![\"Generic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0f67b625cbbd03430e51b7bd8e081d07.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA Canberra man who knowingly exposed a woman to genital herpes has been spared time behind bars, with a judge finding he put his own sexual desires above the safety of the victim.<\/p>\n
Daniel Marriott was sentenced in the ACT Supreme Court after pleading guilty to recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm.<\/p>\n
The court heard Marriott had contracted HSV-2, commonly known as genital herpes, in 2020, before he began a sexual relationship with the woman in early 2023.<\/p>\n
Before they first had sex, the woman asked Marriott when he had last been checked for sexually transmitted infections (STIs).<\/p>\n
The court heard he told her he was clear, despite knowing that was not true and he was infected with genital herpes.<\/p>\n
The pair went on to have unprotected sex several more times, when the woman later began experiencing flu-like symptoms and sores.<\/p>\n
‘Didn’t want to tell you’<\/p>\n
The woman was later diagnosed with HSV-2 after attending the Canberra Sexual Health Centre.<\/p>\n
When she confronted Marriott, telling him he had given her herpes, he replied, “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d get it though”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You’re the most attractive person I’ve been with. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to risk us not having sex,” he later said in a message to the woman.<\/p>\n
He also told her he had contracted it in 2020 and “you don’t have to worry, it’s not that bad, I live with it”.<\/p>\n
The victim told him she felt “disgusted” and “betrayed”, and said he had changed her life forever.<\/p>\n
“This changes everything. I have to tell every person I want to be with. As you said, people don’t want to be with you when you have it,” she said to Marriott.<\/p>\n
The court heard the infection was incurable and carried both ongoing health impacts and social stigma.<\/p>\n
According to NSW Health, one in eight sexually active Australian adults has genital herpes, making it one of the country’s most common STIs.<\/p>\n
Health authorities say it can still be passed on even when a person has no visible sores or symptoms, because the virus can be shed from the skin without an active outbreak.<\/p>\n
“The statistics are extraordinarily high. You’re not responsible for that, but your actions contribute,” Acting Justice Michael Slattery said.<\/p>\n
During sentencing, Acting Justice Michael Slattery rejected the suggestion Marriott’s conduct was “impulsive”, saying he had multiple opportunities to disclose his infection, and said he put his own sexual desires above the safety and wellbeing of the woman.<\/p>\n
“The victim will suffer diverse ongoing health issues for the rest of her life,” he said.<\/p>\n
“You lied to the victim on multiple occasions, and your response was ‘Oh yeah, I didn’t think you’d get it.'”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Genital herpes is one of Australia’s most common STIs. (ABC News: Andrew Whitington)<\/p>\n
Offender ‘partially’ remorseful<\/p>\n
Marriott’s lawyers argued that Mariott, who was 21 at the time, was of the belief he would not infect the woman, because at the time he had no lesions.<\/p>\n
They said he also “genuinely formed the mistaken belief” he was not legally required to disclose herpes to sexual partners, after reading a sexual health pamphlet given to him when he was diagnosed.<\/p>\n
But Acting Justice Slattery said the pamphlet also contained information about transmission and prevention, and Marriott had knowingly lied when directly asked about STIs.<\/p>\n
“You were asked about STIs, and you knowingly lied,” he said.<\/p>\n
While in a letter to the court Marriott said he was remorseful and sorry for the impact on the victim, Acting Justice Slattery found his remorse seemed “at best partially” tied to the regret of the consequences he had suffered.<\/p>\n
He also noted his work as a teacher had been seriously affected, with Marriott suspended without pay and unlikely to return to the profession.<\/p>\n
Marriott was sentenced to one year and one month in jail, which he will serve in the community on an intensive correction order.<\/p>\n
Acting Justice Slattery said it was one of the first times Australian courts had “grappled” with this crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Canberra man who knowingly exposed a woman to genital herpes has been spared time behind bars, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2666,25718,64,63,2667,316031,137,50996,316033,28496,316032],"class_list":["post-653613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-act","tag-act-supreme-court","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canberra","tag-daniel-marriott","tag-health","tag-herpes","tag-hsv-2","tag-sti","tag-unprotected-sex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}