Use of confidential HIV data helps convict former prisoner

A man who had sex with his girlfriend without telling her that he was infected with HIV is facing the prospect of a long prison term after being convicted of culpable and reckless behaviour in the first case of its kind in Britain. As the BMJ went to press, Stephen Kelly, aged 33, was awaiting sentence at the High Court in Glasgow on 16 March after the first trial in a British court of someone recklessly passing on the virus through sex. The prosecution has alarmed research scientists because the scientific evidence that secured Mr Kelly's conviction came from confidential data that were obtained by a police warrant. Mr Kelly had agreed to give a …