Life for HIV Hate on Canal Street
posted: 03/03/2008
HIV hate basher jailed for life
David Summers, a 26 year old from Rastrick, near Brighouse, West Yorkshire, met his HIV positive victim in Manchester's gay village, visciously assaulted him, stole his property and drove off in his car. He was jailed for life at Bolton Crown Court in July.
He appealed his sentence and judges at London's Court of Appeal have now controversially indicated that sentences may be reduced when a sexual partner is not told about HIV positive status before sex. They converted Summers’ life sentence to an indeterminate time in jail.
Summers severely attacked his victim after the positive man told him that he was HIV positive. The men had met on Manchester's gay scene and gone to the HIV-positive man's flat for sex. When told about the HIV, Summers attacked him, "leaving his victim unconscious in his blood-spattered flat before taking property and driving off in his car." The HIV-positive man "suffered bleeding to his brain as a result of the beating and has been left with permanent disabilities," according to the report in the Halifax Evening Courier.
“extreme provocation” claimed
At the Appeal Court, Summers' barrister claimed that the HIV-positive man had "deceitfully exposed him to risk of infection with HIV... . It was the deception that caused the appellant to react the way that he did. He said if he had known he was HIV-positive he wouldn't have had any sex with him at all." The barrister claimed that Summers acted under extreme provocation. There is no evidence of HIV transmission to Mr Summers.
The appeal was allowed and the judges cancelled the life sentence and imposed an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection. It may make no real difference to the time Summers serves behind bars.
James Chalmers, Senior Law Lecturer at Edinburgh University, notes that although his barrister argued that there was 'serious provocation', it's not clear from the report that the Appeal judges actually bought that argument. During their decision, Lord Justice Richards noted, "The victim had put [Summers] at a direct and very serious risk of contracting a terminal illness. When he realised he had slept with a man who was HIV-positive he must have been shocked. But I cannot believe that any court would be properly discharging its public duty if it realistically could licence or permit an attack of this brutality." Nevertheless, he concluded: "We don't consider this offence so serious to warrant a life sentence."
worrying legal precedent
The decision sets a "worrying precedent", notes Daniel Monk, Senior Law Lecturer, Birkbeck College, London, "Provocation can only be used as a defence to murder." However the judges seem to have reduced his sentence after accepting a provocation-panic plea. This is despite the fact that disability hate crime law means that judges should consider increasing sentences. "The case also continues the worrying trend of the courts treating non-disclosure as an unexplainable, and always totally inexcusable, act," he concludes.
The Greater Manchester Crown Prosecution Service plans to set up a review panel to improve how it handles disability hate crimes later this year and George House Trust expects to work with them to learn the lessons from this worrying case.
the costs of disclosure
Positive people face serious dilemmas about whether and when to tell sex partners about having HIV. If you tell people first, which is what the judges dealing with reckless HIV transmission expect, you face a high likelihood of rejection, threats and worse. If you don’t or there’s a condom accident and you then tell a partner so they can urgently ask at a hospital A&E department for PEP treatment, someone like Summers could beat you up.
Michelle Reid, Chief Executive of George House Trust commented “Stigma is encouraged whenever the courts reward HIV hate and violence with reduced sentences”.
Editorial
Bishops, Bashing and Prosecuting
Bishops
The Vatican has backed the Lancaster bishop who tells Catholic schools to reject all safer sex education because it is "dangerous and immoral". But the harder religious leaders reject safer sex, contraception, comprehensive sex education and any sex outside the strict bounds of marriage, the higher they drive the rates of HIV, STIs, abortion and unwanted pregnancies across the world, as a recent British Medical Journal review starkly illustrates.
However the government has just announced a review of Sex and Relationship Education in primary and secondary schools. HIV and other charities will be on the review panel. "This review is a direct response to concerns raised by young people” says Schools Minister Jim Knight. A report by both the Independent Advisory Groups on Teenage Pregnancy, and for Sexual Health and HIV, said sex and relationship lessons should be made compulsory in all schools, because of patchy provision.
Bashing
The Appeal Court has sent out a signal that appears to blame the victim for a brutal HIV hate crime attack, but what does the attack itself say about the level of HIV prejudice within one of the most affected communities - gay men on the Manchester scene? Does a life locked up tackle the root causes of HIV hate, fear and loathing?
Prosecutions
The dismissal of the HIV transmission prosecution at Manchester, the third case in a row to fail, suggests that the Crown Prosecution Service are now finding prosecutions much more difficult. Judges have joined expert defence teams in more critically questioning and assessing the often inconclusive and limited evidence.
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