HIV man is found guilty of deliberately infecting lovers
The Independent
15 October 2003
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
A man who knowingly infected two women with HIV
has become the first person in more than a century to be convicted of inflicting
biological grievous bodily harm.
Mohammed Dica, 37, who has three children,
persuaded two women to have unprotected sex without telling them he had HIV. He
was a refugee from Somalia, but claimed to be a lawyer and to have served as a
soldier in the Gulf War. The court heard that he was a practised Lothario who
told the women a pack of lies. Doctors say the victims may have no more than 10
years to live.
Dica told the first, a university graduate who
worked for the United Nations, that he had had a vasectomy and did not need to
use protection, and promised the second, a woman from Surrey with two children,
that he loved her and wanted her to have his children. When she left her husband
to be with him, he disappeared.
Dica denied the offences, which took place
between 1997 and 2000, and told detectives that both women had known of his
condition.
Yesterday a jury of six men and six women at
Inner London Crown Court took two hours to find him guilty after the prosecution
claimed he had “coldly and callously” infected his two lovers with the
virus.
Judge Nicholas Philpot deferred sentencing until
next month but warned Dica he faced a lengthy period in prison. The offences
carry a maximum of five years each.
Detectives believe there may be other women
infected by Dica and asked any who had had a relationship with him to come
forward.
The case is the first since Charles James
Clarence was convicted in 1888 of causing grievous and actual bodily harm after
infecting his wife Selina with gonorrhoea. He was cleared on appeal when the
House of Lords ruled that passing a sexually transmitted disease during
consensual sex did not constitute an assault.
The same argument was used by Dica’s lawyers.
They said that as both women had agreed to sex, no assault had been committed.
But Judge Philpot decided the law had moved on since 1888 as a result of a
succession of cases which had chipped away at the Clarence position.
In 1997, Anthony Burstow, 36, was convicted of
inflicting psychiatric grievous bodily harm on a woman with stalking and
telephone calls. On appeal, the Lords decided the Crown did not have to prove
battery to secure a bodily harm conviction.
Yesterday’s conviction which follows the line of
a similar case in Scotland two years ago. In March 2001, Stephen Kelly, 33, was
found guilty of “culpable and reckless conduct” for passing HIV to his
girlfriend.
Dica’s lawyers said they would appeal, and the
case is likely to go to the Lords.
The National Aids Trust criticised the verdict.
It said: “Treating cases like this as a criminal offence will not prevent
such incidents. People should feel able to disclose their HIV status without
fear of rejection or discrimination.”
Updated 19 March 2026
This article, originally published in October 2003, reports accurately on the initial conviction of Mohammed Dica at Inner London Crown Court. However, readers should be aware of significant subsequent legal developments that materially affect the position described.
Dica’s conviction was indeed appealed. The Court of Appeal in R v Dica [2004] EWCA Crim 1103 quashed the original conviction and ordered a retrial, holding that the trial judge had wrongly withdrawn from the jury the question of whether the complainants had consented to the risk of infection. The Court of Appeal confirmed that reckless transmission of HIV could constitute an offence under s.20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, but that informed consent to the risk of infection would provide a defence. Dica was subsequently retried and again convicted.
The legal framework for this area was further considered in R v Konzani [2005] EWCA Crim 706, where the Court of Appeal clarified that only an informed and willing consent to the risk of HIV infection — not merely consent to unprotected sex — could operate as a defence to a s.20 charge.
The article’s statement that the case was likely to go to the House of Lords did not ultimately materialise in that form. The area of law has since developed substantially through the Court of Appeal decisions in Dica and Konzani, which are the leading authorities. Students should refer to those cases rather than relying on the trial-level position described here.
The broader legal principle — that reckless transmission of a serious sexually transmitted infection can constitute inflicting grievous bodily harm under s.20 OAPA 1861 — remains good law as of the date of this update. The Crown Prosecution Service has published policy guidance on the prosecution of cases involving the intentional or reckless sexual transmission of infection, which is also relevant background reading.
