HIV sex case barber launches appeal
MAN GUILTY OF TRYING TO SPREAD VIRUS AIMS TO APPEAL
A MAN found guilty of deliberately trying to infect 10 men with HIV has launched a challenge against his conviction.
Hairdresser Daryll Rowe, who was arrested in Wallsend, watched proceedings via video link from prison as a QC made submissions on his behalf at the Court of Appeal in London on Thursday.
Rowe, now 28, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 12 years by a judge at Brighton Crown Court in April.
He became the first man in the country to be found guilty of intentionally setting out to spread the virus.
Felicity Gerry QC told Lady Justice Hallett, Mr Justice Nicol and Mrs Justice Andrews: “This is an application for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence.”
She added: “Our primary submissions are that the submission of no case to answer should have succeeded.
“That not having succeeded, the summing up was inadequate.”
Rowe was convicted of 10 charges - five of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and five of attempting to do so.
His victims cannot be identified for legal reasons. One of them told the Chronicle Rowe was a “sociopath whose actions were grotesque.”
Lady Justice Hallett emphasised at the start of the proceedings nothing must be published which could lead to their identification.
At his trial, Rowe was accused of launching a a deliberate campaign to infect gay men he met on a dating app after being diagnosed in April 2015 in his home city of Edinburgh.
He had sex with eight of them in Brighton, East Sussex, between October that year and February 2016, and later with two in the North East.
Rowe told jurors he believed he had been cured of the virus by the time he moved to Brighton, having adopted the practice of drinking his own urine as a treatment, supplemented with natural remedies - including oregano, coconut and olive leaf oils.
The three judges may give a ruling on the application, which is contested by the prosecution, shortly.