Significant Shorts : Hundreds of sleepwalkers have been charged for assault

Hundreds of people are being sent to court charged with attacks on people committed while they were sleep-walking, according to a consultant psychiatrist. But in most cases juries refused to believe their stories, Dr Peter Fenwick said at the Association of European Psychiatrists' Congress in London.

Most of the assaults were physical, but Dr Fenwick, who runs a sleep disorders clinic, said charges of sexual assault were on the rise, partly due to the growth of "sleep over" parties at friends' houses: "It is no longer unusual to for two or three people of different sexes to sleep together in the same bed ... But behaviour which occurs in sleep can lead to charges of rape and sexual harassment," he said. He estimated that up to 300 cases came to court each year involving sleep-walking. Glenda Cooper