Strange News Clip

[Guest IM_Moore]

After reading this it seems to me as if the Judge and Hospital Staff should be detained under the Mental Health Act due to a psychopathic disorder ... not the man in jail. Is common sense really a lost art?

 

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October 30, 2001 10:57 am EST

 

LONDON (Reuters) - A jailed British homosexual on Tuesday lost a legal battle for the right to be supplied with condoms to protect other prisoners he has sex with from disease.

Deputy judge Sir Christopher Bellamy dismissed a challenge in London's High Court by the man, who cannot be identified, to the "no condoms" stance of authorities at Ashworth Special Hospital on Merseyside, northwest England.

 

Even though the hospital has a "no sex" rule, the man claims he indulges in sex and that condoms are needed to protect those he has sex with. He suffers from the sexually transmitted disease hepatitis C.

 

The man, who is detained under the Mental Health Act due to a psychopathic disorder, said that by refusing to provide condoms the hospital was unlawfully infringing the human rights of patients to have their health safeguarded.

 

At a hearing in September the judge was told that he was not seeking "universal provision" of condoms for patients but only wanted them where it was thought they should be made available to stop the spread of infection.

 

But the hospital authorities argued that to supply condoms to patients would contradict the no-sex rule.