Smack

[brionon]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/sur rey/7810335.stm

Here's someone who's gonna get a serious sore hand.

[Mr-Marvel]

Lets hope the punishment fits the crime this time, if the driver is found guilty, not a three month ban and find two hundred pounds.

[ummmm]

Some people should not be allowd to drive......

[Ethel]

You're both assuming he is guilty of dangerous or careless driving. There have been many court cases where the defendant has had a legitimate defence such as automatism.

[sp1814]

From Wikipedia:

Automatic behavior, from the Greek automatismos or self action, is the spontaneous production of often purposeless verbal or motor behavior without conscious self-control or self-censorship.

This condition can be observed in a variety of contexts, including schizophrenia, psychogenic fugue, epilepsy (in complex partial seizures and Jacksonian seizures), narcolepsy or in response to a traumatic event. The individual does not recall the behavior.

According to the book 'The Mind Machine' by Colin Blakemore, hypoglycemia usually leads quickly to unconsciousness, but as blood glucose level falls, there is 'a window of experience between sanity and coma in which self-control is lost', and the body 'behaves on its own'.

[Ethel]

Well done, sp1814, but in the cases I referred to, automatism includes violent fits of sneezing, bee stings, skidding on ice, temporary blindness caused by a third party shining a bright light directly in the eye - there must be an external factor that caused the automatic response.

�'automatism' - means an act which is done by the muscles without any control by the mind such as a spasm, a reflex action or a convulsion; or an act done by a person who is not conscious of what he is doing . . . [However] to prevent confusion it is to be observed that in the criminal law an act is not to be regarded as an involuntary act simply because the actor does not remember it... Nor is an act to be regarded as an involuntary act simply because the doer could not control his impulse to do it."

[sp1814]

Ethel

To be honest, I'd never heard of automatism, and I didn't know that it could be used as a defence. The Wikipedia article is quite fascinating - sort of happened to me in the past...I've been driving over a roundabout and for no reason, my right arm just spasmed, making me swerve.

If I'd crashed, there is no way I'd be able to prove why. Never happened before or since.

[Ethel]

Just last week a man was found not guilty of indecently assaulting a minor using this as a defence. He was sleepwalking

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1103 991/As-man-cleared-sexual-assault-asleep-unset tling-question--Can-really-sleepwalk-crime.htm l

[sp1814]

Ethel

Blimey!

I assume that you couldn't simply claim "I was sleepwalking" as an excuse - sounds like the police and psychologists will delve into your background to check.

[craft1948]

Although it is dreadful what has happened to this family what on earth were children of that age doing out at 11 at night?