Philobiblon

The “Aids avenger”, a woman jailed for knowing infecting a man with HIV, has allowed the Mail on Sunday to go positively over the top. She – once a respectable middle-class girl has, on its account, shock horror – slept with black men and had a child with one of them, she went out dancing, she didn’t take the respectable secretary’s job her parents want her to take but instead went to work for an advertising agency. And then she turned against men – gosh, one of the male senior staff on the Mail could have accidentally ended sleeping with the woman, or one like her. And – serve her right – she ended up living in a council flat.

Oddly enough, the Independent has a story on the same court case, although were it not for the same name you wouldn’t know it. On its account:

Ms Porter’s friends say that far from luring dozens of men into a fatal honeytrap, she had just two relationships after discovering she was HIV-positive. Her only crime was an inability to admit to herself she had the virus. “She felt it was shameful and dirty,” a friend said.

Another friend added: “She dotes on her little boy and he dotes on her. The idea that she’s out clubbing every weekend picking up men is just wrong. She has a small son to look after. She isn’t the type to have one-night stands … She just pushed the HIV to the back of her mind – so far back that it was hardly there for her. She couldn’t even say ‘HIV’.

Some of that is a bit disingenuous – I wouldn’t entirely take it on trust either, but I know which I think is closer to the truth.

Now there does have to be personal responsibility, and while it sounds like counselling and support services did fail her, and quite possibly mental health services as well, she still has to take some responsibility for her actions, and behave appropriately in future. (So, of course, should have the men – had they practiced safe sex there wouldn’t be a problem.)

But will jailing her for what will probably end up being about a year, and separating her from her child (a totally innocent victim) produce that result?