A man who infected a woman with HIV after he stopped his treatment and did not tell her about his diagnosis has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Luke Davis, 31, was found guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm on the woman, who described being diagnosed with HIV as a “life sentence”.
Davis, of Kidderminster, Worcestershire, had initially taken his medication after being diagnosed with HIV in 2017, but disengaged completely from his care in 2019, Hereford crown court heard.
His victim discovered she was HIV positive in 2021 after a routine screening.
Judge Martin Jackson said Davis chose not to tell the woman about his diagnosis for “entirely selfish reasons”.
The judge told the defendant: “You had been told by the healthcare service, following your diagnosis, that it was important that you used protection, condoms, that it was important you were open with any future sexual partners.
“You chose to ignore that advice. I’m satisfied that somebody … who chooses not to tell that other person they are carrying a condition such as HIV, who chooses to ignore advice about informing partners … does so, in my view, with a significant degree of premeditation.
“[The victim] lives with the constant threat that that virus could prove really quite serious indeed … to the point of being fatal.”
Davis’s victim, whose statement was read to the court, said she felt “physically sick as though my skin was crawling” after being diagnosed with HIV, which she described as “the darkest time in my life”.
She said: “I struggle to love myself as I see this as a part of me I can never get rid of. To me, it’s a life sentence as I will never be, or see myself as, the same.”
The court heard Davis lost his 13-month-old baby in 2017 and he blamed himself for bringing Covid into his grandfather’s home, which caused his death in 2020.
After the sentencing, Giovanni D’Alessandro, a senior crown prosecutor from the Crown Prosecution Service West Midlands complex casework unit, said: “We hope the sentence imposed provides some measure of justice to the victim and dissuades others from this type of dangerous and reckless behaviour.”
After Davis was reported to police, an investigation revealed Davis had been regularly sexually promiscuous and had several other partners.
Officers made an appeal, working closely with public health officials, for other potential victims to come forward at the time. No further victims have been identified to date.
