Court Told Of Miss X’s HIV Tests Trauma

The woman who accuses her boyfriend of knowingly giving her HIV fell to her knees and wept when she was told she had the virus, a court heard yesterday. The sex clinic worker who broke the news to Miss X said:

“She grabbed hold of me and kept shaking me, then she sank down on her knees in front of me and said, ‘Please say it’s not true’ and starting sobbing. We just held each other. She was totally devastated and I felt very distressed as well.”

Miss X, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claims that Italian-born chef Giovanni Mola, 38, infected her with HIV and hepatitis C in Edinburgh by refusing to wear a condom during sex.

The High Court has heard that Miss X went to an Edinburgh sexual health clinic for tests in February 2004 after feeling unwell. She was told on March 2 of that year that she was infected with both viruses.

Sarah Cooper, a sexual health adviser at the clinic, said: “I called her through and said, ‘I am very sorry but the tests have come back positive’. We had been smiling at each other but she then frowned and got angry and said, ‘Stop saying that’.”

Mrs Cooper, a trained nurse and midwife, told the jury she was “very shocked” by the test results because Miss X had insisted that she and Mola did not have full sex very often. She recalled: “I said it couldn’t be right, she was practically a virgin.”

Miss X claims Mola was her first sex partner. She says he told her had bedded around 200 women. Mrs Cooper showed Miss X copies of the results and arranged for her to have another blood test in case the samples had got mixed up. But she was shaking so much herself that she was unable to take the blood sample and had to ask a male colleague to do it.

Mrs Cooper added: “Miss X wasn’t really functioning and had mentally shut down. I had to speak to her like she was a child to get her to do things.”

Staff at the clinic were so worried about Miss X that they considered trying to book her into a psychiatric hospital. They called her sister and asked her to come down, and Miss X insisted on breaking the news to her.

Mrs Cooper said the two women were left in a room together to talk. She added: “There was silence, and then I could hear screams and wailing inside.”

Prosecutor Dorothy Bain asked Mrs Cooper how Mola could have infected Miss X with both viruses if he only had limited sexual contact with her. Mrs Cooper agreed that it happened because Mola was “highly infectious”.

Mola had been a patient at the clinic and Mrs Cooper had seen his records. But she couldn’t pass on any information from the file to Miss X because of rules on patient confidentiality.

Earlier, Miss X launched a furious attack on Mola from the witness box. Ms Bain asked her what kind of person would have unprotected sex despite knowing he had HIV and hepatitis C. Miss X replied: “Someone sinister, someone very evil. Someone who has no regard for human life. A monster.”

Jim Keegan, defending, put it to Miss X that Mola used a condom whenever they had sexual contact. She replied: “That’s not true. He said he didn’t want to use them. He didn’t like them. I’m disgusted. It’s a complete and utter lie. He refused. He said protection wasn’t necessary. There’s something wrong with him. He’s insane.”

Miss X said that during her five-month relationship with Mola, he reluctantly agreed to wear protection on two occasions. But at other times, she claimed, he refused – “adamantly and aggressively”.

Mola, of Home Street, Edinburgh, denies culpably and recklessly failing to tell Miss X that he had the viruses. He also denies repeatedly refusing to wear a condom while having intercourse and oral sex with Miss X, causing her to become infected with HIV and hepatitis C to her permanent impairment and to the danger of her health and life.

The trial at the High Court in Glasgow continues.