Syringe attack victim fears HIV test result

An English tour guide who was stabbed with a syringe and then had blood
squirted from it into her face is terrified she has been made HIVpositive,
the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told yesterday.

Judge Cyril Kelly was told the woman was so sick with anxiety about the
results of her tests that she could not go beyond the front door of the
hospital.

Francis Duffy (20), Bernard Curtis House, Bluebell, Dublin, had used a
woman accomplice to do "his dirty work for him", Det Garda Sean McAvinchey
said.

The tour guide was conducting an Australian group around Dublin on August
30th, 1996, and was walking along Ormond Quay when she was grabbed by
Duffy's accomplice, who shouted that she wanted her bag and that she had
AIDS, he said.

He said that the female accomplice stabbed the tour guide in the hand
during the struggle before squirting blood into her face. She and Duffy
then fled with the woman's handbag and bought heroin with money from it.
Judge Kelly remanded Duffy in custody to November 12th for sentence after
he admitted his role in this crime and a similar offence on the next day.

The judge said he would not sentence Duffy until his alleged accomplice's
case came before the court. This was one of the most serious cases of its
type to date because of the consequences to the victim.

He added that there was also to be considered the huge damage to the
country's most important industry when the story of the stabbing was
broadcast all over the world.