safe-sex. The nurse said the man specifically told him he didn’t have HIV they had then had unprotected sex because the man didn’t like using condoms. The man will be sentenced at a later date.
