Sleepwalker acquitted

2005-03-19 09:37

London - A British man was cleared Friday of murdering his father after a court accepted his excuse he was sleepwalking at the time, a highly unusual defence seen just a handful of times in the country's legal history.

Jules Lowe, 32, was facing life imprisonment for killing his 83-year-old father Edward in a savage beating at their house in Manchester, northwest England, an attack he did not deny but claimed to have no memory of.

At the start of the case, prosecutors labelled Lowe's defence of sleepwalking "far fetched in the extreme".

However, after hearing expert testimony on the phenomenon, the jury at Manchester Crown Court opted for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Lowe will be sent to a secure hospital for tests.

Described in court as a "quagmire of law", the defence of sleepwalking, officially known as automatism, has only been used in a tiny number of cases in British legal history.

Lowe attacked his father at the family home after a heavy drinking session in October 2003 before going to bed, the court was told.

The next day, the body of his father, which had been punched, kicked and stamped on, was spotted in the driveway and police were called.

Nine months after the attack, Lowe first mentioned a history of sleepwalking to defence lawyers and he was subjected to "the most detailed scientific tests in British legal history", the jury was told.

Prosecutors suggested Lowe had simply got into a drunken brawl with his father and had blanked the killing from his mind, but the jury accepted he was not acting voluntarily due to sleepwalking.

Judge Richard Henriques said the verdict did not mean that Lowe was insane in the usual sense, just that he was subject to "automatism" because of sleepwalking.

Lowe will undergo tests in hospital, after which he will be released under certain conditions, possibly within months.

Police warned later that the publicity surrounding the case might tempt genuine criminals into attempting the same defence.

"It may well be other people accused of serious crime will try to avail themselves of this defence, and each case will have to be judged on its merits," said Detective Chief Inspector Andy Durkin, who investigated Lowe.

- AFP