An Ontario man infected with hepatitis B who had unprotected sex with two P.E.I. women without telling them about the transmittable disease was sentenced to one year in jail Wednesday after pleading guilty to sexual assault and sexual assault causing bodily harm.

Darral James O'Regan, 58, was sentenced in a Summerside court. He admitted having sex with the two women without disclosing that he had a serious medical condition. One of the women has since contracted hepatitis B.

O'Regan was also given three years probation, and his name will be recorded on Canada’s sex offender registry for the next 20 years.

"It's difficult to say why he didn't tell [the women]," P.E.I. Supreme Court Justice Gordon Campbell said. "The illness could have been prevented."

O'Regan was arrested in Hamilton, Ont., in August 2008 and returned to P.E.I.

"The worst thing that could ever happen to me was to hurt someone," O' Regan told the judge before his sentence was handed down. "I'm very sorry for hurting that woman. I'm very, very sorry."

The court heard that O'Regan contracted hepatitis B in the early 1970s while working as a plumber. He had sex with the two women between 2003 and 2006.

The RCMP began an investigation into the case in June 2007 after receiving a complaint from one of the women. They later identified the second P.E.I. woman with whom O'Regan had sex during that time, also without disclosing his condition.

O'Regan was living on Prince Edward Island at the time. He has since moved to Ontario.

Laws should change

Outside court, defence lawyer Trish Cheverie said this case shows that the laws in Canada need to be reviewed.

"Where do you draw the line with respect to public policy and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases? You know, are we now going to start prosecuting everybody who's transmitted hepatitis B either knowingly, recklessly or intentionally?" she said.

"What about the prosecution of other sexually transmitted diseases? Where does it stop and who draws those lines."

Cheverie said O’Regan feels badly for the women involved in this case.

"He also has to live with the fact that he had a great deal of respect for these women, and he's hurt one of them quite seriously," she said.

The hepatitis B virus attacks the liver, causing liver inflammation, vomiting, jaundice and sometimes death. Chronic hepatitis B can eventually cause liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.