End this culture of HIV victims and villains
During the latest criminal prosecution for reckless transmission of HIV (UK
News, page 11) the Judge made an odd comment. Handing down a three year jail
sentence to Paulo Matias, he said prison offered Matias an opportunity to
educate himself more about HIV and the dangers it posed to others.
Sitting in the court’s media gallery, I was astonished to hear a Judge,
supposedly a man of learning and wisdom, hold up prisons as a model environment
for promoting advice on good sexual health and living well with HIV.
Just a cursory glance at a gaunt Matias in the dock was enough to show what
several months’ of incarceration on remand can do to the health of someone
with HIV. The Guardian newspaper recently highlighted how HIV positive prisoners
were seeking to sue the Home Office for claiming their treatment in prison
breached their human rights and fueled the spread of HIV because people were
too terrified to disclose their status.
But the judge’s comments in the Matias case are in tune with the sentences
handed down to all five men convicted of transmitting HIV since 2001. The
harshness of these sentences (between three an eight years) suggest the judges
in each case were trying to use the law as a crude public health tool by making
an example of the defendants in a misguided attempt ‘to deter others’
and force people to disclose.
What is clear from all five prosecutions, is the dangerously poor level of
understanding of HIV and HIV-related stigma across the judiciary from the
judges down (including prosecution and defence solicitors). Sadly, this understanding
this is unlikely to improve significantly before the next trial this summer
involving a gay man accused of infecting a partner with HIV.
The question for us now is what can be done to tackle this abysmally poor
level of knowledge and end this culture of creating HIV victims and villains?
One idea is to let the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the body that decides
which cases are prosecuted, know exactly what you think about the criminalisation
of HIV.
And an opportunity has arisen to do just that. The CPS has written to Positive
Nation this month (see letters) pledging to consult people living with the
virus as part of the process of drafting policy and guidance. The director
of policy also assures our readers that he is listening.
We would urge all our readers, whatever your views, to take part in this consultation
by completing the short PN/UKC questionnaire on the UKC website at www.ukcoalition.org
and encouraging others to do likewise. A big response will ensure the CPS
cannot ignore the views of people living with HIV in the UK. For our part,
we promise to make sure the responses are presented to the CPS as part of
the consultation process.
Amanda Elliot, managing editorPositive Nation and UKC wish our readers
a happy summer.
Amanda Elliot, Managing editor
