A MAN who knowingly infected his girlfriend with the HIV virus and then fled to Thailand has been jailed for a year.

Police initially thought 41-year-old James Cawley may have died in the 2004 tsunami but he was later spotted alive in Clitheroe.

Preston Crown Court heard haemophiliac Cawley contracted the illness at the age of 17 when he was given a contaminated blood clotting agent.

But the 1980s stigma attached to the disease meant he was too embarrased to tell anyone of his ailment - including his long term partner.

The court heard how Cawley, formerly of Riley Street, Accrington, met his then girlfriend in 1993 at a Blackburn nightclub, when he was 25 and she was 16.

The pair embarked on a relationship, buying a home together.

Prosecuting, Peter Horgan said: "At first they used condoms but as the relationship developed they regularly had unprotected sex."

The couple went through a brief separation and eventually split in 2000.

Five months later, the woman learnt through a friend of Cawley's that he was HIV positive. She tested positive for the illness, as did a male who she had gone on to have an 18-month relationship with while she was separated from Cawley.

Scientific tests on blood samples revealed the woman probably contracted the illness between 1994 - 1996.

Her weight plummeted from 10 stone to six, she was hospitalised after two suicide attempts and had to undergo counselling In a victim statement, the woman, now 32 and a mother-of-two, said: "I feel like a 90-year-old woman, unable to walk upstairs. My life has fallen apart.

It is hard to express in words how I felt getting such horrible news. I kept thinking of my son , who would look after him if I was to die?"

The matter was reported to the police in 2003 but Cawley fled to Thailand soon after. Following negotiations between police and his solicitor he was arrested at Manchester airport in January 2007 Defending Mark Stuart said that the 1980s attitude that HIV was contracted through homosexual sex or needle sharing led Cawley to keep quiet about his condition.

Mr Stuart said: "He was extremely immature. He didn't tell anyone. He should have told her. He was in love with her, this was not a case of him using and abusing her.”

Cawley, who now lives in Crewe with his Thai wife of seven years, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning grievous bodily harm in October 2008.

Judge Andrew Woolman said he had found it a difficult sentencing.

Jailing Cawley for 12 months, he said: "You started off as a victim, then you created two more in the course of your selfish activities, which were highly reckless.

“You were the victim of both haemophilia and from the misfortune of being given infected blood, but at no stage during that relationship did you discuss you were HIV positive.

"When you resumed that relationship you once again had the opportunity to tell her of your position."

He added: "You have effectively infected two people with the HIV virus, both have developed AIDS.

"The consequences have been devastating, both physically and psychologically.

"It is a tragedy that I have to be sentencing you at all and I cannot restore back your health.

“I have come to the conclusion that where a person puts their own needs before those of others there has to be some measure of punishment."

Speaking after sentencing, officer in the case, DC Paul Harwood said he was satisfied with the sentence.

He said: “The sentence given can never take into account the effects Cawley’s actions have had on the victims involved.

"His callous behaviour in concealing his HIV has changed their lives forever and I can only hope that they can now derive some satisfaction that Cawley has been held accountable for his actions.”