After a man was acquitted last month of killing his partner while sleeping, it has emerged that attacks by people in their sleep are more common than previously thought
THE NEWS that a man in Britain recently walked free from court after prosecutors accepted that he had strangled his wife while having a nightmare has made headlines across the world.
Many of those hearing of the case reacted with a mixture of shock and horror but, according to one of the world’s leading sleep experts, Dr Chris Idzikowski, incidents in which individuals attack others while asleep are more common than people imagine.
Last month, a murder trial was halted in Swansea after the Crown Prosecution Service accepted that Brian Thomas, a 59-year-old man from Neath in mid-Glamorgan, had not been aware of his actions when he killed his partner as he dreamed he was battling an intruder.
One of those called as a defence witness for Mr Thomas was Dr Idzikowski, director of the Edinburgh Sleep Clinic and someone who has been involved in sleep research for more than 20 years.
Tests carried out by Dr Idzikowski on the defendant confirmed that he suffered from night terrors and, as a result of this, he was in a state of “automatism” where his mind was not in control of his body when he strangled his partner.
According to Dr Idzikowski, who lives in Dromore, Co Down, where he is also a co-director of the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service in Lisburn, claiming to have attacked another individual while asleep has been a credible defence since medieval times.
Moreover, he says it has long been common knowledge that some people can act violently towards others while having nightmares, but that this rarely makes it to court due to embarrassment on the part of those involved in such incidents, and because the attacks aren’t usually serious enough to warrant medical assistance.
While there are no figures available for Ireland, it is estimated that about 2 per cent of the British population suffer from extreme sleep disorders such as sleepwalking, night terrors – a disorder in which a person experiences a high level of anxiety while sleeping – and REM sleep behaviour disorder, a vivid state of dreaming in which sufferers may unconsciously act out their dreams.
Sleep disorders are particularly prevalent in children and the majority of individuals grow out of them as they mature. However, Dr Idzikowski believes that sleep disorders may be more prevalent than previously reported.
“To say that 2 per cent of the British population experiences extreme sleep disorders is very much a conservative estimate. If you take sleepwalking for example, this is in many ways a hidden sleep disorder because most people do not tend to report it.
“Sleepwalking is something that is usually tolerated in most homes unless it is accompanied by violence, or unless an individual who is prone to it moves into another environment such as living on campus when they go off to college,” he said.
According to Dr Idzikowski, when sleep disorder incidents occur in which violence does play a part, it is usually men who are the perpetrators. Other factors such as alcohol and drugs, mental health issues and sleeping in an unfamiliar environment, can also have a major influence, he said.
Over the past four years, Dr Idzikowski has been called as an expert witness on a wide range of cases in which sleep disorders have been cited as a possible cause for violent attacks. In addition to taking part in murder trials he has also appeared in cases involving grievous bodily harm and rape.
He admits to being somewhat flummoxed as to why there has been such a high level of media coverage over the case involving Mr Thomas as other cases, including a case in Co Derry last year, in which a 42-year-old-man was sentenced to 20 years after the court rejected suggestions that the defendant had been sleepwalking when he stabbed a 19-year-old man to death in his home.
Here in the Republic, there have been relatively few cases where a sleep disorder has been cited as a viable defence. One such case, which occurred in 2004, involved a 32-year-old man in Tallaght who failed to convince a jury that he had automatism when he stabbed his 18-month-old son to death. The defendant was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
According to Richard Hawksworth, a respiratory physiologist in Tallaght Hospital’s sleep laboratory, the majority of people in Ireland seeking help with problems are usually people with sleep apnoea, a disorder in which people periodically stop breathing while asleep.
“It’s very rare that we would encounter anyone with a sleep disorder of the magnitude that occurred in the case in Britain. There are movement disorders that people have, which is reasonably common, but incidents involving more extreme behaviour wouldn’t be something that we see regularly,” he said.
Separately Dr Catherine Crowe, a sleep disorders specialist at Dublin’s Mater Private Hospital, which deals with some of the more unusual cases, advises that anyone with issues regarding nightmares, night terrors or other abnormal behaviour that takes place in sleep, should see their GP at once for a referral to a sleep clinic.
