The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a convicted rapist who claimed he had sex with his victim unknowingly while he was asleep.
Damin Peter Cook was found guilty of raping an unconscious woman in 2019 after she had passed out from alcohol in his Christchurch flat. Cook argued that his actions were due to a condition called sexsomnia, or sleep sex.
Despite not denying the sexual encounter, Cook was convicted of sexually violating and raping the woman in 2022 and was sentenced to eight years in prison. In July of the following year, he appealed his conviction at the Supreme Court.
On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed Cook’s appeal, focusing on the distinction between insane automatism and sane automatism defenses. The trial judge had categorized Cook’s defense as insane automatism, which places the burden on the defendant to prove a mental illness or condition like schizophrenia.
Cook’s defense argued that sexsomnia should be classified as a form of sane automatism, as it involves a lack of conscious volition. However, both the trial judge and the Court of Appeal upheld the classification of his defense as insanity.
The Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts, stating that sane automatism can only be used when the lack of conscious volition stems from an event or condition not classified as a disease of the mind. Since Cook’s automatism was linked to a mental illness, the insanity defense was the appropriate classification.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court upheld Cook’s conviction and the reduced sentence of seven years imposed by the Court of Appeal. The decision reaffirmed the classification of Cook’s defense as one of insanity.
