Businessman Tells of South African Prison Rape that Left Him HIV Positive
Metro, April 15, 2012
Sean Smith, a business partner of rugby star Gareth Thomas, said he was attacked up to eight times a day during his 19-month stay in St Alban’s jail after his arrest on suspicion of a multi-million-pound fraud.
The 42-year-old, was targeted in a cell he shared with 90 inmates in 2007.
‘They did it not just as part of gang dominance but in my case it was showing supremacy over a white man — I was the only one there,’ he said.
‘It went on for months — there wasn’t much left of me by then anyway . . . I was pretty much a skeleton.’
After nine months in the jail 30km (17 miles) out of Port Elizabeth, Mr Smith tested positive for HIV.
‘At that point I didn’t give a damn, I was broken, I was broken physically, mentally, I had nothing left I had no spirit at all so I didn’t care,’ he added.
After being granted bail, Mr Smith, from Glamorgan, South Wales, hid in the boot of a British High Commission car and crossed into Lesotho.
He has since been diagnosed with a lymphoma on the brain.
The Home Office was ‘unable to say’ if South Africa had made a request for his extradition.
Sean Smith
