A WIFE is suing her husband for infecting her with HIV in what is believed to be a landmark UK case.
The woman, diagnosed with Aids after getting pneumonia, wants up to £50,000 for personal injury through gross negligence.
She says he picked up HIV by having unprotected sex with a string of men and women behind her back during seven years together.
The 36-year-old, who we are not naming, learned she had HIV after hospital tests to pinpoint a series of debilitating illnesses.
She said: “As soon as they told me I said ‘That b****** has given it me. I’d been faithful so there was no one else it could have been.
“The only way I could have got it is through sex. It could only ever have been him.”
The woman, now separated, does not believe he knew he had HIV but had recklessly had sex with others without protection.
She rang him as soon as she got the diagnosis.
The woman said: “I was scared. I thought he’d sleep with someone and give it to them.
“I said ‘I’ve just been told I have HIV.’ He went quiet. Then he just said ‘OK’.”
But two days later he sent an accusing text that said: “I can’t believe you just told me I’m going to die.”
She said: “He is so selfish. It was all about him even though I was in a wheelchair when I got out of hospital. I was so upset.”
The final straw came when he ludicrously claimed she probably had Aids, the most advanced stage of the HIV virus that attacks the immune system, because she was obsessive about cleanliness.
The woman, who is now responding well to medical treatment, said: “He suggested using too much bleach to clean my house had made my immune system weak.
“That’s when I decided to contact lawyers — I couldn’t let him get away with it.”
Her solicitors served legal papers in May after advising that a criminal prosecution was unlikely. Her husband has yet to respond.
Lawyers say she could be awarded about £50,000. There have been no similar cases with married couples in the UK but an American known as John B was fined £8.3million by a Californian judge for giving his ex-wife HIV in 2008.
