Sleepwalker by M.A. Hunter is out now! Click to read 📖
In 2023, I was scrolling through Twitter / X when an author I follow posted a picture of a large bruise on her knee with a caption that suggested the bruise had arrived during the night but she had no recollection of how. As someone with a history of childhood sleepwalking, this immediately made me wonder what else one might do during the night while asleep. And being someone with a dark and troubled mind, of course my thoughts turned to murder.
From there I learned that there is a loophole in the UK legal system that means you cannot be prosecuted for any crime committed whilst sleepwalking. Sleepwalking is most often used as a defence to violent or sexual offences and is a legitimate defence to both, and it falls under the category of automatism, i.e. you didn’t act knowingly but acted automatically and without the intention to commit the crime. The difficulty comes in proving categorically that the crime was committed while sleepwalking. In 2005, Jules Lowe was found not guilty of murder after claiming he was sleepwalking when he beat his father to death at the family home in Manchester. Three years later, Brian Thomas was also cleared of murder having strangled his wife while sleepwalking during a holiday in Wales. His solicitors claimed he had had a nightmare that an intruder had broken into their campervan, triggered by an earlier incident where they’d both been woken by youths doing wheel spins in the car park.
And so, I was inspired to write a story from the point of view of someone accused of such a crime who can’t determine whether to trust himself or those closest to him. In the story, Jake is adamant that he couldn’t hurt the only woman he’s ever loved, and cannot understand why their family would think otherwise. But ultimately he has to ask himself whether they could be right, and if they are, what else could he be capable of…