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Criminal Liability for the Transmission of HIV
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 April 2005
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In R. v. Dica [2004] 3 W.L.R. 213, the Court of Appeal decided that a man who knows that he is infected with the HIV virus but who infects his unsuspecting sexual partner through unprotected sexual intercourse should be punishable for inflicting grievous bodily harm, contrary to section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The Court did in fact quash the conviction of the accused, because the judge at the Old Bailey had not instructed the jury to decide whether or not the two infected partners of the accused had known of his infection and agreed to take the risk of contracting it themselves (this having been in dispute at the trial). Yet the case was sent for retrial, and if the next jury, properly directed, should find that his partners did not agree to take the risk of contracting the potentially fatal virus, then Dica would be properly convicted under OAPA, section 20.
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