HIV carrier convicted in landmark ruling

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Posted by Rick (66.81.127.228) on October 15, 2003 at 00:10:44:


         http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1062772,00.html
UK Guardian
HIV carrier convicted in landmark ruling
Press Association
Tuesday October 14, 2003
In a landmark ruling, an HIV carrier was today found guilty of causing
"biological" grievous bodily harm after he infected two lovers with the Aids
virus.
Mohammed Dica, 38, conned his first victim into having unprotected sex by
claiming he had had a vasectomy, and then persuaded a mother-of-two to
sleep with him by declaring his love for her.
Dica's conviction is the first successful prosecution in England and Wales
for sexually transmitting Aids, and the first for 137 years for infecting
someone else with a sexually transmitted disease.
The father of three from Mitcham, Surrey, did not give evidence, but when
interviewed he told police both women had known of his condition before
going to bed with him.
The jury - made up equally of men and women - convicted Dica of two
charges of causing "biological" grievous bodily harm at Inner London
Crown Court in central London. Judge Nicholas Philpot refused a defence
application for bail.
"If I had to sentence him today there is no doubt he would be going to prison
and for a long time," he said.
The judge also rejected a defence request for a psychiatric report. But he
promised that if the pre-sentence report threw up any concerns then he would
further adjourn sentencing for one to be prepared.
Dica's second victim, who can only be identified as Deborah for legal
reasons, broke down as she told how he had ruined her life.
"I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," said the mother-of-two.
"If he had been honest from the beginning I'd never have had an affair
with him. I'd have run a mile."
"He played with my life and he's destroyed it," she added. "My sentence
has just begun. But I can now move on, knowing that justice has been
done."
Deborah had met Dica during an office Christmas party in a south London
nightclub.
When she found out that she had contracted HIV, and that the same man
had infected another woman, Deborah approached "possibly as many as 10"
lawyers. "Basically they told me 'It's your own fault. You are responsible
for your actions'," she said.
"This has been a tragic part of my life. He passed on this infection
deliberately. Those who have it confirmed are obliged by human decency to
make sure you don't spread that tragedy to others ... My sentence has just
begun. But I can now move on, knowing that justice has been done," she
added.
The last time someone was convicted for sexually transmitting a disease
was in 1866, when a defendant called Bennett was convicted of indecent
assault after infecting his niece with gonorrhoea. Still more than a century
ago, a second man called Clarence was also convicted, this time by an Old
Bailey jury, of causing grievous and actual bodily harm after giving his
wife the same disease. But that case was appealed to the House of Lords,
which ruled in the defendant's favour.
The law lords decided that passing a sexually transmitted disease during
consensual sex did not constitute an assault.
That ruling governed similar cases until 1997, when a defendant was
convicted of inflicting psychiatric grievous bodily harm with a campaign of
stalking and telephone calls. This time the House of Lords decided that
battery did not have to be proven to secure a bodily harm conviction.
Today's verdicts in Dica's case help bring this particular area of law in
England and Wales closer to that of Scotland, where in March 2001, Stephen
Kelly was found guilty of "reckless conduct" for passing HIV to his wife.
Those who decided to prosecute Dica did so hoping it would prove a
much-needed clarification of a still murky legal area.
Jeremy Carter-Manning QC used the Clarence ruling to argue that as both
his client's girlfriends had agreed to have sex, no assault had been
committed.
But Judge Nicholas Philpot decided the 1888 position had been substantively
overturned by a succession of cases down the years, but with his lawyers
already planning to appeal against the convictions, Queen v Dica is also
likely to end up in the Lords.



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