Automatism Masterclass: Sexsomnia, Insanity and other Challenges (2025) (On Demand)

Warren Brookbanks is a Professor of Criminal Law and Justice Studies and Director of the Centre for Non-Adversarial Justice at AUT Law School. He was previously at Auckland Law School where he taught from 1983 to 2016. He is co-author of Bell & Brookbanks, Mental Health Law in New Zealand (3nd edn, (2017), Simester & Brookbanks, Principles of Criminal Law (5th edn, 2019) and Mackay & Brookbanks (eds), Fitness to Plead: International and Comparative Perspectives  (OUP, 2018), Mackay & Brookbanks (eds) The Insanity Defence (OUP, 2022). In addition, he has co-authored or edited a number of books on forensic psychiatry and law, unfitness to stand trial, criminal justice and therapeutic jurisprudence together with numerous published articles. In addition to overseeing undergraduate research he is involved in professional consultation and is a regular presenter at professional conferences and seminars.  

He was a founding Trustee of the Odyssey House Trust (NZ), a former President of the Australia and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (ANZAPPL) and former chair of the Oakley Mental Health Foundation Trust Board

Ian Freckelton is an experienced King’s Counsel at the Australian Bar and a Judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Nauru. He is also a Professor of Law and Professorial Fellow in Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne and an Honorary Professor of Forensic Medicine at Monash University. Ian is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academies of Law, Health and Medical Sciences, and Social Sciences. He is the Editor of the Journal of Law and Medicine and the Founding Editor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. He is the author 50 books and over 750 articles and chapters. In 2001 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the law and to the legal profession across fields including health, medicine and technology” and in 2024 he was awarded the highest honour given by the International Academy of Law and Mental Health, the Philippe Pinel Prize.

Tony Fernando is a psychiatrist, sleep specialist, and former senior lecturer in Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland. He earned his medical degree from the University of the Philippines, completed his psychiatry and sleep training at the University of Pennsylvania, and received his PhD from the University of Auckland in 2021, focusing on compassion in medicine.

He has received multiple teaching awards, including the Butland Award and the NZ Medical Association Chair’s Award for physician wellbeing. An expert in sleep automatisms, he has served as a witness in Australia and New Zealand for over 25 years.

Ronnie Mackay is Professor of Criminal Policy and Mental Health at Leicester De Montfort Law School, De Montfort University. He has written and researched on mentally abnormal offenders for many years. He is the author of Mental Condition Defences in the Criminal Law; Fitness to Plead – International and Comparative Perspectives; and The Insanity Defence - International and Comparative Perspectives both jointly edited with Warren Brookbanks and all published by Oxford University Press together with numerous other scholarly publications. 

Ronnie was a member of the Parole Board of England and Wales from 1995 to 2001. He has acted as a consultant to the Law Commission for England and Wales for whom he has conducted empirical studies on unfitness to plead, the insanity defence, diminished responsibility, provocation and infanticide.