Brighton hairdresser's HIV strain 'closely related' to victims

Daryll Rowe met his partners on dating app Grindr, jurors at Lewes Crown Court were told

Six men who accuse a hairdresser of infecting them with HIV have a strain so similar it is "consistent" with him being the source, a court has heard.

Daryll Rowe, 26, denies deliberately infecting five Brighton-based men and attempting to infect a further five.

However, genetic analysis of the strains found the "average difference was 0.6%", Lewes Crown Court was told.

University of Oxford professor Peter Simmonds said this suggested they were part of the same "infection cluster".

The expert witness was giving evidence for the prosecution at the trial of Mr Rowe.

'Quite distinct'

Prosecutor Caroline Carberry QC told the jury there were two types of HIV - HIV-1 and HIV-2 - and within those groups many more subdivisions.

All individuals in this case have HIV-1, which she said was the most common in the western developed world.

The court heard how HIV-1 is divided into four different groups - M, N, O and P. The most common is M, which all parties in this case have.

Within group M there are at least nine different subtypes, one of which is subtype B which all parties in this case also have, the jury was told.

The court heard there were "tens of thousands" of subtype B strains circulating across the western world.

And within the UK there were thousands of strains circulating "which are genetically quite distinct", Professor Simmonds said.

Detailed DNA analysis showed the strains of all parties in this case had an average "figure of divergence" of 0.6%.

The case continues.