To think that if you get stabbed by the owner of the house you're trying to rob...

[BupcakesandCunting]

That it's an occupational hazard of being a burglar?

Obviously I am NOT glad that someone has died here but if you break into a property, you cannot guarantee that you will come out of it very well off. If someone broke into my house, I don't know how I would react but if I felt that my family were under threat and I was panicking, I imagine it would be very easy to go OTT and the other person come off worse.

I know that the law says that you're supposed to use "reasonable force" but heat of the moment/panicking etc etc...

What does everyone else think?

no one is suggesting that a "tap" is the only reasonable response.

a full on beating has resulted in no charges against the homeowner in the past, as has been the case where the burglar has been killed as well.

what you seem to be advocating is the right to dispense whatever vigilante style justice you like within the boundaries of your property... which (agreeing with nightkitchen) means that you should not be protected by the state either.

currently, you are protected by the state and supported. i don't see why this needs to change.

I think also a few people are being naive.

Do you honestly think that it would not affect your children seeing you kill someone that you could have knocked out. The children of the person that you killed might just go to school with them. I have known the senario where a burgler was put into intensive care by a neighbour defending their property. The burgler was a neighbour with family in the area, the consequenses were far reaching for both families.

I have German Shepards so tbh although i live in a rough area, i am not targeted. But other more vunerable people are and these are the ones that cannot fight back even with a weapon. What some are proposing will put others at risk by burglers being more choosy who they target and being armed themselves.

I was mugged but stepped behind the person and shoved them into a busy road (it stopped the mugging and they wasn't injured) so i know how i would naturally react but if i had of crippled a young lad i don't know how that would have affected me or my family.

BTW Tony Martin fired into the dark, he could have just have easily killed an arresting officer.

I'm quite shocked that the homeowner has been charged with murder, when the scumbag who beat an 89 year old lady to death in the street while mugging her is only being done for manslaughter. What the mugger did was far worse, in my view.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-13864499

Birdsgottafly - don't think many people would deliberately kill someone they have knocked out or have tied up but it would be easy to kill or seriously harm someone in that kind of desperate situation. yes, my children would be upset but at least they would be alive and hopefully unharmed (other than mentally).

And if your mugger had been killed or hurt that would have been their fault and not yours, yes it would be difficult for you but still their fault.

Balls to them.

You should give up your right to any sort of protection from the law the second you break into someone's home. Yes, you should be able to dish out any sort of action you deem appropriate at the time (not what the court deems reasonable months later in the cold light of day) should some wanker decide that he fancies having a root about in your personal possessions in the middle of the night. If that means killing them, so be it. How can you know that they won't kill you or your family?

"The law does need to be clearer on this."
Surely it's sufficiently clear at the moment. You can use proportionate force and what is proportional is to be judged from the subjective view-point of the person using it.

Begon-read some of the posts, some would or at least not care if their neighbours did.

Realistically how many people are killed by burglers every year. I am more under threat of attack walking in the park, where will it end, legalised weapon carrying. This fear is being somewhat created by the media.

Flisspaps, the law allows for that at the moment. If you kill someone because you believe they pose a threat the law won't punish you. If you manage to immobilise or incapacitate a burglar and then enact some revenge fantasy by stabbing/torturing an unconscious person then you will.

If I woke up and someone was about to rape me, I would kill them. No doubt and no regret. But what if I woke up and there was someone about to rape me but actually it was a fireman trying to rescue me from a fire or gas leak? In my sleepy haze maybe I would shoot him. I am lucky enough not to have experienced rape but, after years in the oil industry, have woken up to find soliders in our room trying to wake us up to evacuate because of a deadly cloud of gas leaking over our compound. TBH, if I had had a gun that night, my first instinct would have been to lash out. Particularly as these guys didn't even speak English and were screaming at us and waving batons.
I totally agree with being able to protect your property and for anyone who has been tied up, attacked, threatened etc I agree kill the bastard fuckers, especially if they threaten your family. My only concern is that in the heat of the moment, if we all had guns or machetes in our dresser drawers, how could you account for taking a life in error?

Bornciky, you said "the right to dispense whatever vigilante style justice you like within the boundaries of your propert"

No, I'm not.

I'm simply saying that I think that people who are proposing householders use "reasonable" force don't understand that the snap decision I would make where i have discovered a burglar outside our bedroom would be to either: compyly fully, or incapacitate them to the greatest extent I could.

Whether that means stabbing them or crushing their skull with a baseball bat. It matters not.

My point is that in those situations I'm damn sure it's impossible to judge whether you hit a guy's head enough to enrage him further or kill him outright. And in the cases where the latter happens, I should have full protection of the law. The incident where an OP's DP injured someone's nose and knee whilst fighting back is a case where I can see this "balance" being appropriate. Or the karate instructor who was sent down for 18 months after protecting his 2 day old baby and wife in his house.

Clearly knocking someone out and then continuing to beat them to death, or shooting them whilst fleeing (having never been targetted/feeling powerless with lack of help from Police, or whatever other variables commonly enter into these debates)... is different. That's not what I'm advocating and I wouldn't do.

I just feel that the term "reasonable" moves the balance too much in the favour of the attackers. It's unclear.

Also before all of you propose that you are quite confident that you can fight anyone that comes through your door. You best start campaiging to remove gyms and martial art lessons from prisons. I would prefer a police force that responds quickly and a justice system that backs up the victim but then with the cuts, it's a bit to much to ask for, so the easy option is to give the public a false sense of security.

Violence always breeds violence. Where ever these sort of laws exsist violence always escalates.

fgaaah

so you think that reasonable should include the allowance that if somone breaks into enters your home uninvited, then you are allowed to kill them? under any circumstances?

it's not impossible to judge the rights and wrongs of defensive responses versus aggressive pre-meditated responses to home burglaries. that's why the term reasonable exists; in order to allow a qualified and experienced person, plus a jury of your peers and legal counsel to make the cases for and against.

if you don't like the term reasonable, what do you prefer?

absolutely birdsgottafly

kormachameleon can you direct me to the news items about this, as that's serious charge against the police and would like to read a bit more about it?

I think that the big problem (as pps have pointed out) is that you can't predict how you'll react. It is difficult to legislate for instinct!

I was given a date rape drug aged 17 (and a quiet, pacifist, hippy type) and taken into an alley. The rapist must have got their dosage wrong or summat though as I came round just before I was raped and seriously injured him. I couldn't have predicted my reaction, especially as I'd just come round. If it hadn't been a crowded clubbing area where I could easily get someone to call the police, he could have died.

i don't think this case was simply a 'burglary'

i'd bet £100 the residents of that house knew the intruders (or knew who had sent them). burglurs don't get together in groups of 4 with balaclavas to break into regular council houses to steal a wii and a flat-screen TV

Korma- how could the woman have defended herself from an armed drunk attacker, i don't see why you are justifying taking the law into your own hands and not calling for better policing. In your friends case surely they have just moved on to a weaker target, how does that help anyone?

I think "reasonable" should be defined as what a pancking person would dowhen they can't see what they are facing,don't know their intentions,and assume the worst case.

Omi- the problem is that most people have a perception of crime created by the media, so 'worst cases' are really rare and we cannot base society on them, that is why CS gas and the like was banned. I think that this will turn out to be quite different than a simple burglery. I know of someone who has been murdered the way it is being reported is nothing like the circumstances that has actually happened. Most insidences of this sort are drug or criminal activity related (by all of the parties) arguements gone wrong. For all we know the householder may be a criminal and the victim a revenge attacker not a burgler.

Unless the public push for better policing and take action against the police when they fail in their duty then nothing will change. It's not upto the police, they cannot strike as easily as other sectors, or raise public awareness, it has to come from the government. These proposals will not help as the police will have to investigate both parties and this will take up resources.

Better stratagies are needed for rural areas that do not have the matrix and armed response units that inner cities do, on the doorstep.

So many people say "if someone had broken into my house I'd kick him in the nuts/bash him with my Le Crueset/stab him in the eyeballs/scalp him with my Magimix or whatever, but until it happens you don't know what you'd really do.

True fear is usually petrifying - literally. You freeze, are stunned into inactivity. Fight and flight is usually a slightly delayed reaction whilst you process what you are seeing.

I am 5 foot 1 and weigh 8.5 stone. Even if armed with a knife or pan it is doubtful I could totally incapacitate an intruder and far more likely that a weapon could be used against me. Given that many home invaders are, I believe, high on crack/meth/heroin they are not rational and may well have an abnormal physical strength.