HIV Support in Lancashire
posted: 21/08/2009
There are a range of support services for people living with HIV in Lancashire. There are services in Lancaster, Morecambe, Preston, Hyndburn, Blackburn.
North Lancashire
Monthly peer support meeting in Lancaster every second Thursday
Every 2nd Thursday each month, at 7 - 9pm - the dates in 2009 are
10 September, 8 October, 12 November,17 December
In 2010 - 14 January, 11 February, 11 March, 8 April, 13 May, 10 June, 8 July, 12 August, 9 September, 14 October, 11 November, 9 December 2010.
This HIV peer support group is open to everyone living with HIV regardless of age, gender, sexuality, race or nationality. To find out more about the group and where it will meet, please call
- Sue 07825 207 024
- Peter 07855 342 732
In addition to this monthly support group, the organisation 
Signposts MARC
offers
- 1-2-1 support
- Case work
- Access to counselling
- Access to Complementary Therapies
- Information
- Advice
- Welfare Fund
- HIV Testing
For details please contact:
Signposts MARC
58 Regents Road
Morecambe
LA3 1TE
01254 419 021
email
CLASS
2 Union Court
Union Street
Preston
PR1 2HD
01772 253 840
Helpline: 01772 825 684
Email
Website
CLASS, in Preston, offer people living with HIV
- Peer Support group – meets every Thursday evening
- 1-2-1 support
- Case work
- Counselling
- Complementary Therapies
- Information
- Advice
- Welfare Fund
- Events and Courses
East Lancashire
In East Lancashire, in Hyndburn, the Citizens Advice Bureau provides
Hyndburn Area Citizens Advice Bureau provides free, confidential, impartial and independent advice and assistance to everbody regardless of race, gender, disability of sexuality.
Hyndburn CAB - click for full bureau details. Find the bureau with this map
New Era Centre
Paradise Street
Accrington BB5 1PB
01254 394210
To book an appointment, Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm, please call 01254 304114
e-mail Christine Hamilton
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THRIVINE
Thrivine has two peer support groups in Blackburn - if you have not been before please contact THRIVINE first - otherwise they may turn you away.
- one meets every Thursday afternoon 2pm - 4pm
- the other every 3rd Tuesday evening each month 6pm - 9pm (in 2010 : 19 January, 16 February, 16 March, 20 April, 18 May, 15 June, 20 July, 17 August, 21 September, 19 October, 16 November, 21 December).
THRIVINE
Unit 20
Business Development Centre
Eanam Wharf
Blackburn BB1 5BL
Adrienne on 07890 147 806
Email either Adrienne or Thrivine
Website - AIDrienne’s HIV Blog - Hivine is written by women who are HIV positive but still with a sense of humour.
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George House Trust - in Blackburn
- 1-2-1 support
- Access to peer support
- Access to counselling
- Access to complementary therapies
- Information
- Advice
- Welfare Fund
For more information
please ring or email
0161 274 4499
email
website
Comments, Questions, Complaints, about services in Lancashire
If you have any comments, enquiries or complaints about HIV social support services in Lancashire, please contact the Lancashire HIV Services Coordinator, Peter Channon, by phone or email
email
01772 253 840
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Shortest Jail for NW HIV Case
posted: 24/11/2008
A Lancashire man now living in Cheshire, who recklessly passed on HIV to his former girlfriend and then fled to Thailand, has been jailed for a year.
Police initially thought the 41-year-old may have died in the 2004 Boxing Day Asian tsunami, but he was later spotted in Clitheroe, Lancashire.
Infected as a teenager by treatment for haemophilia
Preston Crown Court heard the man contracted HIV in the 1980s when he was 17 through contaminated blood clotting agent (Factor 8) which is essential to treat his haemophilia. Many haemophiliacs (people whose blood doesn’t clot properly) were given imported Factor 8 treatment made from blood obtained from risky USA sources in an NHS blood scandal in the 1980s. His imported factor 8 blood product was contaminated with HIV. Factor 8 is now made from fully screened UK blood and is treated as an extra precaution.
Shame and stigma blocked telling
The 1980s stigma attached to HIV (at the time of the scary icebergs and tombstone public information campaigns when there was no treatment for HIV) meant he was too frightened and embarrassed to tell anyone - including his long term partner.
The court heard how the man who used to live in Accrington, Lancashire, met his then girlfriend in 1993 at a Blackburn nightclub, when he was 25 and she was 16. The pair started a relationship, buying a home in Accrington together.
Prosecuting, Peter Horgan said: "At first they used condoms but as the relationship developed they regularly had unprotected sex." The couple went through a brief separation and eventually split in 2000.
Five months later, the woman learnt through a friend of her partner’s that he was HIV positive. She tested positive for the illness, as did a man with whom she had a later long term relationship.
Scientific tests on blood samples revealed the woman probably contracted the illness between 1994 - 1996.
Her weight plummeted from 10 stone to six, she was hospitalised after two suicide attempts and had to undergo counselling. In a victim statement, the woman, now 32 and a mother-of-two, said: "I feel like a 90-year-old woman, unable to walk upstairs. My life has fallen apart. It is hard to express in words how I felt getting such horrible news. I kept thinking of my son, who would look after him if I was to die?"
Arrested at Manchester airport
The matter was reported to the police in 2003 but he fled to Thailand soon after. Following negotiations between police and his solicitor he was arrested at Manchester airport in January 2007.
Defending Mark Stuart said that the 1980s attitude that HIV was contracted through homosexual sex or needle sharing led him to keep quiet about his condition. Mr Stuart said: "He was extremely immature. He didn't tell anyone. He should have told her. He was in love with her, this was not a case of him using and abusing her.”
The man, who lives in Crewe with his Thai wife of seven years, pleaded guilty to reckless grievous bodily harm. He wept as he was jailed for a year.
Sentencing dilemma and some compassion
Judge Andrew Woolman said he had found it a difficult sentencing. Jailing him for 12 months, he said: "You started off as a victim, then you created two more in the course of your selfish activities, which were highly reckless. You were the victim of both haemophilia and from the misfortune of being given infected blood, but at no stage during that relationship did you discuss you were HIV positive. When you resumed that relationship you once again had the opportunity to tell her of your position."
He added: "You have effectively infected two people with the HIV virus, both have developed AIDS.
The consequences have been devastating, both physically and psychologically.
"It is a tragedy that I have to be sentencing you at all and I cannot restore back your health. I have come to the conclusion that where a person puts their own needs before those of others there has to be some measure of punishment."
Speaking after sentencing, officer in the case, DC Paul Harwood said he was satisfied with the sentence. He said: “The sentence given can never take into account the effects [his] actions have had on the victims involved. His callous behaviour in concealing his HIV has changed their lives forever and I can only hope that they can now derive some satisfaction that [he] has been held accountable for his actions.”
George House Trust comment
The one year sentence for reckless GBH is the lowest UK sentence yet for a HIV transmission. The maximum is 5 years and most people have had 3 or more years jail. He pleaded guilty and this normally leads to a shorter sentence.
As far as we are aware the defendant did not seek the support and advice of HIV organisations who are expert in these cases. Nor did he seem to have an expert barrister familiar with the most recent cases, none of which led to convictions.
It is also not clear that the Crown Prosecution Service followed their own national policy and guidelines for prosecuting sexually transmitted infections. They are required to be especially careful about any scientific evidence supposedly explaining who infected who. Science can't definitely answer that question. HIV organisations are closely monitoring the Crown Prosecution Service adherence to its own policy and guidelines.
“The prosecutor will need to be satisfied that the complainant did not receive the infection from a third party or that the complainant did not infect the defendant,” it says in the legal guidance for prosecutors. “This means that the prosecutor will need to know about any possibility which is compatible with the scientific evidence that the complainant was infected by a third party. This means enquiries will have to be made about the relevant sexual behaviour and relevant sexual history of the complainant."
Source
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