A teacher who repeatedly lied about not having a sexually transmitted disease has changed a woman's life forever after knowingly giving her genital herpes. Daniel Marriott, 21 at the time of the offence, was handed a one-year-and-one-month intensive correction order by the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday, May 6.
Marriott had previously pleaded guilty to recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm. Appearing via video link, acting Justice Paul Slattery said Marriott had "put your own sexual desires above the safety and wellbeing of the victim." The judge noted this was the first time in Australia the courts had "grappled" with such a crime.
Marriott, a teacher, has been suspended without pay from his job and is likely to lose his employment. He was diagnosed with HSV2, also known as genital herpes, in 2020. In 2023, he arranged to meet the victim at her apartment for sex. Before their first sexual encounter in February 2023, the victim asked when he was last checked for sexually transmitted infections. Marriott responded that he was "clear" despite knowing he had the disease.
The pair had unprotected sex multiple times. By March 2023, the victim began experiencing symptoms and tested positive for genital herpes. When she messaged him again asking when he had last been checked, he continued to lie. Marriott only told the truth after the woman confronted him via Messenger, asking: "You gave me herpes, didn't you?" In what the judge described as a "quite feeble" response, Marriott replied: "Oh yeah, I didn't think you'd get it though."
In April, the victim sent further messages detailing the emotional and physical impacts of knowingly being given the incurable disease. "I feel disgusting, I feel betrayed. I don't know what to do. You have changed my life forever and for what? For a quick f---," she said. "I now have to tell every person I want to be with."
Marriott later told the woman he lied because she was "the most attractive person I've been with [and] ... I didn't want to risk us not having sex because of it." He also said: "It's not that bad, like, you don't need to worry, I've learned to live with it."
Additionally, Marriott exposed a previous partner to the risk of contracting the disease and knowingly gave the woman chlamydia. He has not been charged in relation to that. On Wednesday, Justice Slattery said the victim "will suffer diverse, ongoing health issues for the rest of her life." He found that while Marriott was remorseful, it was "at best at least partially based" on regret due to the legal consequences of his actions.
