RSS 2.0 FeedNovember 2011 Volume 38, HIV and Aids
HIV+ Woman jailed for swimming pool sex, and public disorder
EDINBOROUGH, Scotland - Zimbabwean woman has been jailed together with her Polish lover in Scotland for attacking police officers after they tried to stop the drunken pair from ‘having sex’ in a public swimming pool.
They are both reported to be HIV positive and fears were that they may have infected the Police Officers during the fight.
On Tuesday, Tanya Kalonga, 21, was jailed for 19 months and Lukasz Rutkowski, 23, for two years.
Rutkowski is said to have been spotted fondling Kalonga’s breasts and simulating a sex act at the Ainslie Park Leisure Centre in Edinburgh’s Pilton area in August while children and adults were swimming nearby.
But when staff and police officers tried to throw the drunken couple out of the public baths they refused and demanded their entrance money back.
During a struggle to remove them from the pool, Kalonga, 21, spat at police officers and a pool attendant and Rutkowski bit one police constable in the leg.
Three police officers and a member of pool staff at the leisure centre had to wait six months to find out if they had contracted the infection.
Despite defence claims that the risk of HIV infection was “negligible”, Sheriff Nigel Morrison QC said the victims had been through a mental and physical ordeal.
On Tuesday, Kalonga was jailed for 19 months and Rutkowski for two years.
The sheriff said: “I think this is a very serious incident. Victims were not to know there was a negligible risk of infection.”
He said one constable in particular faced a different risk “because blood was involved”.
The sheriff added that those at risk also received “unpleasant medical treatment whether it was absolutely necessary or not”.
Defence agent Matthew Auchincloss said: “They had both been drinking and there was a degree of immaturity in the way they reacted to the swimming pool staff when asked to leave.”
Defence agent Melissa Rutherford said Kalonga claimed to social workers that she was “not involved in sexual activity” in the pool.
The defence agent said: “She does accept she was kissing and engaging in amorous activity with her partner. She advises they had drunk three bottles of vodka between them.”
She said: “Shortly afterwards she was diagnosed with her condition. She advises she has not dealt with the consequences of suffering from this condition. Throughout her childhood she felt isolated and used alcohol to deal with these issues.”
