The Liberal Democrat candidate for Vauxhall, South London, has admitted to making a pornographic “wrestling” film, taking an “a to z of drugs” and deliberately getting himself infected with HIV. Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett, 36, claimed his erratic behaviour was as a result of bullying at school and depression later in life.

Mr Hyyrylainen-Trett made the claims in an interview for BuzzFeed after deciding to publicly acknowledge he is HIV+. He explains that after being bullied at school he moved to London and met men online for drug-fuelled sex sessions that could last days.

At one stage he got into the “gay wrestling scene” BuzzFeed say that he “would arrange throw-around sessions that sometimes led further.” In the end he was persuaded to make a pornographic film about wrestling by a man he hoped to enter into a relationship with.

Mr Hyyrylainen-Trett said: “I was hoping to please him enough so he’d want to be my boyfriend. I was going from one person to another trying to find someone to love me.

“Sometimes I’d find older people who I thought might look after me, or protect me, knowing that mentally I could quite easily go down the drain. I ended up doing all this because I was so lonely and my self-esteem was so low.”

He says that in the end he wanted to kill himself at a notorious suicide spot but “I thought, What’s another way of doing it? Even though I knew people were surviving from HIV, I thought, Perhaps if I can make myself so ill, get the worst strain possible, that would be one way of getting rid of myself.”

Once infected Hyyrylainen-Trett discovered he caught a strain of HIV that was resistant to most of the common treatments as the man who gave it to him did not take his medication regularly. This means the drugs he is using now are his only option. If the HIV becomes resistant to them he has no other options.

The story has led to a flood of support from the gay community. Sir Elton John issued a statement which read: “Elton John and David Furnish applaud Adrian Trett for his courage and bravery in publicly acknowledging his HIV+ status… He is a fine example that HIV+ people live robust, happy and productive lives. We wish him all the best.”

Mr Hyyrylainen-Trett is the first openly HIV+ parliamentary candidate, although he does claim to know MPs who have the disease.