The defendant went to a girl's apartment , while watching video together he attacked her with a bottle of wine and the video recorder and put his hands around her necks.The defendant claimed that he was sleepwalking and plead for the defence of automatism.

Held : It was held that sleepwalking is an internal factor, therefore the correct defence should be insanity and not automatism ( which is caused by external factors.)Sleep-walking had previously been thought to be an example of automatism rather than insanity (eg, Lord Denning in Bratty), but it is now clear that the courts will treat sleep-walking as an example of disease of the mind with internal causes. Any mental discorder which " has manifested itself in violence and which is prone to recur" is a disease of the mind , thus correct defence is insanity.