Man denies sex assault as he was sleepwalking
A workman has denied sexually assaulting a female flatmate – claiming that he was sleepwalking at the time of the alleged attack.
Christopher Palmer, 30, is said to have pounced on the woman after walking into her bedroom in the middle of the night.
He is then alleged to have grabbed the woman by the wrists before fondling her breast during the incident in a shared flat in Leith in 2022.
But the self-employed painter and decorator told a court he had no recollection of the incident because he has been prone to bouts of sleepwalking since childhood.
Palmer, of Musselburgh, East Lothian, stood trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday after pleading not guilty to charges of assault and sexual assault on February 12, 2022.
Solicitor Stephanie Clinkscale, defending, said she was lodging “a selfdefence of automatism” on behalf of her client and a specialist report had been prepared into his condition.
The alleged victim said she was lying in bed playing a computer game when her bedroom door was unexpectedly opened by Palmer at around 2am.
She claimed he “lunged” onto her bed and sat on her legs and grabbed hold of her wrists leading her to start “screaming and shouting” to get off her. She said: “He told me to be quiet and stop screaming … With his left hand he was touching my breast. I was terrified, angry and scared.”
She said the flatmates heard her shouts for help and rushed to her aid.
Palmer told the court he had been alone in his bedroom all evening and had drunk two bottles of wine before falling asleep around midnight. He said he woke up in the hall beside one of the flatmates and had “assumed” he had been to the toilet. He headed back to his bedroom and went to sleep.
He said: “I believe I was sleepwalking as I have previously … I went back to bed and the next thing I knew there was a knock on the door and it was the police.”
The summary trial was part-heard due to the unavailability of the expert defence witness and will continue later this year.
The next thing I knew there was a knock on the door and it was the police