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Duncan LeatherdaleNewcastle Crown Court
Northumbria Police
Adam Hall's refusal to attend sentencing was "in keeping" with the "indifference" the rapist had shown his victims
A "dangerous" rapist who deliberately infected five young men and two boys aged 15 and 17 with HIV has been handed a life sentence with a minimum jail term of 23 years.
Adam Hall, 43, wanted to inflict "pain and harm" on "vulnerable" men he targeted online or at bars in Newcastle between 2016 and 2023, the city's crown court heard.
The victims said they had been "violated" and left with lifelong conditions and trauma, while Judge Edward Bindloss said "selfish" Hall had taken their futures away.
Northumbria Police said more suspected victims had come forward since Hall was convicted, with another investigation ongoing.
Hall, who refused to leave his court cell for the sentencing hearing, had carried out a "campaign of rape" to "deliberately inflict HIV on the victims", prosecutor Kama Melly KC said.
Since his own diagnosis in 2010, health professionals had been "gravely concerned" about Hall's behaviour and repeatedly warned him about the risk he posed to others, the court heard.
Hall was "well aware" of the need to take medication, to keep him at non-infectious levels, and to inform sexual partners of his HIV status.
He falsely claimed he did both, the court heard, but instead "chose" not to take medication and "deliberately targeted" men who were "vulnerable" for the "riskiest sexual activity", Melly said.
The prosecutor said Hall's "real sexual interest" was in inflicting "pain and harm" through being aggressive and dominant.
Adam Hall was sentenced in his absence at Newcastle Crown Court
Despite advances in healthcare, HIV remained a "lifelong irreversible condition" with "significant health risks" requiring treatment, Melly said, adding the harm was compounded for the rape victims as, every time they took medication, they would be reminded "on a daily basis" of the ordeal Hall inflicted upon them.
In a statement read to the court, one of the men, who was 18 when he was raped and infected by Hall, said he had been "violated in the most horrific and dehumanising way" and been left with a trauma he carried everyday.
He said he felt "disgusted, ashamed and completely alone", adding: "There are days when I feel like I am just surviving, not living."
