Briton killed wife in sleep, court hears

British man killed his wife in his sleep, after dreaming that she was an intruder in their camper van, a court heard on Tuesday.

Brian Thomas, who suffers from a sleep disorder, admits killing his wife Christine while they spent a night on a car park in west Wales in July last year, Swansea Crown court was told.

But the 59-year-old, who has two grown-up daughters with his 57-year-old wife, is pleading not guilty due to insanity, a lawyer said.

The court heard the couple had stopped for the night in a car park, but their sleep was disturbed by young men who gathered there with their cars, revving their engines and screeching their tyres.

So Thomas decided to move the van to another car park. But at 3.49am the following morning he called police to say he thought he had killed his wife.

He said he had been dreaming that he was fighting with the "boy racers" who had disturbed the couple earlier that night. He thought he had put one of them in a headlock, but when he woke up he realised it was Christine.

Prosecution lawyer Paul Thomas said sleep experts who assessed the accused concluded he had killed his wife while in the midst of a sleep disorder and that his behaviour had been involuntary.

The lawyer told the jury it was a "highly unusual" case and the prosecution was not seeking a verdict of guilty to murder or manslaughter, but would accept "a special verdict of not guilty of murder by reason of insanity".

The court was adjourned until Wednesday.

(c) 2009 AFP