Allison Summers KC and Andrew Campbell-Tiech KC to speak at forensic sleep symposium at The Royal Society of Medicine – 29 March 2025

Allison Summers KC and Andrew Campbell-Tiech KC will take part at this event at The Royal Society of Medicine on Saturday 29th March. Allison is due to speak at 1.20pm about ‘Practical challenges defending sleep-related automatisms’ followed at 1.40pm by Andrew who will consider ‘Where are we going with parasomnias: Policy and the law – a defence, mitigation or just an excuse?’

Information provided by NHS Guy’s and St Thomas’

Forensic sleep symposium: Neurological and legal challenges

This meeting is to advance the understanding of the forensic presentation of sleep-related behaviours (parasomnias): their neurological basis, cognitive phenomena, forensic presentations, the evaluation of evidence, social and legal challenges and the nature of dissociation and sleep-related dissociation.

Target audience: International, UK.  This event is aimed at sleep specialists, neurologists, forensic psychiatrists, neuropsychiatrists, psychologists, and lawyers, including all criminal lawyers: the CPS, barristers, solicitors, academic lawyers, criminologists, RASSO groups, and policy-makers. Anyone with an interest in these phenomena is welcome.

Programme Objectives

• To understand the basic science and clinical features of parasomnias
• To understand the presentation of forensic cases of sleep-related sexual behaviours and sleep-related violence
• To understand the principles of the evaluation of the evidence is forensic sleep
• To understand the legal challenges in defending and prosecuting behaviours where a defence of sleep is proposed
• To understand the societal concerns and policy implications of the increase in sleep-related defences
• To understand the similarities and differences between sleep, dissociation, and sleep-related dissociation from a neuropsychiatric perspective
• To understand legal approaches to dissociative amnesia and dissociative behaviours in different jurisdictions

Venue: The Royal Society of Medicine

Date: Saturday 29_^th March 2025

Location: 1 Wimpole Street, London , W1G 0AE

Time: 8:30am to 4:00pm

Event information

Book here via Eventbrite