INSIght News

What Needs HIV Research?

posted: 02/09/2010

A new UK HIV research charity is asking people with HIV what needs researching. The UK Foundation for AIDS Research is a member led charity, supporting research into improving the health and quality of life of people living with HIV.

What they research will be guided by people living with HIV. They will only fund and support robust science-based research, but people living with HIV will take the lead in deciding what gets investigated.

Interested in telling them what you think?

They invite people with HIV to help by completing their online survey

Police, Prosecutors, Press Bungle HIV Crime

posted: 01/09/2010

Despite new police HIV crime investigation guidelines, HIV prosecution guidelines and new press HIV reporting guidelines, it appears that all were ignored and left on office shelves in the latest prosecution for reckless HIV transmission.
 

A man accused of passing on HIV to a woman of 19 was jailed for a year, and given a five year sexual offences prevention order yesterday.

Nicholas Richards, who is 31, and lived in Sittingbourne, Kent, admitted Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) for the HIV offence of reckless HIV transmission at a previous hearing at Maidstone Crown Court.
 

Richards was also given a five-year sexual offences prevention order, which stops him from having unprotected sex or not telling his partners about his HIV.
 

He was jailed yesterday for a year on that charge and was sentenced to a further year for an unrelated GBH charge, for attacking a man in Medway, Kent.  

The court heard Richards exposed the 19-year-old woman to HIV in June 2008. The young woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, found out she had HIV during routine blood tests when she became pregnant. Her baby does not have HIV, say the police.
 

Police comments
After the hearing, Det. Ch. Insp. Simon Wilson said the crimes committed by Richards were "abhorrent and callous" and had far-reaching consequences. He said: "Not only did he knowingly infect a young girl with HIV - a disease she will have to live with for the rest of her life, but he also selfishly put her child at risk too. Thankfully, the sheer bravery the victim showed in coming forward immediately and giving evidence in court helped us secure a conviction against him and I would pay tribute to her courage." He urged anyone else who had "fallen prey" to Richards to contact the police.
 

George House Trust comment

 
More Police, Crown Prosecution Service and Press failings

Because HIV crimes are complex to investigate and prove beyond reasonable doubt, and because of the harm HIV stigma and discrimination cause, police and prosecutors have strict guidance and policies to follow in HIV cases. This case seems to prove that these were ignored. The investigation and prosecution system cannot be relied on to work properly in all HIV cases.

Police

It appears that the Police ignored their own HIV investigation guidelines. They have clearly ignored their own Communication Strategy guidance, because Det. Ch. Insp. Simon Wilson should never have made his inaccurate and sensationalising comments and blatantly fished for other people to come forward who may have ‘fallen prey’ (his words) to the man.
 

Crown Prosecution Service

The Crown Prosecution Service appear to have yet again ignored their own HIV prosecution policy and guidance. Prosecutor Roy Brown seems to have been the man responsible. Guilty pleas should not be accepted without rigorous efforts to obtain transmission evidence.There is no evidence from the media reports that phylogenetic analysis was carried out as the prosecution guidelines require. So we can't be sure the man found guilty did pass HIV to the young woman.

Press

It was only the middle of August, just a few weeks ago, that the managing editor of The Sun told us about his paper’s commitment to responsible reporting of HIV at the launch of NAT’s new press guidelines. Graham Dudman, Managing Editor at The Sun, we were told, ensures his staff use the guidelines. He says: “At The Sun we pride ourselves on getting the facts right and staying up to date. This can be a challenge in sensitive areas like HIV. NAT's guidelines for journalists are very useful, really simple to work with and lay out all the facts reporters need.”
 

He seems to have forgotten the press guidelines for HIV very, very quickly. The Sun’s headline for this HIV news story: ‘HIV fiend jailed for infecting girlfriend’
 

News reports

BBC

Independent

Daily Mail

The Sun

Image  © Copyright Danny Robinson and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence.
 

Court Action to End HIV Immigration Detention

posted: 31/08/2010

The campaign to end the locking up of people with HIV in Immigration Detention centres, like Yarls Wood, is now moving to the Court of Appeal.
 

This follows a judge’s decision to turn down three test cases heard at the High Court.
 

The Judge decided that the Home Secretary's policy that people who are "suffering from a serious medical condition" should not be in immigration detention except for very exceptional cases does not normally apply to people living with HIV. In particular, the judge decided that whilst HIV is  a serious medical condition, the three HIV+ claimants were not "suffering", because their HIV treatment was working well enough.
 

Detained almost three years
One of the three people has now been in immigration detention for close to three years, (since October 2007) and the other two, since November 2008 and August 2009.
 

The court summed up their case like this:
"Each of the three claimants is HIV positive. They have been subject to immigration detention. The length of detention in each of their cases is different. For each, the stage of their illness and the degree of symptoms associated with it has varied over time. What is common to each ... is that the management of their condition has been adversely affected by their detention and by the management failings by the Secretary of State and those operating immigration detention on her behalf. The effect of this ... has been to put their health in jeopardy in ways that could have serious long term consequences for their ability to survive in the United Kingdom or in their home countries when or if they are removed."
 

Judgement
The judge decided aginst the three people. "It almost goes without saying that the liberty of persons is jealously guarded by the courts. Thus, the courts will scrutinise closely immigration detention to ensure that it is in accordance with the legislative purpose and that, generally speaking, the Secretary of State complies punctiliously with her policy on the matter.
 

“At some point, the treatment of those with HIV status in immigration detention may be sufficiently mis-managed so that the person suffers and falls within paragraph 55.10 of the Enforcement and Immigration Guidance. That mis-management might also constitute a breach of ‘Hardial Singh’ principles, ….. , or of the standards laid down by the Strasbourg Court. In my view, however, on the facts of these cases those standards were not breached in relation to any of these claimants."
 

All three people are disappointed with the ruling and have told their solicitor to appeal the decision in the Appeal Court. The case is not likely to be considered by the Appeal Court for months.

The case is being dealt with by Louise Whitfield and Gareth Mitchell in PierceGlynn’s Public Law and Human Rights team.
 

Full High Court judgement is here
 

Pride excess and risks

posted: 27/08/2010

Pride is a tempting party time of drink, drugs and sex. So what’s not to like? The crowds, scene atmosphere and all-out hedonism drive some of us past our limits. Our livers complain, there are comedowns, and if we ‘forget’ and don’t use condoms, we may end the weekend with HIV or some other STI, or pass something on.

How can we stay more in control?
We can all use tips and tricks.

Set yourself strict limits and party only on special occasions, so you might decide one night only over the weekend, and set a limit for how late you stay out, the types of drinks, how many, or what you do.

Be more choosy about the situations and people, where the temptations to excess may be too much for you to resist.

Take only so much money, and leave at a time you decided earlier.

Drop the shots and more risky drugs.

Ask friends to watch out for you and help you stick to your rules and limits.

Alternate drinking soft drinks with alcohol.

Choose other ways to enjoy the time with friends – a BBQ, picnic, walk or swim, galleries, shopping, movies or a show.

Abstinence, going on the wagon for a time, works for some.

You can look after yourself and those around you and  have a good time.

Community Service for HIV+ Popstar

posted: 26/08/2010

Updated 27 August

The HIV-positive German popstar accused of infecting her former partner was given a two-year suspended sentence and is required to do 300 hours of community service work, if possible working with an organisation that helps people with HIV.
 

Nadja Benaissa, 28, admitted having unprotected sex and not telling her partner she has HIV, as German law requires. The law is different in the UK.
 

The No Angels singer was found guilty of causing bodily harm to one man, and of two cases of attempted bodily harm.
 

Benaissa admitted she had sex with three partners without telling them she has HIV. One of them later tested HIV positive.

Virus evidence unchallenged

The court ruled that she had "in all probability" infected one of her lovers, who contracted HIV at the time of their relationship and that she had endangered the life of another, who remains free of the virus. Similar accusations towards the singer made by a third former lover, which were originally included in evidence, were not heard in order to speed up the trial.

The prosecution evidence given by the expert German virologist, Professor Josef Eberle of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, said there was little doubt that Benaissa had infected the man, because they both had a very similar strain of the virus, a rare form which was first discovered in West Africa.

However this evidence went unchallenged (because she pleaded guilty) and it is notable that the judge only said that 'in all probability' she infected him. In a criminal case in Britain 'in all probability' is not good enough - she has to be proved the source of his infection 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

Having a similar strain of HIV, even if this is rare in Germany, doesn't prove he could not have been infected by someone else with the same strain. Until a few years ago the Crown Prosecution Service in Britain made the same sweeping claims about people who shared the same rare strain of HIV. Then expert virologists for the defence here demonstrated that this proves nothing except that two people have the same strain of HIV. The man could have got that same strain from someone else.   

She could have faced up to 10 years in jail, but prosecutors sought a lenient sentence because she confessed and expressed remorse.
Benaissa was arrested very publicly in Frankfurt last year, shortly before she was due to perform a solo concert, and spent 10 days in custody.
 

Pressures and a hard life 

The five-day trial, which took place in a youth court in Darmstadt as Benaissa was just 16 when the first offences took place, heard detailed evidence of the pop star's troubled youth. Benaissa spent time living on the street, where she developed a drug addiction. She had a child when she was 16.

Stop and Think

For those of us who are quick to say: how could she? I would like to ask a few questions: could you imagine finding out you are pregnant, and that you also have HIV, at 17? Can you imagine the fear that you could possibly infect the baby, and the anxiety that the medications you need to take in order to prevent the transmission may harm you and the baby? Can you imagine fearing for your own future? How would you tell your partner, or your ex, or the person you are hoping to have a relationship with? And what could the consequences be?
 

Source BBC

Update Source The Guardian 
Stop and Think from HIV Policy Speak Up blog
Statement by German HIV organisation Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (in English) on HIV and the Criminal Law
HIV criminalisation blog

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