‘I was sleepwalking’: Can you kill someone while you’re asleep?
“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 Taunton, 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.
Scene was ‘like horror film’
‘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.
Jules Lowe was cleared of murdering his father. Pic: PA
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.
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.”
Blundell’s school, Tiverton, Devon
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.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
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”.
Read more from Sky News:
Spanish police reject UK constabulary help in hunt for Jay Slater
Members of UK’s richest family jailed after exploiting servants
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.
A former soldier has been found guilty of raping his ex-girlfriend during a four-hour attack in which he killed her, her mother and her sister.
Warning: This article contains distressing details.
Kyle Clifford, 26, previously admitted murdering BBC racing commentator John Hunt’s wife Carol Hunt, 61, and their daughters Louise, 25, and Hannah, 28.
He also pleaded guilty to false imprisonment of Louise, who was tied and gagged with duct tape, and possession of the crossbow used to kill her and her sister, and the 10-inch butcher’s knife he stabbed their mother to death with.
Kyle Clifford. Pic: Hertfordshire Police
Prosecutors said he raped Louise in an “act of spite” during the attack in the Hunt family home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on 9 July last year after she broke up with him 13 days earlier.
Clifford, who refused to attend the four-day trial at Cambridge Crown Court, claimed DNA evidence found on her body was from a consensual sexual encounter 16 days before the attack.
But he was found guilty by a jury after the court heard his explanation was “completely untenable”.
Louise Hunt
Pic: Facebook
There was applause from the public gallery and cries of “yes!”, with one woman pumping her fists and another woman crying as the guilty verdict was heard.
The court was told Clifford began planning the murders after Louise, who told a friend he had a “nasty temper”, ended their 18-month relationship in a message on 26 June.
Judge pays tribute to family of the victims
Mr Justice Joel Bennathan said he will sentence Clifford on Tuesday for his “dreadful” and “almost unspeakable” crimes.
The judge paid tribute to the family of the deceased, adding: “They conducted themselves with huge dignity and restraint and I pay tribute to them.”
Detective Chief Inspector Nick Gardner said Clifford’s failure to attend his trial was an “absolute act of cowardice”.
He pointed out that the trial had been held in Cambridge to meet Clifford’s accessibility needs – he required a wheelchair after he shot himself with the crossbow.
“He has put the family through the ordeal of the trial, he has created everything that’s happened over this past week and failing to show his face is completely cowardly,” he added.
Carol Hunt pictured with her husband John Hunt.
Pic: Facebook
Hannah Hunt. Pic: Facebook
Clifford ‘planned a terrible attack’
Louise’s friends and family, who had described Clifford as “odd”, and “disrespectful, rude and arrogant”, backed her decision to end the relationship, sparked by his behaviour at a friend’s wedding.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said Clifford, who had hidden relationships with two other women from Louise, was “angered” that she rebuffed his attempts to get back together.
“The defendant planned a terrible attack on Louise Hunt and her family, enraged by her rejection of him,” she told jurors during the trial.
“That attack included an act of sexual violence, committed out of spite, when she was restrained and unable to escape him.”
Read more
CCTV released shows timeline of crossbow and knife killer
Kyle Clifford pleads guilty to murders of racing commentator’s wife and daughters
Violent misogyny of kind promoted by Andrew Tate ‘fuelled rape and triple murder’
The recovered crossbow.
Pic: Hertfordshire Police
She said the murders were “carefully planned and executed”, with Clifford tricking his way inside the family home on the pretext of returning Louise’s belongings and delivering a “thank you” card to her parents after checking Mr Hunt was not home.
He carried out “a brutal knife attack” on Carol, then waited for his ex-girlfriend to return home from working at her dog grooming business in a pod in the garden, the court heard.
It was added that customers of Louise’s business were using the gate at the side of the house, “not realising what was happening” when Carol was attacked and killed.
Louise was held for hours before Clifford shot her with the crossbow moments before her sister Hannah, a beautician, came home from work.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Footage shows Clifford fleeing the Hunt family home
Hannah is heard on audio at the Hunt family home saying: “Kyle, I swear to God,” after finding him inside the house, the court heard.
The prosecution said Hannah messaged her partner, Alex Klein, telling him to “call police… immediately. To mine. Now. Kyle here. Police now. He’s tying us up”.
Clifford’s own sister messaged him on the day of the attacks when she realised he had taken the crossbow, asking: “What are you playing at?”
A loud whooshing sound was caught on a doorbell camera as the weapon was fired, while Hannah could be heard to shout, “Oh my god”, as she found her mother and sister.
The 10-inch butcher’s knife Clifford used was never found but police released an image of the packaging.
Pic: PA
She was also shot but managed to call police, and emergency services found her collapsed in the doorway, but she died soon after.
Clifford, who served in the army from 2019 to 2022, shot himself in the chest with a crossbow as armed police found him in a cemetery the next day after a manhunt and is now paralysed from the chest downwards.
Violent misogyny promoted by the likes of Andrew Tate fuelled Clifford’s attack, prosecutors argued in court.
He also had been searching YouTube for the controversial influencer’s podcast the day before he carried out the four-hour attack, it was said in legal argument ahead of his trial.
It can only now be reported because the judge excluded the evidence from the trial, saying that it was of “limited relevance” and too prejudicial.
UK
Kyle Clifford: Violent misogyny of kind promoted by Andrew Tate ‘fuelled rape and triple murder’, prosecution says
The violent misogyny promoted by the likes of Andrew Tate fuelled a former soldier’s rape of his ex-girlfriend and the murder of her along with her mother and sister, the prosecution argued in court.
Warning: This article contains distressing details.
Kyle Clifford, 26, had been searching YouTube for the 38-year-old controversial influencer’s podcast the day before he carried out the four-hour attack, it was said in legal argument ahead of his trial.
It can only now be reported because Judge Mr Justice Bennathan excluded the evidence from the trial, saying that it was of “limited relevance” and too prejudicial.
But he added that anyone who takes a close interest in Tate, a “poster boy for misogynists”, could also be seen as a misogynist.
Clifford tricked his way inside the family home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on 9 July last year on the pretext of returning a bag of 25-year-old Louise Hunt’s clothes 13 days after she dumped him.
He made sure her father, the BBC and Sky Sports racing commentator John Hunt, wasn’t home before stabbing her mother Carol Hunt, 61, to death with a 10-inch butchering knife.
Clifford laid in wait for more than an hour until Louise returned from work at the dog grooming business she ran from a pod in the garden, tied her arms and ankles with duct tape, gagged her and raped her.
Carol Hunt and her daughters Hannah and Louise.
Pic: Facebook
He held her captive for hours before shooting her through the chest with a crossbow, using the same weapon to kill her sister Hannah Hunt, a 28-year-old beauty therapist, when she returned home minutes later.
Clifford pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, false imprisonment, and two counts of possession of offensive weapons but denied raping Louise – claiming the DNA found on her body was from 16 days earlier.
He has now been found guilty of the charge by a jury at Cambridge Crown Court.
Interest in Andrew Tate
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
CCTV shows Clifford’s movements
Clifford had been searching YouTube for Tate’s podcast the day before the murders and is believed to have watched up to 10 of the influencer’s videos.
One of Louise Hunt’s friends had previously asked why he was watching one of Tate’s videos involving drugged animals and he said: “Because it’s funny,” it was said during legal argument before the trial.
Prosecutors argued the “violent misogyny promoted by Tate” was the same kind that “fuelled both the murders” and the rape” committed by Clifford.
Alison Morgan KC said his interest in the “widely known misogynist” helped to explain why he became so “incandescent with rage” after she ended the relationship.
Andrew Tate. File pic: AP
In throwing out the evidence, the judge said that there was likely to be ongoing reporting about Tate after he and his brother Tristan, 36, flew to the US from Romania on Thursday after travel restrictions imposed on the pair were lifted.
A criminal investigation has since been launched into the British-American pair – who are already subject to an ongoing probe into alleged people trafficking in Romania – in Florida.
They are also due to be extradited to the UK after that case to face separate accusations of rape and trafficking dating back to between 2012 and 2015.
The brothers deny any wrongdoing.
‘Misogynistic and sexualised’ comments
Clifford had recently been sacked from his job at a catering supply firm in Waltham Cross.
It also emerged in legal argument that he was said to have made “misogynistic and sexualised comments” about female colleagues in the workplace.
He hid two relationships with women he knew through work from Louise during their 18-month relationship, which started after they met on a dating website.
It can now be reported Clifford went on dating apps Hinge and Tinder moments after Louise ended their 18-month relationship in a message on 26 June last year.
Clifford then started planning his attack, buying a length of rope just two days later, and on 30 June he researched crossbows before searching for a pornographic video of a Wandsworth prison officer having sex with an inmate.
Brother serving life sentence for murder
He also discussed crossbows with his brother Bradley Clifford, who he would visit in prison every other week, where he is serving a life sentence for murdering a teenager in 2017.
Bradley Clifford drunkenly mowed down 19-year-old Jahshua Francis, who was riding a moped, and his pillion passenger Sobhan Khan, 18, after his “prized” red Mustang was damaged.
Bradley Clifford. Pic: Met Police
Police said Kyle Clifford had plenty of opportunities to back out of the 9 July attack but was “absolutely cold-blooded and calculated in his actions”.
In legal argument not before the jury, Ms Morgan said “highly sexualised violence played a part in what took place” and that Clifford was trying to “misogynistically control Louise Hunt for one more time”.
‘Sense of entitlement’
She described him as a man whose identity was based on “whether he has the right number of women and the admiration of women” and “doesn’t like to be told, ‘No,’ by women”.
Ms Morgan said his “sense of entitlement” and the “spite and the sleight” of being dumped fuelled the sexualised violence.
After the murders, CCTV footage shows Clifford calmly leaving the Hunt family home in the quiet cul-de-sac of Ashlyn Close carrying a backpack and holding the crossbow hidden under a blanket.
He drove to a cemetery near his home in Enfield, north London, where he shot himself in the chest with the weapon as armed police descended the next day following a manhunt.
A makeshift noose was found in a nearby tree, but police and prosecutors don’t believe he made a genuine attempt to end his life, although he was left paralysed from the chest down.
The trial was held in Cambridge to accommodate him as a wheelchair user, but he refused to attend.
Kyle Clifford in 2023
‘Underwhelming individual’
His victims’ friends and family, including John Hunt – who has one surviving daughter Amy – sat in the public gallery to hear the harrowing details of the case.
Detective Chief Inspector Nick Gardner described Clifford, who served in the army from 2019 for around three years, as an “entirely underwhelming individual” with a failed military career who couldn’t hold down a job.
He worked as a private security guard for a few months in 2023, then was sacked from his job at Reynolds shortly before the murders.
Louise had told a friend Clifford had a “nasty temper”, while friends and family members described him as “odd” or “disrespectful, rude and arrogant”.
Clifford came to the attention of police in London in relation to alleged offences of possession of cannabis, assault without injury and theft when he was a juvenile between 2012 and 2013, but they didn’t result in charges or convictions.
Police say there were no obvious red flags that he would go on to commit such a crime.
Sharon Holland sits surrounded by fresh flowers as she scrolls through photos on her phone of her daughter, Chloe.
Warning: This article contains references to suicide and domestic abuse
Beautiful, poised, Chloe stares back at her from the screen. She was a fun, independent young women – until she wasn’t.
Caught up in an abusive relationship with a former partner, who her mother calls a “monster”, Chloe became a shadow of her former self.
Sharon never met him as Chloe kept the ongoing relationship a secret but she had suspicions when her daughter, who had moved out of home, retreated from her friends and family.
“As far as I knew, they’d split up in September 2022 and she was living happily in Southampton,” she says.
But Sharon began to suspect the relationship might be back on after she spotted her daughter liking some of her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook posts.
Chloe was full of life before she met her abuser
“I saw a few hearts on his pictures, and thought ‘here we go’. But she would always deny it and say she would never get back with him. Of course, she was lying to me.”
Increasingly isolated from her loved ones, Chloe’s only communication with Sharon was through text messages and the occasional phone call.
“She turned up at people’s houses with black eyes and made excuses for marks around her neck and everything else,” says Sharon. “No one told me.”
Chloe took her own life in February 2023.
Her family is not alone in their grief. There are now more victims of domestic abuse who take their own life, than those who are killed by their partners.
Between April 2022 to March 2023, there were 93 people who took their own lives following domestic abuse. A 29% rise compared to the previous year.
Sharon and Sky News’ Ashna Hurynag
Assaulted with a dumbbell and handed a knife
Marc Masterton, Chloe’s boyfriend at the time, was routinely assaulting her, controlling her appearance, isolating her from friends and family, belittling her and encouraging her to self-harm.
On one occasion after he assaulted her with a dumbbell, Chloe threatened to take her own life.
In response, Masterton handed her a knife.
“She said on a few occasions, his eyes went from blue to black and it terrified her,” Sharon says.
The abuse was happening in plain sight – in hotels, hostels and on public transport. Chloe eventually chose to report the abuse to police. But two weeks later, she attempted to take her own life.
At the intensive care unit she was taken to before she died, Sharon didn’t leave her bedside. It was here she learnt from a police officer about Chloe’s testimony a fortnight before.
Chloe and her mother, Sharon
Chloe’s evidence
“They told me she’d done a video statement for over two hours and were investigating him,” Sharon says.
“I’ve watched it. She was crying for lots of it and was distraught. I was devastated and angry. He was telling her to take her life. He was giving her knives up against her neck and then saying, you do it.”
Her evidence led to the conviction of her abuser. Masterton admitted coercive and controlling behaviour and was jailed for three years, nine months.
Justice which, Sharon feels, fell well below her expectations.
“We needed to get over four years for him to go on this dangerous person’s list, so he could be monitored as high risk,” she adds.
Sharon is now calling for tougher sentences for those convicted of coercive control.
The current maximum sentence a perpetrator can get for the offence is five years, but Sharon points to countries like France where the maximum sentence is 10 years.
“No amount of years is going to bring her back… But he needed to get more than that.”
The overlooked victims of a growing crisis
It’s incredibly rare to get a criminal investigation in these cases, says Hazel Mercer from the national charity, Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse.
“Most of the families that come to us where there’s been a suicide as result of domestic abuse, the biggest issue for them is the lack of acknowledgement of what has happened to their loved one. Is there going to be any justice that says this domestic abuse was a crime against this person who’s now dead?
“They ask, is anything like that going to happen, and at the moment, nine times out of ten, the answer is no.”
Hazel Mercer advocates for families who have a lost a loved one after domestic abuse
Hazel works with families who feel a lack of “professional curiosity” by authorities means critical connections are often missed.
“When we have a homicide, resources are put into it, there is a real investigation… For a suicide, we seldom see that investigative desire or professional curiosity to look behind that suicide and why it happened.”
Fighting for change
The Crown Prosecution Service is investigating the link between suicide and domestic abuse more closely.
Efforts are being made to educate police and prosecutors on coercive control’s deadly trajectory after the high-profile death of mother Kiena Dawes, who was abused before she died by suicide on 22 July 2022.
Sky News has learnt the CPS is actively assessing similar cases, but Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown says “it isn’t straightforward”.
Kiena Dawes was abused before she died by suicide
“Invariably because of the nature of coercive and controlling behaviour, a lot of that offending happens in private. So without the victim, that’s quite difficult,” she says.
They are working with police to unpick the detail of the abuse a victim suffered in the lead up to their death. Collating evidence from family, friends or even doctors if the victim’s medical records show there’s been a history of physical violence.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown
The Ministry of Justice told Sky News: “This government is committed to halving violence against women and girls. The independent sentencing review is looking at sentences for offences primarily committed against them.
“Victims of controlling and coercive behaviour will also now be better protected through a new law that ensures more abusers are subject to joined-up management by police and probation.”
For Sharon, her campaign is a way of honouring her daughter’s memory. “I won’t stop till I get justice for Chloe,” she says.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports11 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway