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Home / New Zealand

HIV trial: Man believed alleged infector was the 'love of his life', Crown says

Amelia Wade
By Amelia Wade
Political reporter·NZ Herald·
23 Mar, 2017 04:31 AM4 mins to read

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Mikio Filitonga appears in the Auckland District Court on charges of deliberate HIV infection. Photo/Jason Oxenham

Mikio Filitonga appears in the Auckland District Court on charges of deliberate HIV infection. Photo/Jason Oxenham

The man who was allegedly infected with HIV by his boyfriend thought he was the "love of his life", the Crown says.

But the defence told the jury they cannot trust the man because his evidence was inconsistent and unreliable.

Mikio Filitonga, 37, is on trial at the Auckland District Court for causing grievous bodily harm with reckless disregard and committing a criminal nuisance by doing an unlawful act.

The Crown alleges Filitonga, knowing himself to be positive after a test in May 2013 and "fully aware of his obligation to disclose his health status to his sexual partner", had unprotected sex with his live-in boyfriend from February 2014.

This caused his partner, who has name suppression, to contract HIV.

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After three days of evidence, prosecutor Jo Murdoch closed the Crown case this afternoon.

She told the jury they "could be sure" Filitonga infected the man and didn't disclose his positive status and take reasonable precautions, which was his legal duty.

She described the complainant, who gave evidence on Tuesday, as a "credible and candid" witness.

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Murdoch referred to texts the man sent Filitonga asking what his sickness "really is".

After two months of dating and during a holiday to the Philippines with friends, the man grew ill with nausea, aches, a fever and a rash which spread over his body.

During evidence he said he figured it was probably a tropical virus but later learned these were symptoms of seroconversion, when a person first develops antibodies for HIV.

A text he sent Filitonga in October, after the relationship broke down two months earlier read: "So please tell me now for real, have you got HIV or something? You have to tell me if you do. Something's not been said, I know it. Is that why you avoid having sex?"

A later text read: "Will you promise me to get that test and never take risks with your own or anybody else's life again?"

Murdoch said the texts "speak volumes" that the man had no idea his lover was HIV positive. She said it was an "implausible version of the evidence".

"These are the texts from a man who has not been told. These are texts from a man who wanted answers."

And they were not texts sent from someone who "vindictively fabricated" a lie after the relationship broke down, Murdoch said.

Instead, the man believed Filitonga was the "love of his life" - their relationship accelerated quickly from meeting, to sexual intimacy, to meeting each other's families and to living together.

And within a few hours of meeting at Western Springs Park in 2014, the man asked Filitonga whether he was clean. He replied he'd been tested three months earlier and was "fine".

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But the jury knew at that point Filitonga was positive, the prosecutor said.

"Mr Filitonga was lying to [the complainant]. Every time they had sex, he was lying to him."

Murdoch also questioned Filitonga's conduct after learning he had the virus as he failed to take medication and therefore didn't "take responsibility for his diagnosis".

But defence lawyer Ross Burns said the jury had been asked to answer "really, really important question based on some woolly evidence".

There was nothing independent of the complainant's evidence to support the Crown's case, he said.

"You can't just say, 'Well there we go, that's evidence of their responsibility'."

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The lawyer told the jurors they had to be certain the man didn't have unprotected sex with another HIV positive man - besides Filitonga - in six months before they met.

Burns referred to the man's police interview where he told them he was at Western Springs Park - a "notorious place where gay men cruise" - to meet a man.

During the trial, the man said he was looking for his dog.

"He was going there looking for sex and if he was doing it then who can you say he didn't do it the week before or the week before that."

Burns asked the jury: "Can you trust him?"

And while he didn't want to make the trial a "mud-slinging match" both men had unprotected anal sex with casual partners.

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"What do you get from pointing the finger at each other, the answer is nothing. It works both ways."

The lawyer told the jurors they "cannot be possibly satisfied" to the point to convict Filitonga.

The jury will be sent to deliberate by Judge Mary-Beth Sharp tomorrow.

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