‘I was sleepwalking’: Can you kill someone while you’re asleep?

Published

1 year ago

June 22, 2024

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“I was sleepwalking,” a public schoolboy, wearing only his boxing shorts, was heard to say after brutally attacking two fellow students and a housemaster.

Henry Roffe-Silvester, a teacher at the exclusive boarding school, was awoken in the middle of the night by footsteps coming from the dormitory directly above.

He went to investigate, and as he opened the door to the pitch-dark room, he saw a silhouetted figure who turned and struck him on the head with a hammer.

“I stumbled backwards into the corridor,” said Mr Roffe-Silvester, during his attacker’s two-month trial. “There was a second blow – I can’t remember if it was before I stumbled back – that’s a little bit hazy for me.”

He suffered six blows to the head before managing to get the weapon off the boy he now recognised as one of his students, who “slumped down” in a squat position and was heard to say: “I was dreaming.”

When paramedics arrived at Blundell’s School in Tiverton, Devon, they found “carnage” like “a scene from a horror film” with blood over the desks, the walls and the cabin-style beds.

There was no question the boy, then 16, caused the “awful injuries” to the housemaster and two sleeping dorm-mates – both boys suffered skull fractures, as well as injuries to their ribs, spleen, a punctured lung and internal bleeding.

‘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 8 June last year, he said, and the next thing he recalled was being in the room which was “covered in blood”.

“I knew something really bad had gone on and everyone was looking towards me,” he said.

“I didn’t remember doing anything so the only rational thing I was thinking was that I was sleepwalking.”

Prosecutors said he had armed himself with three claw hammers, then waited for his victims to fall asleep before attacking them.

But his barrister, Kerim Fuad KC, said he must have been “sleepwalking to have committed these extraordinary acts” – meaning he would be not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity.

The history of the sleepwalking defence

The idea that acts of violence can be committed by people who are sleepwalking isn’t new – since the 14th century, the Catholic Church recognised the idea that a sleeper shouldn’t be held responsible for killing or injuring someone.

The first English case is believed to be the Old Bailey trial of Colonel Culpeper in 1686, who was said to have shot a guardsman and his horse during a dream. He was convicted of manslaughter while insane but pardoned a few weeks later.

More incidents came to light in the Victorian era as scientists began studying the mind, among them the famous case of Simon Fraser, a known sleepwalker, from Glasgow.

Believing he was saving his family from a wild beast that had burst through the floorboards, he killed his 18-month-old son by throwing him against a wall. He was cleared but was told by the judge to sleep alone in a locked room for the rest of his life.

More recently, in 2005 Jules Lowe was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and made the subject of a hospital order after claiming he was sleepwalking when he beat his father to death at the family home in Walkden, Greater Manchester, after a 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 campervan.

The nightmare was suggested to have been triggered by an earlier incident when they were disturbed by youths doing wheel spins 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 sleepwalking defence is rare – according to sleep expert Dr Neil Stanley, who was not involved in the Blundell’s case, and tells Sky News it has been successfully used just 200 times in the English-speaking world.

Sexsomnia

But it has become increasingly common over last 30 years, says Dr John Rumbold, a lecturer at the Nottingham Law School, who tells Sky News there is a growing number of sleep experts and a greater awareness among lawyers.

In the past, reported cases more commonly involved violence, he says, but now around 80% to 90% of cases involve sexsomnia, an extreme variant of sleepwalking, that can cause people to engage in sexual activity while unconscious.

“Very often it’s drunk young men” who are accused of rape or other sex offences, he says. “They don’t really have any other defence and it’s fairly complex actions.”

Dr Stanley believes that some people who are guilty have successfully used the defence in the past and says there is a lack of knowledge of the subject among judges, lawyers and juries.

What is sleepwalking and how common is it?

Around 5% to 10% of the adult population are believed to be regular sleepwalkers, according to experts, with the condition more common in children, peaking between the ages of nine and 13, and typically occurs in the first 90 minutes of sleep.

“We all have the capacity to sleepwalk,” says Dr Neil Stanley, who says some people will do it just once in their lives, while for others it’s a more regular occurrence.

He explains sleepwalking happens when the parts of the brain that control movement and speech wake up.

This can be triggered by anything that disturbs, sleep, such as medication, alcohol, drugs, or “sleeping on your mate’s couch after a few bevvies”.

Sleepwalking is so common that hotel staff may get training in how to deal with a semi-naked guest wandering the corridors.

But the stereotypical perception of a zombie-like state with eyes closed and arms stretched “is a nonsense”, says Dr Stanley.

“They can appear for all intents and purposes, to be awake. But what they can’t do is they cannot interact with the environment as though they were awake,” he says.

It usually involves “doing something that if you did it at 1pm fully clothed wouldn’t be of any interest”, but the “fact that you’re doing it at 1am and you’re in your PJs is probably the thing that differentiates it”.

Dr Stanley adds: “Sleepwalkers do things that are instinctual behaviours. So, they will go to the fridge and get a pint of milk, they will go to the toilet, which, if they’re in a hotel or staying over somewhere, means they pee in the wardrobe or more tragically go over the balcony and kill themselves.

“We know that some sleepwalkers actually can drive while they are asleep. But none of these are interesting other than the fact that the person has no idea that they’re doing them.”

He says that in theory he could use his expertise to tell someone how to behave and what to say to convince a court they were a genuine sleepwalker.

‘Get out of jail free card’

Some see it as “a get out of jail free card”, he says, but he adds that “people, in their sleep, can kill, they can rape, they can assault – sexually or physically”.

Barrister Ramya Nagesh, who has written a book on sleepwalking and other automatism defences tells Sky News that just because it is being used more “that doesn’t mean that it’s being used in bad faith because you do have to have expert opinion”.

She thinks there should be a change in the law to allow a verdict of not guilty by virtue of a medical condition to encompass cases involving sleepwalking, epileptic fits and hypoglycaemia.

“Automatism is an outright acquittal – it feels a bit odd to say we’ll excuse them, but they might go off and do it again,” she says.

“They don’t deserve to go to prison and wouldn’t benefit from a hospital order, so it would give judges a bit more power.”

The public schoolboy, now 17, who can’t be identified because of his age, has been found guilty of three counts of attempted murder after a jury deliberated for 40 hours and he will be sentenced in October.

His relatives told the jury there was a history of sleepwalking in the family and he said his mother had found him at the bottom of a staircase in their home around a decade ago.

A ‘textbook example’?

After the attacks, the teenager told a student he was watching horror movies, while others heard him say: “I am sorry, I was dreaming.”

At his trial, sleep forensic expert, Dr Mark Pressman, who has decades of experience in the field, has 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 “textbook example”, explaining sleepwalkers could be fearful for their lives and “respond with violence to protect themselves at a very primitive level”.

“The defendant swivelled around and attacked his housemaster without knowing who he was,” he said. He was not aware he had attacked the housemaster.”

But another expert witness, 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 had been awake shortly before the attacks, with an examination of his iPad showing he had been listening to music on Spotify, and that he had a fascination with serial killers.

‘Lucky to still be alive’

In his room, he kept a locked stash of what other pupils described as “weapons”, including shards of broken glass, screwdrivers and multiple hammers.

Police discovered he had carried out internet searches for “rampage killers”, “school massacres”, “murder with a hammer” and “killer kills while sleeping”.

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 again and again,” said prosecutor James Dawes KC, and there was “no other explanation for his actions other than his intention to kill them”.

Following his conviction, senior crown 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 naïvely thought that by concocting a story about sleepwalking at the time of the attack he could evade punishment,” she added.

UK

How Prevent is tackling young extremism 20 years after the 7/7 bombings

Published

5 hours ago

July 6, 2025

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How Prevent is tackling young extremism 20 years after the 7/7 bombings

Radicalised nine-year-olds, teenagers mixing incel culture with extreme right ideologies and a Muslim who idolises Hitler – this is just some of the casework of those tasked with deradicalising young extremists in the UK.

Monday will mark 20 years since the 7/7 attacks on the London transport network when four suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured 770 others.

A year later the government set up its deradicalisation programme Prevent as part of its counter-terrorism strategy.

Sky News has spoken to two leading intervention providers (IPs) at Prevent who both say their work is getting ever more complex and the referrals younger.

The Metropolitan Police’s Prevent co-ordinator, Detective Superintendent Jane Corrigan, has also told Sky News it is “tragic” that when it comes to terrorism, “one in five of all our arrests is a child under 17”.

She believes parents should talk to their children about what they are reading and seeing online.

“Parents instinctively know when something doesn’t feel right when their child is becoming withdrawn or isolated – not wanting to engage,” she says.

People worried that someone they know has thoughts that could lead to terrorism can refer them to Prevent.

‘A pic-n-mix of ideologies’

Home Office figures show 11-year-olds are the largest age group to get referred.

Concerning cases are passed on to IPs such as Nigel Bromage who told Sky News: “Often there will be a pic-n-mix of ideologies.

“From my own examples and experience, we are aware of people looking at the incel culture and mixing that with some far-right elements.”

Incels, meaning “involuntary celibates” are men who have been unable to have a relationship with women despite wanting one and become misogynistic and hateful as a result.

Like many IPs, Mr Bromage from Birmingham comes from an extremist background himself, having once been a regional organiser for the proscribed Neo-Nazi group Combat 18.

For him too, it began as a child.

“It all started with someone giving me a leaflet outside my school gates,” Mr Bromage says.

“It told me a horrific story about a mum getting killed by an IRA bomb explosion – and at the end of the leaflet there was a call to action which said: ‘If you think it’s wrong then do something about it’.”

He developed a hatred for Irish republican terrorism which morphed into general racism and national socialism.

“At the very end I thought I was going to go to prison, or I would end up being hurt or even killed because of my political beliefs,” he says.

Boy, 9, groomed by his brother

Mr Bromage reveals his youngest case was a nine-year-old who had been groomed by his brother.

“He was being shown pro-Nazi video games, and his older brother was saying ‘when I go to prison or I get in trouble – they you’re the next generation – you’re the one who needs to continue the fight’,” he says.

“Really, he had no interest in the racist games – he just wanted to impress his brother and be loved by his brother.”

Every year, nearly 300 children who are 10 or younger are referred to Prevent.

Home Office figures show that over the last six years 50% of referrals were children under the age of 18.

Eleven-year-olds alone make up a third of total referrals, averaging just over 2,000 a year, with the figure rising even higher in the most recent stats.

Another IP, Abdul Ahad, specialises in Islamic extremism.

He says the catalyst for radicalisation often comes from events aboard.

Ten years ago, it was Syria, more recently Gaza.

“It is often a misplaced desire to do something effective – to matter, to make a difference. It gives them purpose, camaraderie and belonging as well – you feel part of something bigger than you,” he says.

Clients want someone to ‘hear them’

Some of his clients “don’t fit into any particular box”.

“I’m working with a guy at the minute, he’s a young Muslim but he idolises Hitler and he’s written a manifesto,” he says.

“When you break it down, some people don’t know where they fit in, but they want to fit in somewhere.”

Mr Ahad says the young individual mostly admires Hitler’s “strength” rather than his ideologies and that he was drawn to darker characters in history.

Often his clients are very isolated and just want someone to “hear them”, he adds.

Mr Ahad is also an imam who preaches at the Al-Azar Mosque in South Shields, a well-regarded centre for community cohesion and outreach.

He uses his understanding of the Islamic faith in his Prevent sessions to help guide his referrals away from extreme interpretations of the Koran by offering “understanding and context”.

He says: “We quote the correct religious texts – we explain their responsibility as a Muslim living in the UK and we re-direct their energies into something more constructive.”

Common theme of mental health issues

Mental health problems are a common theme among those referred to Prevent including depression and autism.

A recent inquest into the death of autistic teenager Rhianan Rudd found she took her own life after being radicalised by two white supremacists.

Her mother was critical of Prevent, as well as the police and MI5 after she had referred her daughter to the deradicalisation programme and Rhianan was subsequently charged with terrorism offences.

Last month a coroner found some failings in the processes around protecting Rhianan, but none of them attributable to Rhianan taking her own life.

Det Supt Corrigan says a referral doesn’t mean individuals end up being arrested or on an MI5 watchlist.

She says: “You’re not reporting a crime, but you are seeking support. I would say the earlier you can come in and talk to us about the concerns you have the better. Prevent is just that – it is a pre-criminal space.

“It’s tragic when you see the number of young people being arrested for very serious charges. Just look at terrorism – one in five of all our arrests is a child under the age of 17. We need to think about how we respond to that.”

Prevent has been criticised for failures such as when Southport killer Axel Rudakabana failed to be recognised as needing intervention despite three referrals, or when MP David Amiss’ killer Ali Harbi Ali went through the programme and killed anyway.

It’s harder to quantify its successes.

Mr Ahad says he understands why the failures hit the headlines, but he believes the programme is saving lives.

He says: “I think the vast majority of people get radicalised online because they are sitting in their room reading all this content without any context or scholarly input. They see one version of events and they get so far down the rabbit hole they can’t pull themselves out.

“I really wish Prevent was around when I was a young, lost 15-year-old because there was nothing around then. It’s about listening to people engaging with them and offering them a way of getting out of that extremism.”

‘Radicalisation can happen in days to weeks’

Det Supt Corrigan says: “I’ve sat with parents whose children have gone on to commit the most horrendous crimes and they all spotted something.

“Now, with hindsight, they wished they had done something or acted early. That’s why we created this programme, because radicalisation can happen in days to weeks.”

Twenty years on from 7/7 the shape of the terrorist threat has shifted, the thoughts behind it harder to categorise, but it is no less dangerous.

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

17 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

20 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”