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District Court 17 March 2017

R v Jacob Bradley Holland

[2017] NSWDC 47

Assault & violenceTheft & property
JUDGE ALONE TRIAL AUTOMATISM DEFENCE SLEEPWALKING

Citation: R v Jacob Bradley Holland [2017] NSWDC 47
Court: District Court of New South Wales
Date: 17 March 2017
Judge(s): Mahony SC DCJ

Background

The accused was charged with breaking and entering residential premises at Coffs Harbour and committing a serious indictable offence, namely assaulting the occupant and causing her actual bodily harm in circumstances of aggravation, contrary to section 112(2) of the Crimes Act 1900. The assault was violent, leaving the victim with significant bruising to her head and face.

The accused elected a judge-alone trial. He pleaded not guilty, raising the defence of automatism on the basis that he was sleepwalking at the time of the offence. He had no prior connection with the victim and was found naked inside her home, which was a short distance from his own.

The Crown case rested primarily on police observations, photographic evidence of the victim's injuries, and the expert evidence of Professor David Greenberg, a forensic psychiatrist. The defence relied on the expert evidence of Dr Jonathon Adams, also a forensic psychiatrist, together with medical records documenting the accused's long history of sleepwalking from early childhood.

Legal Issues

  • Whether the accused's conduct at the time of the offence was voluntary, or whether the defence of automatism by way of somnambulism (sleepwalking) was available to him.
  • Whether the automatism raised was sane automatism or insane automatism, given the internal origin of the accused's parasomnia condition.
  • Whether the Crown had discharged its burden of proving beyond reasonable doubt that the accused's conduct was voluntary, once automatism had been raised as a reasonable possibility on the evidence.

Decision

Issue 1: Elements of the offence

The court found that the Crown proved all elements of the offence beyond reasonable doubt, including the break and enter, the assault, and the occasioning of actual bodily harm in circumstances of aggravation (at [10]). The only outstanding question was whether the accused's conduct was voluntary.

Issue 2: Whether automatism was sufficiently raised on the evidence

The court accepted that an evidentiary presumption of voluntariness applies to any act, but that this presumption is displaced once credible medical evidence raises involuntariness as a reasonable hypothesis (at [86]). The court found the threshold was met here. Factors included the accused's documented childhood history of sleepwalking continuing into adulthood, his habit of sleeping naked, his naked state when found in the victim's home, the proximity of that home to his own, and medical evidence that even low levels of alcohol can trigger sleepwalking episodes in predisposed individuals (at [87], [93]-[94]).

Issue 3: Sane or insane automatism

The court was satisfied that the accused was not suffering a disease of the mind. His parasomnia was characterised as sane (non-insane) automatism (at [87], [98]). Once sane automatism was raised as a reasonable possibility, the burden fell on the Crown to disprove it beyond reasonable doubt (at [89]-[90]).

Issue 4: Whether the Crown discharged the onus

The court found that the Crown had not proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was not sleepwalking at the time of the offence (at [101]). Several findings undermined the Crown's case. Professor Greenberg's opinion that the accused was likely intoxicated by a substance such as crystal methamphetamine was unsupported by any evidence and was contradicted by unchallenged evidence from the accused's brother (at [95]). Professor Greenberg had also materially misread clinical history from Dr Cheah, incorrectly recording that the accused visited three houses before the offence, a factual error that affected his overall conclusion about the complexity and goal-directed nature of the accused's conduct (at [99]). The court preferred the evidence of Dr Adams on the distinction between the accused's behaviour at the time of the offence and his agitated state in police custody, finding the latter was explicable by his ADHD, ODD diagnoses, his naked state, and distress at being told he had harmed a child (at [97]). The police officers' observations were consistent with sleepwalking as much as with intoxication, and Professor Greenberg himself acknowledged in cross-examination that sleepwalkers had been documented engaging in complex behaviour such as driving (at [99]). The absence of any motive, the bizarre circumstances of the offending, and the accused's lack of prior contact with the victim all weighed in favour of the sleepwalking hypothesis (at [99]-[100]).

Orders Made

  • Verdict of not guilty entered in respect of the charge of breaking and entering premises and committing a serious indictable offence (assault occasioning actual bodily harm in circumstances of aggravation).

Key Takeaways

  • An evidentiary presumption of voluntariness applies to any act, but that presumption is displaced once credible medical evidence raises involuntariness, such as sleepwalking, as a reasonable hypothesis. Once displaced, the onus shifts to the Crown to prove voluntariness beyond reasonable doubt (at [86], [89]-[90]).

  • Where an act is performed in a state of automatism, without control or direction of the will, no crime is committed and an acquittal must follow. This principle applies equally where the automatism arises from a physical condition such as parasomnia rather than from a disease of the mind (at [88], [91]).

  • The District Court distinguished between sane and insane automatism, finding that sleepwalking arising from a pre-existing parasomnia condition, without any underlying disease of the mind, properly gives rise to sane automatism, not the mental illness defence (at [87], [98]).

  • Factual errors in expert evidence can materially undermine the weight accorded to expert opinions. Professor Greenberg's misreading of the clinical history, which led him to conclude the accused's behaviour was more consistent with substance-induced disinhibition, reduced the persuasive force of his overall opinion (at [99]).

  • Circumstantial factors bearing on plausibility of an automatism defence can include an absence of any identifiable motive, a documented history of the relevant condition, consistency between the accused's physical state at the time of the alleged offence and that condition, and the unchallenged nature of certain evidentiary matters such as expert pharmacological opinion about triggers for sleepwalking (at [93]-[95], [99]-[100]).

Legislation and Cases Referenced

Legislation
- Crimes Act 1900
- Criminal Procedure Act 1986

Cases
- R v Burgess (1991) 2QB 92
- R v Falconer (1991) 171 CLR 30
- R v Youseff (1990) 50 ACrim Report 1
- Woodbridge v R [2010] NSWCCA 185