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Sarah Watson had fallen deeply in love with her handsome boyfriend.

She had planned a long and happy future with the “gentle giant” who showered her and her two children with affection.

But a knock on her door one day changed her life forever. Because ­Ghanaian Henry Assumang had been hiding a terrifying secret.

And Sarah sat horrified in her front room as a policeman broke the chilling news that the ­warehouse worker had been HIV positive for years.

The following day she was tested for the virus. Her worst fears were confirmed and her condition was so advanced she would have been dead in six months if she had not been diagnosed.

“Henry seemed like such a gentle giant,” weeps Sarah. “But now I know he was ­really a monster. Now I know all that time he was with me, he was looking at my children knowing he was killing me from the inside.”

“How could he do this to me? Why would he do this to me knowing my children, who grew to love him, could be left without a mum?”

But those questions can never be answered.

Assumang was charged with GBH in that he recklessly transmitted HIV to Sarah and another woman he infected.

But he never faced justice for destroying their lives. Assumang died of an AIDS-related illness earlier this month.

Now Sarah, 38, is left facing a chilling future, crying day after day as she replays his betrayal.

She met him in 2007, as she recovered from a failed relationship with her children’s father.

Within months, he was a solid part of her and her nine-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son’s lives.

Sarah says: “I found him really ­attractive, a real gentleman. He was always very smart and clean. He was polite, loving and caring and made me feel like I was his little diamond.

“He used to cook African meals and took me out for dinner. He was great with the children and it was all that I wanted. I thought he would look after me and the kids and protect us.

“My relationship with Henry was only the second long-term one I’d had in my life. He was loving and caring and I fell for him completely.

“The kids got on really well with him too and even today my daughter thinks the world of him. She is too young to understand what has happened.”

(Image: PA)

But two years later, she saw a different side to the man when out of the blue Henry asked her to travel to Ghana on her own for a sham marriage to ­another man pretending to be him.

Sarah didn’t realise Henry couldn’t leave the country because he was here illegally but the marriage would allow him to stay.

Stunned Sarah said: “He’d always told me he moved to the UK legally to provide for his family back home in Ghana and that he had a job in a supermarket.

“He wouldn’t admit he was here illegally and I broke down. I said no to the marriage and things went wrong from there. At that point I had no idea what he had done to me.”

Former shop worker Sarah and ­Assamung split. Then in August 2010 his horrific secret came to light as she opened the door to detectives.

“I was absolutely petrified as I knew we had unprotected sex,” she says.

She endured a sleepless night and an agonising four-hour wait the next day to find out if she was infected too.

“The HIV consultant said the virus had taken over my immune system,” she revealed.

“I was given medication straight away. When I asked if I was going to die they said if it hadn’t been caught in time, I’d have had six months to live.

“Then I had the trauma of having my children tested. Fortunately the result was negative.

"The police told me Henry had been diagnosed in 2006 so he willingly did what he did to me.

"He must have been taking medication when we were going out together. We didn’t live together and I never saw any evidence of it.”

Assumang, 35, was charged with GBH against Sarah and a second victim but was released on tag.

Incredibly, he then went on to have another relationship and a child with someone else. Sarah was alarmed when she bumped into him at a store a few weeks after he was given bail.

“I told him he was in the wrong for what he had done to me and that I would fight him to the end,” she recalls.

Assumang battled to escape justice. He denied GBH and his trial was delayed four times as he sacked lawyers.

He ­refused to accept the damning medical evidence his HIV was genetically ­identical to Sarah’s – even employing experts from America to support his defence.

Sarah, of Basingstoke, Hants, said: “He should have been charged with ­attempted murder for what he did to me.

"Instead he was bailed and allowed to live free for 20 months. I wanted him to be given a life sentence because that’s what he’s given me.

"When they charged him I wanted police to deny him medication and let his body deteriorate the way mine has over the last few years.

“I wanted him to feel what I felt, and then be deported. Yet our British legal system gave him 20 months to go around and do this to other girls.

"There could be girls out there he had a one-night stand with who could have it now.”

Assumang stopped taking his ­medication and died at Southampton General Hospital on August 5. Sarah only found out when one of his friends posted it online.

She says: “Nobody from the police told me. It made me so angry. I knew he was really ill and I wanted to visit him in hospital and ask him why he did this.

“But I lost that chance. The other girl he infected has just started taking her medication. We try to talk to each other and give each other support.”

Sarah, who is taking anti-depressants, suffers severe muscle spasms from her medication and can no longer work.

She said: “I’ve no immune system so a common cold could take my life.

"When I was with Henry lumps came up on my legs and later the hospital said it was one of the signs of HIV.

"I have check-ups every two months and I’m terrified of what the doctors might find.”

As well as the physical effects Sarah has been abused in the street by people who know she has the condition.

She says: “There has been gossip at my kids’ schools. One little boy wasn’t allowed to come round and play with my son.

“Looking back I believe Henry must have seen me as an easy target, but there was no clue I was being played.”

Sarah has tried to hide her illness from her son but he recently saw ­Assumang in the local paper.

She said: “I sat him down and told him I had an illness that would never go away.

"I just want to live to see my ­children grow up and that is what I hope for each day.”