“I was sleepwalking,” a public student, wearing just his boxing shorts, was heard saying after brutally attacking two fellow students and a householder.
Henry Roffe-Silvester, a teacher at the exclusive boarding school, was woken in the middle of the night by footsteps coming from the dormitory above.
He went to investigate, and as he opened the door to the pitch-black room, he saw the silhouette of a figure who turned around and hit him in the head with a hammer.
“I stumbled backwards in the hallway,” Roffe-Silvester said during her attacker’s two-month trial. “There was a second hit – I don’t remember if it was before I stumbled back – that’s a bit confusing to me.”
He suffered six blows to the head before he managed to wrestle the gun away from the boy he now recognized as one of his students, who “fell” in a crouch and was heard saying, “I was dreaming.”
When paramedics arrived at Blundell School in Taunton, Devon, they found “carnage” like “a scene from a horror film” with blood on desks, walls and cabin-style beds.
There was no doubt that the boy, then 16, caused the “terrible injuries” to the homeowner and two roommates – both boys suffered skull fractures, as well as injuries to their ribs, spleen, punctured lung and hemorrhage. internal.
‘Zombie apocalypse’
He told a jury at Exeter Crown Court he kept hammers by his bed for “protection” from the “zombie apocalypse” or the end of the world.
He remembered going to sleep on June 8 last year, he said, and the next thing he remembered was being in the room “covered in blood.”
“I knew something really bad had happened and everyone was looking at me,” he said.
“I didn’t remember doing anything, so the only rational thing I thought was that I was sleepwalking.”
Prosecutors said he armed himself with three hammers and waited for his victims to fall asleep before attacking them.
But his lawyer, Kerim Fuad KC, said he must have been “sleepwalking to have committed these extraordinary acts” – meaning he would not be guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity.
The history of the defense of sleepwalking
The idea that acts of violence can be committed by sleepwalkers is not new – since the 14th century, the Catholic Church has recognized the idea that sleepwalkers should not be held responsible for killing or injuring someone.
The first English case is believed to be the trial of Colonel Culpeper at the Old Bailey in 1686, who was said to have shot a guard and his horse in a dream. He was convicted of manslaughter while insane, but was pardoned a few weeks later.
More incidents came to light in the Victorian era, when scientists began to study the mind, among them the famous case of Simon Fraser, a well-known sleepwalker, from Glasgow.
Believing he was saving his family from a beast that had blown up the floor, he killed his 18-month-old son by throwing him against a wall. He was cleared, but the judge told him to sleep alone in a locked room for the rest of his life.
Jules Lowe has been cleared of his father’s murder. Photo: PA
More recently, in 2005, Jules Lowe was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and made subject to a hospital order after claiming he was sleepwalking when he beat his father to death at the family home in Walkden, Greater Manchester, after drinking . session.
Three years later, father-of-two Brian Thomas strangled his wife Christine while they were on holiday in west Wales, believing an intruder had broken into their caravan.
It has been suggested that the nightmare was triggered by a previous incident when they were disturbed by young people spinning in the car park.
Thomas was described as a “decent man and a devoted husband” by the judge after being cleared of murder when prosecutors dropped the case.
The defense against sleepwalking is rare – according to sleep expert Dr Neil Stanley, who was not involved in Blundell’s case, and told Sky News it has been used successfully just 200 times in the English-speaking world.
Sexsomnia
But it has become increasingly common over the last 30 years, says Dr John Rumbold, a professor at Nottingham Law School, who told Sky News there is a growing number of sleep experts and greater awareness among lawyers.
In the past, reported cases most often involved violence, he says, but now about 80% to 90% of cases involve sexsomnia, an extreme variant of sleepwalking, which can lead people to engage in sexual activity while unconscious.
“Often it’s drunk young men” who are accused of rape or other sexual crimes, he says. “They really have no other defense and they are quite complex actions.”
Dr Stanley believes some guilty people have used the defense successfully in the past and says there is a lack of knowledge on the subject among judges, lawyers and juries.
He says that, in theory, he could use his experience to tell someone how to behave and what to say to convince a court that he was a real sleepwalker.
‘Get out of prison card’
Some see it as “a get-out-of-jail-free card,” he says, but adds that “people, in their sleep, can kill, they can rape, they can assault – sexually or physically.”
Lawyer Ramya Nagesh, who has written a book on sleepwalking and other defenses against sleepwalking, told Sky News that just because it is being used more “doesn’t mean it is being used in bad faith, because you need to have an expert opinion “.
She thinks there should be a change in the law to allow a verdict of not guilty by reason of a medical condition to cover cases involving sleepwalking, epileptic seizures and hypoglycaemia.
“Automaticism is a total absolution – it seems a bit strange to say we’re going to excuse them, but they can go out and do it again,” she says.
“They don’t deserve to go to prison and wouldn’t benefit from a hospital order, so this would give judges a bit more power.”
Blundell School, Tiverton, Devon
The public student, now 17, who cannot be identified due to his age, was found guilty of three counts of attempted murder after a jury deliberated for 40 hours and will be sentenced in October.
His relatives told the jury there was a history of sleepwalking in the family and he said his mother found him at the bottom of a staircase in their home about a decade ago.
A ‘textbook example’?
After the attacks, the teenager told a student he was watching horror films, while others heard him say: “I’m sorry, I was dreaming.”
At his trial, forensic sleep expert Dr. Mark Pressman, who has decades of experience in the field, seen 20,000 patients and more than 100 cases of sleepwalking violence, was called as a witness.
He described the case in court as a “classic example”, explaining that sleepwalkers can fear for their lives and “respond with violence to protect themselves on a very primal level”.
“The defendant turned and attacked his owner without knowing who he was,” he said. He didn’t know he had attacked the owner of the house.”
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But another expert, Dr John O’Reilly, told the court he did not believe the boy was asleep, as a sleepwalker does not initiate violence because it is triggered by noise or touch.
Prosecutors said he was awake shortly before the attacks, and an examination of his iPad showed he listened to music on Spotify and was fascinated by serial killers.
‘Lucky to still be alive’
In his room, he kept a locked stash of what other students described as “weapons,” including shards of broken glass, screwdrivers and various hammers.
Police discovered he had done Internet searches for “violent killers,” “school massacres,” “hammer murder” and “murderer kills in his sleep.”
He had sent alarming messages to one of his victims in the months before the attack – including a character from the horror film Texas Chainsaw Massacre wielding a hammer.
“These violent actions were repeated countless times,” said prosecutor James Dawes KC, and there was “no other explanation for his actions other than his intention to kill them.”
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After their conviction, prosecutor Helen Phillips said the two boys were “lucky to still be alive”.
“The boy, who had a macabre interest in murder, serial killers and violence, showed no remorse and naively thought that by making up a story about sleepwalking at the time of the attack he could escape punishment,” she added.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
