Can you really sleepwalk into crime?

As a man is cleared of sexual assault because he was asleep, an unsettling question... Can you really sleepwalk into crime?

By Marcus Dunk
Last updated at 3:14 AM on 02nd January 2009


35-year-old Alan Ball, who has been cleared of sexual assault after he kissed an underage girl on the lips while sleeping

Just over a year ago, Alan Ball went to a New Year's Eve house party, drank heavily and fell asleep on a sofa.

At some point during the night, he got up, went upstairs and climbed into bed with an under-age girl, whom he kissed on the lips.

After a year in which this lorry-driving father lost his job and was able to see his five-year-old daughter only during supervised visits, a judge at Preston Crown Court this week cleared him of sexual assault after the 35-year-old claimed he was sleepwalking at the time of the incident and had no memory of the events.

After being examined by two experts, the Crown Prosecution Service and the girl's family decided not to offer evidence against Ball.

'He has a history of sleepwalking typical of that type of behaviour of not knowing what he was doing,' said Fiorella Brereton, prosecuting.

'Sleepwalking is also within the family. The evidence leads our experts to the opinion he had no intention of abuse.'

As much as this judgment will come as a relief to Ball, it may be welcomed less by the police and the courts which have seen a steady increase in the use of sleepwalking as a defence.

Faced with the difficult task of distinguishing legitimate sleepwalkers from those using it as an excuse for their behaviour, the police and the courts are quickly having to come to terms with the complexities of this condition.

While once seen as an eccentric and harmless activity, sleepwalking is rapidly taking on an altogether more sinister aspect.

'I think it is clear that alongside most legitimate cases, there are some who are using it as a convenient excuse,' says one of the country's leading experts on sleepwalking, who cannot be named because of his involvement as an expert in a number of ongoing criminal cases.

'As the condition gets more coverage in the media, people are going to latch on to it as an excuse for crimes. Anybody can Google it on the internet and get the basics fairly easily.

'The problem is then how you make the distinction between legitimate cases and those who are faking it. That can be tricky.'

The basics of sleepwalking are clear: sleepwalking, or somnambulism, is a sleep disorder wherein the sufferer indulges in a range of behaviours or activities while they are asleep or in a sleep-like state.

This can range from simple behaviour, such as talking, sitting up in bed or getting dressed, through to driving or, in the case of a woman last year, sending emails inviting friends to dinner.

In even rarer cases, sexual assaults, violence and even murder have occurred.

It is estimated that 7 to 8 per cent of people sleepwalk when they are children, but that proportion falls to fewer than 1per cent in adulthood, with the majority of sufferers male.

In general, most incidents of sleepwalking occur during 'slow wave sleep' (SWS), when sleep is at its deepest. Children spend up to 80 per cent of their sleep in SWS, while this percentage drops off for adults; hence more children sleepwalk than adults.

While most occurrences of sleepwalking last only a few minutes and prove harmless to the sufferer and those around them, incidents have occurred which have proved more dangerous.

'When a person is moving around while in this state, they are not awake and are navigating by memory,' says Professor Jim Horne of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University. 'When they're at home that is usually fine, but it can cause trouble when somebody is in a hotel or in a new environment.'


Presenter Natalie Pinkham regularly sleepwalks and finds the experience highly embarrassing

Such was the case in 2007, when a 17-year-old German teenager climbed out of the fourth-floor window of an apartment he had just moved into with his sister in the town of Demmin.

After falling ten metres to the ground and breaking an arm and a leg, he continued to sleep on the pavement until he was found by police. No drugs or alcohol were involved, but the young man had a history of sleepwalking.

In 2005, a 15-year-old South London girl was found asleep on the arm of a 130ft crane on a building site. The girl had sleepwalked from her home near the site, climbed the crane and walked across a beam before lying down and continuing to sleep.

Afraid to wake her in case she panicked and fell from her precarious position, the firefighter who climbed the crane found the girl's mobile, phoned her parents, and had them call the girl to wake her.

While these two incidents involved teenagers, some people find themselves in such situations well into adult life.

TV presenter Natalie Pinkham, 29, regularly finds herself in embarrassing situations because of her sleepwalking. 'The worst time was when I was 24 years old and had been with my dad to watch Manchester United against Real Madrid at Old Trafford,' she says.

'I woke to find myself crawling down the corridor on all fours wearing very little. I had to walk sheepishly through reception, stretching my thin cotton nightshirt over my bum, all to cheers of drunken football fans.'

There is a consensus that family history plays an important part in sleepwalking in adulthood.

'It's clear that it has a lot to do with having a hereditary disposition,' says Professor Horne.

'There are also triggers that set off an incident - such as stress, lack of sleep, and possibly alcohol, although that has become the focus of a lot of debate.

'The difficulty and controversy occur when people have committed criminal acts while in a fugue state. Are they aware of what they're doing? Are they responsible for it? It is a fraught area.'


Jules Lowe, who was convicted of 'insane automatism' after killing his father while asleep

Fraught indeed. A number of high-profile cases have caused outrage after defendants who have claimed the sleepwalking defence have been acquitted.

In 2005, 32-year-old Manchester man Jules Lowe was acquitted of the brutal murder of his 82-year-old father Eddie in 2003 after claiming that he was asleep and had no recollection of the incident.

Lowe had a history of sleepwalking, had drunk alcohol and was grieving for his stepmother when he killed his father.

Pleading 'automatism' - the legal definition of acting involuntarily - Lowe was found not guilty on the basis of insane automatism and confined indefinitely to a mental institution.

The most notorious case occurred in Canada in 1988, when 23-year-old Toronto man Kenneth Parks was acquitted of murder and attempted murder of his parentsin-law.

In the early hours of May 23, 1987, he drove 15 miles to their house, broke in, assaulted his father-in-law and stabbed his mother-in-law to death.

Parks, a 'gentle giant' with gambling debts, claimed he was asleep the whole time and was not aware of what he was doing. 'There are definitely some suspicious claims,' says the anonymous expert. 'But it is possible to do some very complicated things while sleepwalking. People even make meals and wonder why they are putting on weight.

'In certain cases, primitive urges are unlocked, which is why you have incidents of inappropriate sexual behaviour and violence.'

For other experts, however, doubts remains over how conscious people are while in this state. 'I do not think it is possible to do complex actions while asleep,' says Professor Horne.

'The question is how responsible for their actions are these individuals. Are they aware of what they're doing? How do you prove or disprove this? It is very difficult.

'Take the issue of alcohol. If it is a trigger for these actions, then if a person has a history of these incidents and decides to drink, should they be held responsible?

'I really don't know the answers to these questions, and I suspect a lot of the experts who get involved in these criminal cases don't either. It really is anybody's guess.'

With more individuals charged with crimes choosing to mount their defence based on sleepwalking, it is clear, however, that these questions are not going to go away.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1103991/As-man-cleared-sexual-assault-asleep-unsettling-question--Can-really-sleepwalk-crime.html