Dawn was a 15-year-old virgin when she met
Feston Konzani - a meeting that was to change her life forever. Now 19, she
tells Martin Flynn about contracting HIV at such a tender
age and how her life has moved on
Dawn was brought up on the Thorntree estate in Middlesbrough,
built in the post-war period to house working class families from the demolished
town centre Victorian terraces. Today it is a sprawling sink estate characterised
by acute poverty and deprivation.
Three years ago, a young and charming African musician called Feston Konzani
came to this run down area under the system that disperses asylum seekers
across the UK.
Dawn, 15, had just left secondary school and was training to be a hairdresser,
earning extra money helping out at her uncle’s pub in Eston on the hilly
fringes of town. The pretty but impulsive teenager first met the flamboyant
African near her mother’s house in June 2001. “Me and my friends
were just walking down the street and he asked us if we wanted to go to a
party, so we said yes,” Dawn explains.
It proved to be a fateful meeting that would have a devastating impact on
both their lives. In May, the 28-year-old Malawian was jailed for 10 years
for recklessly infecting three women with HIV, including Dawn who was just
15.
First proper boyfriend
“We didn’t know him but he was very friendly. So we thought: new
person why not? He seemed really nice. After about a week I met him again
on the street. We were just talking and he asked me to be his girlfriend.”
Dawn says he was not particularly good-looking but had ‘something’.
“I was just a 15-year-old with bad taste. I liked his braided hair in
different shades and wonky at the front. I think it was his hair that got
me.
“After only two weeks of going out with him I said I’d move in
with him. I don’t know why. I was so young and so stupid but my mum
wasn’t so bothered because I was always up and leaving. I’d often
disappear for a bit with friends. If I was arguing with my mum I used to just
get up and leave so she thought nothing of it.”
Dawn had not had boyfriends before Konzani. “He was my first proper
boyfriend. I was a virgin when I met him. He was about 25 and I was 15. We
began to sleep together and he was nice to me at first, but then, after a
few weeks, he started locking me in his house He didn’t want me to go
out with my friends. He said he didn’t like them.”
Treated like a sex slave
“He was a lunatic. I wasn’t allowed to ring or see my mum. I didn’t
know whether I was in love or infatuated, but at the time I did like him a
lot.” They never used condoms and Dawn never asked why, unaware of the
risks of catching a sexually transmitted disease.
“At the time I didn’t know about such things. Every time the nurse
came to school to talk about sex education I used to walk out. I used to go
bright red with embarrassment. Mum told me about stuff but I didn’t
know then that it could be dangerous.”
Dawn said she stopped talking to him and just watched TV all day. “I
didn’t cook or clean. He did all that. I was just like a sex slave.”
Konzani never mentioned HIV. “Even if he did, I probably wouldn’t
have known what it was,” adds Dawn.
“By August 2001 I was getting really fed up with him and thought ‘Right,
I’m going’. So I packed up my stuff and climbed out the window
and went back to mum’s.”
Shocking discovery
Dawn then started dating Jamie, a drug user. She went to her doctor’s
because she thought she might be pregnant. He took urine and blood samples
but did not tell her she was being tested for HIV as well as pregnancy.
“I waited about three or four months and then my doctor came round to
my house and told me I had to go to hospital. He spoke to me privately and
I just wanted to die. I thought there was no point in living.
“He said: ‘I’ve made an appointment for you at the hospital
and they’re going to look after you because you’re HIV positive.
I know it’s going to be a shock but you’re going to have to go’.”
At that time, Dawn knew next to nothing about HIV. “The doctors told
me it was because I’d had unprotected sex. I was pretty scared actually.
I thought I was going to die.
“I thought I caught it from the lad who was the drug user. I didn’t
have a clue. But he went for a test and it came back negative. So it made
me think I must have caught it off Konzani.”
Her doctor went to the police after getting Dawn’s consent. “The
police saw me at the hospital because I didn’t want them round my mum’s.
They said he’d done it to other girls as well. They took a statement,
some more blood and interviewed me.” Dawn told them she had consented
to sex with Konzani but that he had never brought up the issue of HIV. And
she also told them the sex had been unprotected.
Insults, tears, anger and finally hope
After her diagnosis Dawn went out of her way to avoid Konzani. “I saw
him in the street in the town centre but hid down an alley. There are a few
Africans in Middlesbrough these days but he stood out in his bright coloured
clothes and braided hair.
“When the police told me I would have to go to court I panicked. It
was very scary at the Crown Court. I started crying when I was questioned
by the lawyers. His barrister was pretty horrible to me. Basically he called
me a slapper and said I was sleeping around and
Feston wasn’t the first man I’d slept with. But I told then that
I was a virgin when I met him.
“The HIV clinic put me onto Teesside Positive Action and they’ve
been really helpful. If I’ve got a problem or don’t understand
something I go and see them and they’ll explain.
“I’ve also met other people who are also HIV positive. After the
court case I met one of the other girls infected by Konzani and she’s
a lovely lass.”
Dawn felt angry towards Konzani and wanted revenge. “I started self-harming
and cutting my arms. I was taking my anger out on myself instead of on him.
I felt much better after I’d spoken to the police because that was me
getting him back for what he’d done to me.
“I feel happy he’s been sent to prison. At least I know he’s
not going to go out and give some other girl HIV. He could have done it to
my little sister or to anyone. I think he got what he deserved.”
Dawn says the experience has changed her: “When I have sex now I use
protection and I’d tell all young people that they should use protection
all the time.
“I’ve had loads of support from my mum and dad and my sisters
and friends. And the doctors and nurses at the hospital have been very helpful
and funny as well.”
Now Dawn says all she wants is to live a normal life. After the court case,
she moved to Bradford where she married a Pakistani lad and worked in a shop.
She told him about what had happened. He wanted children and she didn’t
want to risk it, so the marriage ended but they are still friends. Like most
teenagers Dawn still likes to go out especially to gay clubs which she thinks
are a “right laugh”.
“When I meet a new boyfriend I explain what is happening about the HIV
and tell them straight. They’re usually OK except on the odd occasion
when they say ‘Err, get away’.”
She is currently dating someone who she says makes her very happy. “I
just want to carry on with my life now.
Teesside Positive Action 01642 254 598
