Man in HIV case probed over alleged sex assault

A MAN convicted of deliberately infecting two women with HIV is currently under Garda investigation after his arrest for an alleged separate serious sexual assault on a Kenyan woman in south Dublin in March.

The DPP is currently deliberating whether the man should face more criminal charges over the alleged incident, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.

The alleged assault took place on March 16 at a house in the Rathmines area.

The African national was arrested in the aftermath of the alleged attack.

The woman is currently going through a medical process that will determine if she was infected with HIV.

The suspect was released without charge after being questioned over the alleged assault following a complaint that was made by the woman within hours of the alleged incident.

A file was then prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The DPP has yet to direct investigating gardaí whether the suspect should be charged over the offence.

On Thursday, the 28-year-old man was convicted of causing serious harm to two former partners by infecting them with HIV.

In the first case of its kind in this country, the State alleged that the 28-year-old was aware of his diagnosis when he infected the women and that this amounted to serious harm.

The man, who lives in Dublin, cannot be named to protect the identities of the complainants in the case.

He had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to the two women on dates between November 2009 and June 2010.

Judge Martin Nolan refused a defence application for bail.

He said there was some risk of the man fleeing and that a custodial sentence was quite likely.

The maximum penalty for the offence is life imprisonment.

The judge remanded the man in custody to appear again in court on July 26 for sentencing.

He thanked the jury for carrying out its duty and said the case had been a pretty difficult one with an unusual type of evidence.

In his closing speech to the jury last Tuesday, prosecution counsel Dominic McGinn SC submitted that expert witnesses had said all three parties had the same subtype and mutations of the virus.

Mr McGinn said that the complainants had ‘remarkably similar’ accounts and that they used condoms with previous partners.

He reminded the jury that it had heard condoms, ‘if used correctly, effectively stop transmission’ and that oral sex does not lead to infection.

Mr McGinn said there was no evidence that any of the complainants’ previous partners were HIV positive.

He told the jury the man lied to the complainants’ doctor about his positive diagnosis and ‘went through the charade’ of being tested again for the virus in 2010.

‘He knew full well he was HIV positive,’ Mr McGinn said.

‘He was advised about having safe sex. He admitted that to gardaí and he was given antiviral medication and he didn’t take it.’

Mr McGinn told the jury that the accused was guilty on both charges against him because he had acted recklessly and caused serious harm to the complainants.

During the application for bail, Garda Sergeant Mark Waters said he was objecting to bail on the basis that the man now posed a flight risk.

He said that he has a number of children here, and that their mothers have said he does see them.

Defence counsel Paul Greene SC submitted that his client was not a flight risk, was resident here since 2008, had a real interest in staying here and was still in the process of seeking asylum.

He said the man was on combination medication therapy here to treat his virus.

Counsel said the man, who may also have a child in the UK, had instructed him that his children here were important to him.

File prepared for the DPP