Daryll Rowe: Gay porn site removes videos of man who deliberately infected lovers with HIV
Daryll Rowe, who was convicted of deliberately infecting five men with HIV. (Facebook)
The gay porn website Blake Mason has taken down videos featuring a man who deliberately infected other men with HIV.
Daryll Rowe, a 27-year-old hairdresser, appeared on the website under the pseudonym Benjamin York in 2013 and 2014, before he was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 2015.
One alleged victim, who claims Rowe gave him HIV, spent months pleading with the website to remove the footage, the Scottish Sun reported.
At a trial in Brighton in April, Rowe was jailed for a minimum of 12 years for intentionally infecting five men with HIV and attempting to infect five others.
Rowe pleaded guilty to four more charges at a separate trial at Edinburgh’s High Court in Scotland in May.
Daryll Rowe targeted men in England and Scotland
He admitted having sex with four men knowing he was HIV positive. One man contracted the virus.
Rowe was sentenced to eight years in prison and placed on the sex offenders register for life.
Rowe had been diagnosed with HIV at a sexual health clinic in April 2015 while he was living in Edinburgh, before he moved to Brighton.
Prosecution Caroline Carberry QC told Lewes Crown court in Brighton: “He was warned he could be prosecuted for passing [HIV] on or even putting someone at risk of contracting HIV from him.”
Doctors said Rowe was “coping well” with the diagnosis but they had become concerned when he refused antiretroviral drugs, which reduce the risk of transmitting the virus.
“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,” Carberry said.
The hairdresser was given a life sentence in April
The court heard how Rowe then had unprotected sex with his partners and intentionally damaged condoms of men who refused.
Rowe also sent mocking text messages to his partners telling them he was HIV positive.
He told one victim, who was later diagnosed with the virus: “Maybe you have the fever… I have HIV LOL.”
In a phone call to another partner, who had insisted they use a condom, Rowe said: “I ripped the condom. You’re so stupid. You didn’t even know.”
Rowe also targeted men in Scotland during this time and failed to tell them about his HIV status.
In a taped police interview, one 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.
“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.
“It was horrible really – I just felt like I had to do it.”
