Insanity vs Automatism. TEST Question.

The night after returning home after a long air flight, Andrew’s sleep is disturbed by the sound of a couple having enthusiastic intercourse next door. Although still sleeping, Andrew, who has no history of sleepwalking, gets out of bed and enters his flatmate Bella’s bedroom. Bella screams upon seeing him and tries to push him out of the door. Andrew pushes Bella on to the bed and has intercourse with her. Minutes later he awakes with no recollection of the intercourse.

Discuss any criminal offences which may have been committed by Andrew and any defenses which may be available thereto.

Possible answer.

There are two possible offences that Andrew may have committed. Assault contrary to Section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act of 1988 and Rape contrary to the Section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Although the scenario does not indicate whether or not Bella consented to the intercourse, one is left to infer that because of Bella's earlier resistance to Andrew's entry into her room the possibility of rape is worthy of mention. He did assault her by pushing her on the bed and also causing her to to fear that she would have  been assaulted when he entered the bedroom. However, Andrew might be tempted to raise the defense of automatism  based on what Lord denning said in Bratty 1961,

  "No act is punishable if it is done involuntarily: and an involuntary act in this context - some people nowadays prefer to speak of it as 'automatism' - means an act which is done … whilst suffering from concussion or whilst sleepwalking" 
Lord Denning's words have definitely created a stir in establishing whether or not simple automatism can be used as a defense to sleep walking. This has been very difficult to establish in practice.

The insanity test under the Mcnaghten Rule dictates that if "at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong " then this person would be be rendered a special verdict of "not guilty by reason of insanity"  

Andrew had been on a long flight which placed a considerable amount of stress on his body or result in desynchronosis, a condition informally known as "Jet lagged". In R v Quick where it was found that the insulin cause the hypoglycemia the defendant was acquitted. This external trigger brought about his internal condition and thus should not be considered insane. For non-insane automatism one must have had an external trigger. While some may be tempted to call jet lagged an external trigger it causes stress on the body. in Rabey it was said "Any malfunctioning of the mind or mental disorder having its source primarily in some subjective condition or weakness internal to the accused (whether fully understood or not) may be a 'disease of the mind' if it prevents the accused from knowing what he is doing, but transient disturbances of consciousness due to certain specific external factors do not fall within the concept of disease of the mind . . . In my view, the ordinary stresses and disappointments of life which are the common lot of mankind do not constitute an external cause constituting an explanation for a malfunctioning of the mind which takes it out of the category of a 'disease of the mind.' To hold otherwise would deprive the concept of an external factor of any real meaning." Thus there is little case law to support that a sleepwalking condition would result in outright acquittal. In Burgess 1987 the defendant was sleepwalking when he hit his friend with a video recorder. He received a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity and that's most likely the verdict that Andrew would receive. 

Breaking the causal sequence Part 2 of the Causation

When will the causal sequence not break or be transferred?: Courts used to be very rigid with respect to victims, who, as a result of fear of an attack, or as a reflexive response to an assault,  end up suffering harm. In the case of a woman who, in an effort to flee from her attempted rapist runs into the road frantically, and gets hit by an on-coming vehicle; will the attempted rapist be be said to have "caused" her injury? In Roberts the defendant gave a lift to a young lady who he met at a party. He brought her to a remote location where he made sexual advances. She refused and he subsequently sped off while still attempting to make advances. As a consequence of his advancement she jumped out of the car and suffered  cut, bruises and a concussion. The defendant was convicted of Assault occasioning actual bodily harm under section 47 of OAPA. The Courts in more recent times however are placing the a requirement of "reasonably foreseeable risk of some serious Harm. If the victims acts negligently subsequent to a defendants wrongful act unless that act

In cases where the victim acts in a manner that is so daft or disproportionate then it would not be considered reasonably foreseeable by nature thus that disproportionate action will be considered to have broken the chain of causation. There are other ways in which the chain of causation will be said to have been broken. If you are punched in the face and break a tooth, you go to the hospital to fix it and find out two weeks later that you're diagnosed with HIV. Should the man who punched you be charged with grievous bodily harm under section 20 of OAPA when it is discovered that you got it from the hospital you visited as a result of the punch which broke your tooth? The answer is no. There are a limited amount of ways HIV can be reasonably expected to  be transmitted. Through punching is not one of them. In R v Jordan (1956) 40 Cr App E 152 the victim was stabbed, however the doctors gave him medication which was directly attributable to the cause of his death which in this case was pneumonia. If peradventure there was any any link between his stab wound and his pneumonia, there may have been a possibility that the causal sequence would not have been broken making him the legal cause of the homicide. So in our previous exapmle where the victim was punched there are no possible connection to HIV thus the medical practitioners mal-practice would have been the legal cause of the HIV.

The "Actus Reus" of a crime. Causation and Consequences

If you are charged with a crime, having a basic understanding of how the prosecution thinks, what they are looking to prove and ultimately what they need to get you convicted, can help you put into perspective your current situation and also help guide you along this journey. In this post we will analyze what we consider a few terms.

1. The difference between a "factual cause" and a "legal Cause"
2. Conduct crimes and Result crimes
3. Intervening events. 

Conduct and Result Crimes. 

A conduct crime is an "actus reus/wrongful act" which does not require proof of harm. For e.g. when someone ignores a red light, they have not yet cause any harm, but have committed a criminal offence. Theft, perjury and possession of drugs and firearms.

Result crimes are crimes whose actus reus" (wrongful act) results in some form of harm coupled with a wrong conduct. Criminal Damage, ABH (Assault occasioning bodily harm), and murder are examples of result crimes. 

Your conduct or omission is considered to be the factual cause of the result if the result of your act or omission would not have occurred "but for" your behavior or lack thereof.

Let's look at an example taken from the study University of London Study Guide. 

D, as a joke, places a wet bar of soap on the floor of V’s bathroom, hoping that V will slip on the soap. V does slip on the soap, hits her head on the floor and is knocked unconscious. Does D cause V’s injury? 

This sounds like a Section 47 OAPA offence Assault Occasioning Bodily harm. If D was charged with a section 47 offence He would need to prove that he did not intentionally or recklessly cause Vs injury, however as you can probably deduce, would V have suffered his injuries had the soap not been intentionally placed there by the defendant? The defendant might want to argue that he did not intend to cause her to hit her head and faint but only intended for her to step on the soap. the prosecution might suggest however that falling, and also possibly injuring was reasonably foreseeable and thus d should be held liable for Vs injuries. 

In the above example D is thus the factual cause since the V would most probably not fallen and hit her head had the bar of soap not been placed there. 

Lets alter the example as in teh study guide 

"As above except that V dies because her skull was unusually thin. Does D cause V’s death?"

Does D cause V's death. The answer to this question will determine whether or not V is charge with manslaughter. He probably should not be charged for Murder since he would need to have malice aforethought. This could have been implied or expressed malice. Meaning he must have had an intention to cause GBH (implied malice) or intend to kill (Express malice). It will be difficult for the prosecution to prove that D intended to kill V when he chose to place the bar of soap there. However the prosecution might want to charge him with manslaughter since V did die. Can V be considered to be the legal cause. The answer is YES!. The eggshell Skull rule here is applicable. Death was precipitated by the thin skull of the victim, it was still the placing of the bar of soap which initiated the causal sequence, its also the cause of the fall, and the subsequent hitting of the head. Thus Defendant can be convicted of gross negligence manslaughter. 

I will be posting about breaking the causal sequence in part 2. Hope you learnt something new.