Stock image.
Camera IconStock image. Credit: Supplied/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Transgender sex worker found guilty of passing on HIV to Perth man

Angie Raphael, AAPEastern Reporter

A TRANSGENDER sex worker has been found guilty of knowingly passing on HIV to a Perth man.

Clayton James Palmer, who identifies as a woman and now goes by the name CJ, has been on trial in the WA District Court accused of causing grievous bodily harm by having unprotected sex with a man who was later diagnosed with HIV.

Palmer cried as the the jury delivered its verdict on Friday.

PerthNow Digital Edition.
Your local paper, whenever you want it.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

During the trial, the court heard Palmer visited the WA Substance Users Association in August 2014 to get tested for sexually transmitted infections but claimed it was never communicated to her that she had tested positive.

Prosecutor Ben Stanwix alleged Palmer did not want to face reality, but her lawyer Simon Freitag said she was not criminally negligent because she never knew she had the virus.

Palmer met the victim, who cannot be named, two months after she was told by nurse Joanne Morgan that she had the disease.

She continued to see him until August 2015, telling him she was regularly tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

In September 2015, the victim saw a doctor and was told he had HIV.

Police tracked down Palmer, who had moved to NSW, via online advertisements for her services under the name Sienna Fox.

Palmer will be sentenced at a later date.