A court in Melbourne has heard how a man deliberately infected others with HIV during trial proceedings which have lasted for more than five weeks.
Michael Neal, a 49-year-old from the Melbourne suburb of Coburg, apparently deliberately infected two men with HIV and attempted to infect 11 others between 2001 and 2006.
He had been accused of 34 charges, including deliberately infecting a person with HIV, attempting to infect a person with HIV, and rape.
It seems Neal organised parties to try to spread the virus, and boasted about the number of people he had infected, his victims were picked up at public toilets, at an Abottsford hotel, and through a gay website.
Neal was diagnosed as HIV positive in June 2000 but over the course of the next six years he apparently deliberately misled his sexual partners, telling some he was HIV negative, others that he was not infectious and some nothing at all.
During the trial the court heard that Neal desired unprotected sex and wanted to infect others with HIV, in order to increase his pool of sexual partners. Neal had told his doctors that he was having unprotected sex, and on one occasion he had admitted he was trying to infect others.
The defence submission was that Neal believed he was unable to pass on the HIV virus because of the amount of HIV virus in his bloodstream, this appears to have been taken into account.
The County Court jury found Neal guilty on nine counts of attempting to infect others, two counts of rape, three counts of reckless conduct endangering a person and one count of procuring sex by fraud.
He was found not guilty on all other counts, including two counts of intentionally infecting a person with HIV but pleaded guilty to 12 further charges including possessing a drug of dependence, producing child pornography and an indecent act with a child under 16.
It took the jury three and a half days to reach its verdict. Neal was remanded in custody until a pre-sentence hearing on October 29th.