Man guilty of rape and deliberate HIV infections
Northumbria PoliceThis article contains details some people may find distressing
A man has been found guilty of rape and deliberately infecting seven men, one who was just 15, with HIV.
Adam Hall, 43, targeted young men he met online or at bars in Newcastle and had unprotected sex with them without telling them of his status, the city's crown court heard.
He was found guilty of raping four men and intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm upon them and three others.
Hall, from Washington, near Sunderland, who prosecutors said set out to wreck lives, was remanded in custody and will be sentenced at a later date.
The court had heard Hall was diagnosed with HIV in August 2010 for which he was prescribed medication to keep the virus at undetectable, or non-infectious, levels.
'Knew what he was doing'
Prosecutors said Hall, who liked to be "dominant" sexually, intended to deliberately wreck the lives of the complainants between 2015 and 2023 by not telling them of his diagnosis and knowingly having unprotected sex with them while not taking his medication.
He had claimed his sexual preference had been "weaponised" against him and HIV was not serious harm.
One of the victims, none of whom can be identified, was 15 when Hall infected him, with the others in their late teens and early 20s, the court had heard.
The 97-day long trial began in November, with jurors taking 42 hours and 51 minutes across nine days to reach a mix of unanimous and majority verdicts on 15 counts.
When she opened the trial, prosecutor Kama Melly KC said Hall sought out "young and vulnerable men" and "knew precisely what he was doing when he passed this virus on" to them.
Sentencing was adjourned to 23 April with Judge Edward Bindloss saying he needed a report prepared to assess Hall's "dangerousness".
Hall will also be sentenced for drug dealing offences, with the judge saying he faced "a very long sentence indeed".
The judge thanked jurors for their service, saying it had been an "extraordinarily complex and troubling case" with emotionally and intellectually difficult evidence to which they had given "clear care and attention".
He said each would be excused from ever having to do jury service again.
Speaking after the verdicts were announced, Det Ch Insp Emma Smith from Northumbria Police said Hall was a "callous calculating sexual predator".
Amy Dixon, of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said Hall was "wholly aware" of the risks and it was "clear" he "fully intended to cause the harmful lifelong consequences that his victims now face".
She praised the men for their bravery, with Hall's victims only finding out they had the disease after subsequently testing positive themselves.
The CPS said more than 95% of people with HIV in the UK were on medication which kept the virus at non-infectious levels, but medical workers knew from 2016 Hall had "not been adhering to his treatment".
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