Wife sues 'cheating' husband for infecting her with HIV
A woman is suing her husband for infecting her with HIV, in what is believed to be a landmark case in the UK.
The 36-year-old was diagnosed when she went for tests after developing pneumonia, and is now demanding a payout of as much as £50,000.
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The British woman, who is now separated, insists she was faithful throughout the couple's seven-year marriage and the only way she could have contracted the virus was from him.
She says he picked up HIV by having sex with a string of women and men behind her back while they were together.
Upon learning she had HIV, after hospital tests to pinpoint a series of debilitating illnesses, she said that she thought: 'That b****** has given it me. '
She told The Sun: 'I'd been faithful so there was no one else it could have been.
'The only way I could have got it is through sex. It could only ever have been him.'
She believes he contracted and passed on the illness unknowingly by having unprotected sex, and contacted him as soon as she received her diagnosis but was deeply upset and appalled by his 'selfish' reaction.
She said: 'I was scared. I thought he'd sleep with someone and give it to them.
'I said "I've just been told I have HIV." He went quiet. Then he just said "OK".'
But two days later she received a callous text to say: 'I can't believe you just told me I'm going to die.'
She told the paper: 'He is so selfish. It was all about him even though I was in a wheelchair when I got out of hospital. I was so upset.'
Her ex upsettingly claimed she probably had Aids - the most advanced stage of the HIV virus that attacks the immune system - because she was obsessive about cleanliness.
The woman, who is now responding well to medical treatment, said: 'He suggested using too much bleach to clean my house had made my immune system weak.
'That's when I decided to contact lawyers — I couldn't let him get away with it.'
Her solicitors served legal papers in May after advising that a criminal prosecution was unlikely. Her husband has yet to respond.
Lawyers say she could be awarded about £50,000.
There have been no similar cases with married couples in the UK but an American known as John B was fined £8.3million by a Californian judge for giving his ex-wife HIV in 2008.
It would be the first time a civil suit was successful but last year a hairdresser in Brighton became the first person in the UK convicted for deliberately spreading the disease.
Dubbed the 'HIV hairdresser', Darryl Rowe, from Edinburgh, became the first person to be convicted in the UK for deliberately infecting others with the virus and was jailed for life in April 2018.
He is said to have embarked on a 'revenge' campaign on the gay community after he was diagnosed with HIV himself, and met his victims on gay dating app Grindr.
