The first man to be found guilty of intentionally infecting people with HIV in the United Kingdom was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday.

Daryll Rowe, who must serve a minimum of 12 years in prison before he can be considered for release, was originally convicted in November for attempting to infect 10 men with HIV between October 2015 and December 2016. He succeeded in infecting five, after having intimidated some of his victims into having condomless sex with him or tampering with the condoms they used during sex.

“Many of those men were young men in their 20s at the time they had the misfortune to meet you,” the judge, Christine Henson, told Rowe during his sentencing hearing. “Given the facts of this case and your permissive, predatory behaviour, I cannot see when you would no longer be a danger to gay men. In my judgment, the offences, taken together, are so serious that a life sentence is justified.”

Rowe’s lawyers had asked Henson to give Rowe a lighter sentence, which they argued would help lighten the stigma that that people living with an HIV diagnosis face. Henson, however, disagreed with their logic, explaining that Rowe’s case had nothing to do with such stigma.

“This sentencing exercise is not about stigmatizing those with an HIV diagnosis,” she said, “nor should it detract from that medical progress that has been made since the 1980s regarding the treatment of those with HIV."

Prosecutors were able to prove that Rowe, a 27-year-old hairdresser, sought to intentionally infect the men thanks in part to mocking messages he sent to some of his victims, writing, “I have HIV LOL. Whoops!” and “Maybe you have the fever.”

“Darryl has destroyed my life,” one of Rowe’s victims wrote in a statement, which prosecutors read before his sentencing, according to the BBC. “I would rather he had murdered me than left me to live my life like this."

Another man Rowe infected, who told Buzzfeed News in November that his parents are HIV-positive and that he’d spent his life trying to avoid the virus, was equally unforgiving.

“He made a decision, but he’s not going to change my life,” the man said of Rowe. “I’m going to continue my life. I’m not going to be a victim. I’ve never been a victim. I come from a shit childhood, what I had to go through to let some little twat think he’s changed my life? No.”