Hairdresser pressured HIV victim, court is told

A HAIRDRESSER accused of infecting a string of lovers with HIV ‘pressured’ a victim into having sex with him, a court was told yesterday.

Daryll Rowe, 26, from Edinburgh, asked the man for sex, reassuring him: ‘I’m clean. I’ve recently been tested.’

He flew into a temper when the victim changed his mind during a drive together. ‘He said I had to if we were going to be together. He was getting more and more angry,’ the man told Lewes Crown Court, in East Sussex, by video link.

Back home, Rowe refused to get out of the car, he said. ‘It felt like an hour of him going on and on. I thought he was so angry he was going to throw a brick at my car,’ he said.

The victim, who had met Rowe a couple of times previously after they hooked up on the gay dating app Grindr, later texted to say he did not want a relationship with him. Rowe allegedly replied saying he was HIV positive.

The jury was told that several weeks after the pair had sex, the man began to feel unwell. When a test for glandular

‘Getting more and more angry’

fever came back negative, he went for an HIV test and was on his lunch break at work when a nurse phoned with the news that he was HIV positive.

The man claimed he could not have been infected by anyone but Rowe.

Under cross examination, Felicity Gerry, QC, asked the victim if he thought Grindr was primarily used for gay men to hook up for sex. He replied: ‘No. That’s not how I used it.’

A second victim said he was watching television when Rowe telephoned and told him: ‘Ha ha, it’s me. I ripped the condom. You’re so stupid you didn’t even know. You may have it. Burn.’ He said he was tested HIV positive weeks later.

Rowe, 26, denies four counts of causing grievous bodily harm and six of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm.

Last week the court heard he conducted a ‘deliberate and cynical campaign’ to infect men after he was diagnosed in April 2015. He allegedly turned down treatment and moved to Brighton.

The trial continues.