Automatism and Drunkenness
Voluntary intoxication is not automatism. Involuntary intoxication can constitute automatism. This was the decision in R. v Hardie 1 WLR 164], although this decision may have been the result of judicial misunderstanding of the effects of diazepam. However, in Kingston 3 WLR 519] where a man with normally controlled paedophiliac urges succumbed to them after being drugged unknowingly for blackmail purposes; he was found still able to form the mens rea for indecent assault. This decision has been much criticised by jurists.
Read more about this topic: Automatism (case Law)
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“Alcohol is barren. The words a man speaks in the night of drunkenness fade like the darkness itself at the coming of day.”
—Marguerite Duras (b. 1914)