Rebecca Filletti, instructed by Peter Haney at BLJ Solicitors, represented a man charged with attempted murder of his partner. He had stabbed her to the neck and to the back whilst she slept, in a seemingly-unprovoked attack.
Expert psychiatrists were instructed to provide assessment of the defendant’s capacity at the time of the assault, concentrating on his mental state alongside self-induced intoxication with a specific focus being on the length of any hypnopompic state (state of consciousness leading out of sleep).
Following three days of legal argument regarding the nature of the evidence in the case, a plea to a section 18 GBH offence was accepted by the Crown.
The defendant was sentenced to a determinate sentence of 5 years 2 months imprisonment.
For more information, or to instruct Rebecca Filletti, please contact Director of Clerking, David Wright