In order for automatism to be claimed, SPECIFIC OR BASIC INTENT NEEDS TO BE DISTINGUISHED.
The defence is always available for specific intent crimes as it is not fair to convict someone of a crime they did not have the mens rea for. The sentence will be one lesser.
- So murder ---> manslaughter
- s18 ----> s20
For a basic intent crime the sentence will stay the same and these are most likely to be when he defendant has brought the automatism onto himself so this will go under self induced automatism.
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