Watch as Adam Hall HIV victim recalls shattering moment he discovered positive status getting off school bus

A victim who was deliberately infected with HIV by Adam Hall has been speaking about the moment he found out about his positive status after getting off the school bus.

Hall, 43, previously of the Donwell area of Washington, was on March 5 (2026) 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.

Today (April 23), he returned to Newcastle Crown Court where he was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 23 years and 42 days.

Detective chief inspector Emma Smith, who led the investigation into the conviction of Adam Hall for deliberately infecting men with HIV, said he targeted “vulnerable young men, including a 15-year-old boy”.

Recalling the moment he found out about his HIV positive status, the victim said: “I had just got off the school bus and I was walking home when my phone started to ring. When I picked it up, it was the sexual health nurse. She explained my results had come back and I was HIV positive.

“At that moment, everything shattered and I went numb. I was mortified, not only at my situation, but at myself. I just thought how has this happened to me? It was just devastating.

“I was angry and I couldn’t comprehend why someone would do this to harm someone.”

In an interview with the BBC the victim, who was named as Sam, which is not his real name, then went on to reveal the ongoing impact his HIV positive status is having on his life.

He said: “There’s a lot of people who still see it as a death sentence. A lot of people still pass judgement, seeing you as dirty and unclean, or that you sleep around all the time.

“Those type of comments - it’s just a hurtful process.”

Hall became only the second person in the UK to be jailed for deliberately infecting people with HIV, but questions remain about his motive.

Speaking to the Echo, Senior Crown Prosecutor Amy Dixon said: “Hall even suggested his victims wanted him to pass on the virus”.

The victim added: “I just ask myself, what was his reason, what possessed him to do what he did?

“Not just to me, but to everyone else you have done it to, why? What did you get out of it?”

DCI Smith told the Echo that Hall used dating apps such as Grindr to target young men who “were generally sexually inexperienced and new on the Gay scene”.

Describing their ordeal, one victim said: “Prior to Hall, I had not been involved in a gay relationship. He was my first experience, and I had nothing to compare it to. I would describe myself as naïve.

“Hall came into my life, and I have been left a shell of who I was. I am still an HIV+ male who has to take lifelong medication to remain well – and undetectable.”

Another victim-survivor described how, when he first received his diagnosis, it felt like a “death sentence”.

He said: “No-one ever betrayed me the way Hall did.

“When I first met Hall I had not long ended a relationship with my ex-partner. It wasn’t an easy breakup and I was vulnerable. I recognise this now, although I did not at the time.

“The first time Hall raped me I blamed myself.”

Hall was diagnosed with HIV in 2010 and, following this, healthcare professionals had repeatedly advised him about the importance of taking his medication, both for his own welfare and to prevent the transmission of the disease to sexual partners.

Over 95% of people diagnosed with HIV in the UK are on effective anti-retroviral medication, which reduces the amount of the virus in the blood to undetectable levels.

However, the medication required to supress the virus can also have debilitating side effects.

The victim added: “The first medication I took made my hair fall out. I switched medications, but the side effects continued.

“Right now, day to day living can be exhausting. I have been exposed to so many medical procedures and hospital stays because of what Hall did to me.

“His influence led to an accumulation of horrible outcomes which all amounted to me lurching from one crisis to the next.

“Hall left me a broken man, just a shell of who I was, he stripped me down for his own gain.”

Newcastle Crown Court heard that in 2016 it became clear to medical professionals that Hall had not been adhering to his treatment and the level of HIV in his blood was detectable at levels where he would have been infectious.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said that despite this, Hall went on to have unprotected sex with his victims between 2017 and 2023, in several instances against their will. In each case, he failed to disclose his HIV status and his victims only found out after subsequently testing positive for the disease themselves.

One of his victims said: “The whole thing is so unfair, he knew he was infected, and he thought he could get away with infecting me.

“Hall thought he was immune from any consequences. He didn’t even give me the option to take any pre or post HIV exposure treatment.

“It's been a gruelling process. There have been several points where I have considered dropping out of the whole thing, and if I had been the only victim, then I might have done. But this was important, not just for me, but for all the other victims involved.”

In order to secure a conviction against Hall, not only did his victims have to be willing to testify in court, but the Crown Prosecution service had to contact the victims’ previous partners to eliminate that HIV had been transmitted from a different source.

One victim-survivor described how difficult the investigation and court proceedings had been to experience.

He said: “I had to grapple with the prospect of contacting people I hadn’t spoken to in months, to let them know my HIV status, and subject them to being a witness in a police investigation they had no direct link to.”

Speaking after Hall’s conviction, another victim said: “When I was told that Adam Hall had been found guilty of those crimes against me all those years ago, I was so happy and so glad.

“I just broke down there and then. I had been believed. It was so important that the jury believed me.

“It felt like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I felt so relieved.”