Man accused of infecting 5 men with HIV thought ‘drinking his own urine would cure him’
A man accused of deliberately trying to infect ten partners with HIV has said he believed he could cure himself by drinking urine.
Daryll Rowe, from Edinburgh, is accused of infecting partners he met on Grindr with HIV after allegedly “tampering with the condoms” during sex.
It’s claimed the 26-year-old tried to insist on unprotected sex with his partners, or sabotaged the condom during sex without the partner knowing.
He is charged with infecting five men with the virus and attempting to infect a further five between October 2015 and December 2016, all of which he denies.
Rowe repeatedly told jurors he could not remember conversations in which he was warned he was highly infectious, that he could be prosecuted for passing on the virus.
He also claimed to the court he believed being vegan and drinking his own urine would cure him of HIV, according to reports.
Prosecutor Caroline Carberry QC said his claim he thought alternative urine therapy was curing him was a “nonsense” to explain the “campaign” he embarked on to infect men with HIV.
Referring to drinking his own urine, he responded: “Why would I do it every single day if I thought it was nonsense?”
Ms Carberry replied: “Because you didn’t want to treat this infection, for whatever reason.”
He replied: ‘I wanted to cure it, I thought I was curing it.”
Doctors said Rowe coped well with the diagnosis, but became concerned when he refused antiretroviral drugs that can make those infected person less contagious, jurors heard.
“He was warned he could be prosecuted for passing [HIV] on or even putting someone at risk of contracting HIV from him,” Carberry told the court, according to The Guardian.
“He told his doctors he was not going to engage in any unprotected sex again, but failed to attend further appointments in Edinburgh and by this time he had moved to Brighton.
“He had no obvious family or other connections in the area, although he had been in communication online on a dating app, Grindr, with a number of men.
“Through Grindr, the prosecution say, he was in contact with men that he would later go on to infect or attempt to affect with HIV.”
In a video statement to Lewes Crown Court, one alleged victim said he had been pressured into bareback outdoors sex and feared attack.
Rowe met the complainant on Grindr in October 2015, telling him he had only just moved to the Brighton area and did not know anyone.
Describing their first sexual encounter in a car, the alleged victim said he was frightened of Rowe but believed him when he said he was free of the virus.
In his taped police interview, the alleged victim said: “He asked for sex and I gave him oral sex. He asked for more and I said no, and he started to get angry.
“He wasn’t threatening to punch me, he wasn’t huffing and puffing, but he was saying: ‘You need to if we’re going to be together, I need someone who’s spontaneous.’
“I was saying: ‘I don’t really want to do it. It’s horrible to do it in a car in the middle of nowhere.’ I was getting angry.
“It was horrible really – I just felt like I had to do it.”
Grindr (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The pair went on to have unprotected anal sex outdoors, which ended when it was interrupted by a passing cyclist the jury was told.
After the passer-by had gone, Rowe was hoping they’d continue, but the complainant stopped him.
Rowe told him: “You’ve wasted my evening, I can’t believe this. You’re wasting my time.”
Rowe then refused to get out of the complainant’s car when he was driven home and tried to bully him into sex by some bins, the court was told.
“It felt like an hour with him just going on and on. I felt very vulnerable. I didn’t know anyone around (that area),” he said.
He said he believed Rowe was about to attack him: “I was thinking this is all going to happen and I’m going to have to go to work tomorrow and explain a black eye.
“He was telling me: ‘This would all be over if you had just done it when I said and we had just carried on.’”
The complainant said he managed to get out of the situation by promising to meet Rowe a few days later.
“Then he did get out of the car and I cried all the way home,” he said.
When he refused to meet Rowe again, he received abusive text messages including one saying: “You’ve got an ugly weird face.”
Later Rowe texted the alleged victim telling him: “Maybe you have the fever… I have HIV LOL.”
The alleged victim was diagnosed as positive in January 2016.
All alleged victims in the case have been granted anonymity.
Row denies the charges and the trial continues and is expected to last into November.
