"SLEEPWALKER" DEFENCE DID NOT WASH IN AUSTRALIA

Unlike nutty Britain

A Toowoomba man who launched a legal defence of "sleepwalking" to try to beat a rape charge has been found guilty by a jury and was yesterday jailed for five years. Mechanical supervisor Darryl Kenneth Lotz, 35, claimed he had no memory of the attack – which involved him walking in the early morning hours from the spare bedroom of a mate's house into the main bedroom where the man and his girlfriend were asleep. He was accused of lying between the pair and having sex with the woman – who initially went along with the activity because she believed it was her partner.

The trio had been out drinking together with another friend on the night of the attack, in 2002. Lotz's defence team relied on testimony from sleep physician Roger Allen who said it was "highly probable" the incident happened as a result of sleepwalking. The defence also presented two incidents of sleep walking in Lotz's past. But Crown Prosecutor Sal Vasta was scathing of Dr Allen's diagnosis and called two forensic psychiatrists who found it was unlikely sleepwalking played a role.

Mr Vasta painted Lotz, a divorced father-of-one, as an opportunist who had developed the sleepwalking defence because he got caught out. "There has been an attempt in subterfuge here to hide behind a defence . . . that had no merit whatsoever," Mr Vasta said.

But defence barrister Frank Martin, SC, stressed in his sentencing submissions that Lotz remained genuinely baffled by what had happened that night. He said Lotz had led a blameless life with no criminal convictions. "From Mr Lotz's position this was never an attempt at subterfuge."

But District Court Judge Nick Samios told Lotz the jury's guilty verdict – delivered after 24 hours' deliberation – was a finding that his actions on the night were voluntary. He jailed him for five years with no recommendation for early release.

Report here



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