HIV man challenged over safe sex

Miss X says Giovanni Mola infected her during unprotected sex

A chef accused of knowingly giving a former partner HIV and Hepatitis C has been challenged over claims that he always wore a condom during sex.

At the High Court in Glasgow, Dorothy Bain, prosecuting, said Giovanni Mola's claim that he took care was "nonsense".

Jim Keegan, defending, said medical notes contradicted the woman's claim that she was a virgin when they met.

Mr Mola denies culpably and recklessly failing to say he had HIV to the danger of the woman's life in Edinburgh.

Addressing the jury in her closing speech, Ms Bain questioned how the woman, known as Miss X, could have become infected if he had taken precautions.

She said: "Your position is you always wore a condom. But you accept you infected her. The only explanation can be either the condom burst or it came off."

Speaking through an interpreter from the dock, the 38-year-old Italian, of Home Street, Edinburgh, said he had never noticed a problem with the contraceptives he used during intercourse with the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Several occasions

Miss Bain said: "You would know if there's been a problem with the condom and your explanation is utter nonsense. It makes no sense whatsoever."

The couple, who began their relationship after a chance meeting in Edinburgh, had intercourse and oral sex on several occasions between September 2003 and February 2004.

Ms Bain urged the eight women and seven men of the jury to believe evidence by the woman earlier in the trial when she said Mr Mola never wore condoms and aggressively refused to do so.

She asked the jury if they thought the woman, who said she had been a virgin before meeting Mr Mola, was the type of person who would risk her own identity and HIV status being revealed to come to court and tell lies.

But Mr Keegan told the jury that the complainer had claimed to be health conscious.

They've had encounters which have left them both devastated and plunged them both into the darkness of terrible disease for the rest of their lives Jim Keegan Defence advocate

He also recalled that Mr Mola had told her he had slept with 200 woman and had visited a sexual diseases clinic.

Mr Keegan queried whether, given these circumstances, she would ever have allowed Mola to have unprotected sex with her.

The lawyer also said medical notes from an appointment at a genitourinary medicine clinic in October 2003 - prior to her diagnosis the following year - contradicted her claim to have been a virgin.

Mr Keegan invited the jurors to acquit the accused, concluding: "Fate has done doleful work to Giovanni Mola and (the woman).

"They've had encounters which have left them both devastated and plunged them both into the darkness of terrible disease for the rest of their lives."

Judge Lord Hodge adjourned the trial and is expected to send out the jury on Wednesday morning to consider their verdict.