B.C. man acquitted of stabbing wife in the back was ‘effectively asleep’: judge

B.C. Supreme Court justice concludes the accused, from Gibsons, was in a state of severely impaired ‘automatism’ and lacked a motive for the assault

A B.C. man who was accused of stabbing his wife in the back with a kitchen knife has been acquitted after arguing his actions were not voluntary as he was effectively asleep at the time.

Jean-Luc Charles Perignon was charged with the aggravated assault of his then-wife Debra following the incident in the family’s home in Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast on Easter weekend in April 2017.

Perignon, who at trial did not dispute that he had attacked his wife, claimed he was in a state of “automatism” as a result of having consumed a cocktail of prescription drugs and alcohol prior to the assault.

In his ruling, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Warren Milman noted that such a defence rarely succeeds and the courts are justifiably reluctant to acquit on that ground due to concerns about faking such a condition and the need to maintain respect for the administration of justice.

He said the law assumes that people generally act voluntarily and are responsible for their actions and Perignon bore the “heavy burden” to demonstrate that the ordinary presumption did not apply.

On the day of the incident, the father of three went up to his home office after the family dinner on Easter Monday while his wife and one of his daughters remained in the living room watching a movie.

After the movie was over, his wife sent the daughter to bed and went to the front door to let the dog out before going to bed herself.

She heard her husband’s footsteps on the stairs behind her and then felt a “thump” in her back and realized she had been stabbed.

She reached behind her back for the knife and pulled it out herself, cutting her thumb badly. She recalled screaming and having trouble breathing as another of her daughters and that daughter’s partner came to her aid.

The accused testified that his memory of events that day blended into one another and that when he retired to his home office, he took several medications including a mix of opioids as well as a sedative hypnotic, drugs he was taking to address his chronic problems with insomnia.

He remembered taking off his shoes and socks before getting into bed and felt pain in his back. His next memory was of standing over his wife while she was lying on the floor in front of him, screaming in pain.

Perignon recalled seeing the knife on the floor and being in shock; he didn’t know how he got to the front door on the ground floor. He ran back upstairs and called 911.

After hearing evidence from several psychiatrists, the judge said the lack of both a motive and an obvious trigger for the assault figured prominently in the analysis.

He concluded that taking the evidence as a whole, Perignon, at a minimum, was operating in a severely impaired state of mind at the time known as non-mental disorder automatism.

“Although it is possible that he acted intentionally despite that impairment, the more likely explanation for his conduct is that it was entirely involuntary because it occurred while he was effectively asleep.”

kfraser@postmedia.com

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