HIV TRIAL MAN USED FAKE NAME
Hairdresser ‘went on run’ after claims
A HAIRDRESSER accused of deliberately infecting male lovers with HIV went on the run and used a fake name to meet more men, a court has heard.
Daryll Rowe, 27, had been living in a tent, described as his “hideout”, on the Pentland Hills, near Edinburgh, before he moved in with a man in Sunderland, the prosecution said.
Previously, Rowe had lived in a flat in Mussleburgh, East Lothian, but left after a police interview.
Addressing Rowe in his trial at Lewes Crown Court in Sussex yesterday, Caroline Carberry QC said: “You decided to make yourself difficult to find. You went on the run.”
Rowe replied: “I was stressed out and I wanted to get away.” Ms Carberry queried why Rowe used a fake name with two men in the north-east of England he went on to move in with.
Police had issued warnings about a man called Daryll Rowe who was infecting people with HIV in the Brighton area and stories had appeared in the national press.
Asked why he told one of the men his name was Gary, Rowe, from Edinburgh, said: “If I told him my real name, he would Google me.”
Ms Carberry asked Rowe why he did not visit a sexual health clinic in Sunderland to get more of the anti-retroviral drugs he had started taking after returning to Scotland from Brighton.
He said: “Because I would’ve been turned in to the police,” he said.
Police found an East Coast Buses ticket tucked into a box of sabotaged condoms when Rowe was taken into custody.
The condoms had had the teat snipped off and been put back in their wrappers.
Ms Carberry said: “It’s your bus ticket.”
Rowe replied: “Must be, yeah.” He denied the sabotaged condoms were his.
When police tracked him down to a house he was sharing with another man in Newcastle, Rowe admitted he jumped out of the window. He said: “I panicked.” Rowe denies five charges of GBH with intent and five of attempted GBH with intent. The trial continues.