© 2001 the British Journal of Sports Medicine
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The medicolegal aspects of automatism in mild head injury
Neurologist & Sports Physician 31 Grosvenor Parade, Balwyn Victoria 3103, Australia pmccrory@compuserve.com
Key Words: automatism; head injury; medicolegal; concussion
Automatism or automatic behaviour was originally described in the Hippocratic corpus in relation to sleepwalking and other nocturnal behaviours.1 Despite its long history, this area of automatism remains confused and imprecise in the medical and legal literature. Within English common law, it is a fundamental principle that the intent (mens rea) and the act (actus reus) must occur together to constitute the crime.2 As such, the absence of a mens rea means that the person at that point in time lacks the intent to commit a crime.
In the legal view, post-traumatic automatism is a form of "sane" automatism because it results from an external factor, for example, a blow to the head, rather than from a disease of the mind (which is responsible for "insane" automatisms).3, 4 As a legal defence under English law, if successful, post-traumatic automatism leads to acquittal rather than the judge deciding the disposal as in
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