Here's how Washington man Adam Hall became only second person in UK jailed for deliberate HIV transmission
“He even suggested his victims wanted him to pass on HIV”
The conviction and jailing of Adam Hall,43, is only the second time in the history of British justice that someone has been sentenced for deliberately infecting other people with HIV.
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Hall, 43, of Donvale Road, Donwell, Washington, was today (April 23) jailed for life and must serve a minimum of 23 years and 42 days in prison after being found guilty at Newcastle Crown Court of multiple charges related to the deliberate infection of seven men with HIV, four of whom he was found guilty of raping.
In 2018, Daryll Rowe, from Brighton, who was then 27, infected five men he had unprotected sex with and sabotaged the condoms of another five in Brighton and Northumberland. He was jailed for life with a minimum term of 12 years.
Speaking about the complexities of convicting Hall, Senior Crown Prosecutor Amy Dixon said: “There were two possible offences; grievous bodily harm through being reckless or grievous bodily harm through intent. It seemed from the outset that reckless just didn’t reflect Adam Hall’s criminality, but he had intentionally set out to infect other people with HIV.
“He even suggested his victims wanted him to pass on HIV.”
However, with a clear line of investigation identified, in the absence of visual evidence, the difficulty was proving Hall’s intent to deliberately pass on the virus and that he was the source of transmission.
His conviction relied on the former sexual partners of the victims being willing to be interviewed and have their blood tested to ensure the strain of HIV the victims had been infected with matched Hall’s and had not been transmitted by someone else.
Ms Dixon said: “We had to rule out that the transmission had not come from other sexual partners and other potential sources of transmission. This meant contacting the previous sexual partners of the victims to be interviewed and to be tested.
“As you can imagine, this was a huge infringement on people’s privacy and something deeply personal. But they knew from the outset and accepted Hall was a man who needed to be prosecuted and the people involved understood that.”
Despite Hall refusing to give blood, the prosecution team were able to access “sequential data” from blood tests on his medical records and match this with the HIV strain found in his victims.
With all other previous partners and sources eliminated, this left Hall as the only viable source of infection.
The conviction of “intent” relied on witnesses - in many cases the victims - being willing to come forward and testify in court.
Speaking on the complications and scale of the investigation which brought about the conviction, detective chief inspector Emma Smith said: “This was an incredibly challenging investigation which was undertaken by seven detectives, 35,000 hours of police time, and 37 witnesses willing to testify in court.”
The case also involved 450 statements being taken and 670 exhibits being shown to the court.