HIV/AIDS: Ridiculous Responses to AIDS. No. 1
From The Daily Mirror (UK), 8th February 1985:
Panic in court as man in dock admits: I have AIDS
A court was cleared in a 30-second stampede yesterday after the prisoner in the dock told the judge: ‘I have AIDS’.
Even the judge ran from the Brussels courtroom. Police shouted from the doorway to tell the prisoner, a Moroccan accused of bomb hoaxes, to make his own way to the prison van.
When he arrived at the jail warders refused to admit him and demanded medical tests for themselves and all the inmates.
Last night the accused man, a homosexual heroin addict, was in quarantine in hospital…and the case against him was adjourned.
This is an example that made me (16 at the time) and my peers all feel vulnerable and confused. It all seemed incredible, almost cartoon like. The ‘gay plague’ was it real? Or was it a media gay bashing? It was both. Kelvin McKenzie and co – you Bastards