A hairdresser has been jailed for life after he deliberately infected men with HIV after meeting them on a mobile phone dating app.

Daryll Rowe was found guilty of causing GBH to five men and attempting to cause GBH to another five men after meeting them on the gay dating app Grindr.

But now the 27-year-old has been jailed by Judge Christine Henson QC, who said he was a danger to the public and told he has to serve a minimum of 12 years. 

The judge said he waged a "determined, hateful campaign of sly violence." 

Rowe was originally diagnosed with HIV in April 2015, and moved to Brighton in October of the same year.

He then embarked on a deliberate campaign to infect other men, and denied ever having either unprotected sex, or tampering with condoms.

Later, he claimed he thought he was cured and denied ever telling his victims he was clear of the virus.

But Rowe, formerly from Edinburgh, was first questioned by the police in February 2016 after sexual health clinic staff received similar descriptions of a man the victims had had sex with.

He was released on bail until April 2016, while health officials published a warning for people to come forward if they had sex with “a man in his 20s with a Scottish accent”.

Another victim came forward, and Rowe was rearrested in Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumbria, where it was revealed he had lied about his HIV status.

Then in November 2016 he went on the run, with police in Sussex and Northumbria launching a man hunt to catch him. He was found in Wallsend in Tyneside, where he had a rucksack containing condoms which had been tampered with.

He was charged in December 2016, and by October 2017 he faced trial for offences against 10 men. After a six week trial he was found guilty in November.

Detective Inspector Andy Wolstenholme, of Sussex Police, who branded Rowe a "dangerous man", said the charges and conviction were the first of their kind in the country.

The courts were previously told that Rowe had played on the anxiety of his victims when they started to question his HIV status.

Rowe called them over-dramatic and paranoid, but one of the men who had tested negative on the morning he met Rowe, was not involved with anyone until he tested positive for HIV two months later.

Another victim who gave evidence from Australia, described how he had "let his guard down" with Rowe and had been "lulled" into a "false sense of security".

The hairdresser told his first victim in a text: "I have HIV. Lol. Whoops!" after they had sex.

National Aids Trust chief executive Deborah Gold said Rowe's behaviour was "utterly exceptional and vanishingly rare" and the majority of HIV transmissions are by people who are unaware they have the virus.

She said: "It is not surprising that such a case is unprecedented.

"We are all responsible to practise safer sex with new and casual partners, and as and when appropriate discuss honestly with them how to remain as healthy as possible in our sex lives."