To have no sympathy for the burglar

[Mitmoo]

Another burglar has been stabbed to death when he broke into a businessman's home. His wife and child were returning to the property. The details are very scant at the moment as it is early day.

But the burglars who were stabbed robbing a shop, and an edlerly shopkeeper killed one of them, he was not prosecuted. I think that's right.

It's on R5Live now being debated after another burglar was killed at the weekend.

Personally I think home burglars should take getting stabbed as a occupational hazard. I have no sympathy for them.

Not that I support or agree with terrorism in any form (never did I think I would have to write that as I would assume it is a given)

I am just trying to point out that the weakness that is apparent in the thread is that people seem to be so willing to lump criminals into media friendly stereotypes which shortcuts actually thinking.

Ie if you just dismiss terrorists as bad men, you have gained no insight as to how to identify them and counter them.

Burglars are just scum, rooters are chavs, terrorists are bad.

No thinking, no change, no intervention, no prevention

I cannot believe the astounding naivety by some of the posters on here. All I can imagine is that you have never been exposed to career criminals and your posts are based on some sort of airy fairy nonsense you've heard about poor, misunderstood people who just need some help.
They're not. Most are drug addled, amoral, feral individuals who couldn't give a shiny shit about their victims or the rest of the world at large. As long at they're getting what they want they have absolutely no compunction how they get that.
I have spent the last 9 years in the police and yet it still surprises me just how completely devoid of any humanity some of our customers are. Whether that's caused by childhood trauma is cold comfort to you when they're slitting your throat to prevent you from hampering their theft of your property.

his wife and child arrived during the incident. No-one on here knows at what point the man was stabbed. It could easily have escalated when the man felt he was defending his family.

I never use a chain and occasionally don't check who is there particularly if I'm expecting someone. It may make me slightly foolish but I still don't expect to get burgled.

"No-one on here knows at what point the man was stabbed." Very true. You wouldn't think it to read the thread, though, would you?

He was entitled to protect himself too. A single person has the right to be secure at home from burglars.

"I have also said that I would not stab a man in the back; and that, however bad a criminal is as a person, there may well be other, innocent people harmed by his death."

Cripes.

I am guessing that you mean by innocent people that you mean any children he may have had/his wife/parents? Well, I'm afraid that the onus falls on the burglar here. It's not like his children will be grieving for a father that they lost because he got knifed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He put himself in that situation, he knew the risks. He obviously doesn't rate his family very highly or else he wouldn't have chosen aggravated burglary as a career path. And before you start, I KNOW it will not make a difference to the grieving family, they have lost a loved one and i is their right to mourn him BUT I don't like the way that your post implies that the homeowner is the reason that these innocent people have been harmed.

Plus, what about the innocent people that would have been harmed by the burglars actions, had he have succeeded? Or do they not matter? People were going to get hurt whatever the outcome of this burglary. Just so happened that it wasn't the intended victim.

But how do you know, at that second when you are confronted with a stranger with a knife, whether you need to protect your life or your property? You don't. I would guess that all this homeowner wanted to do was protect himself and his family. Who on earth when confronted with that thinks "oooh fucking heck, me iPad's on the table, so is that £500 I got out from the bank earlier"? I'm guessing you don't. What you're thinking is "You're here to harm me or my family." You then act on that instinct. If you seriously felt that someone was there just to take your possessions and not harm you, you'd just tell them where it is and let them take whatever it is they're after. You must feel threatened to do what he did.

"People were going to get hurt whatever the outcome of this burglary. Just so happened that it wasn't the intended victim."

I happen to think that "hurt" in the sense of "upset and deprived of goods" is a bit different to "hurt" in the sense of "dead" or "deprived of a parent/husband/son".

"It is their right to mourn him" - very magnanimous of you.

And no, I am not implying that the homeowner is the reason. I am apparently in a minority on here in believing that that is for the courts to decide; you know, the system we maintain at considerable expense precisely for this sort of thing?

It is possible that the homeowner lashed out in the heat of the moment (or it is possible that there is more to this than meets the eyes and he was carrying a knife himself, which is a bit different.) Whatever the courts decide, he will go through life now knowing that he has killed a man. Not a burglar, or scum, or a druggie - a man. And that is in itself quite a punishment.

I AM saying, though - not implying, saying - that I think a lot of posters on here are getting carried away by their own rhetoric rather than thinking about what exactly is entailed, for them, their victims, both families, and the fabric of society, by the defence of the principle that it is unequivocally all right to stab a man to death just because he's a baddie (presumably a masked man in a stripey jersey and flat cap carrying a bag with "swag" written on it.)

I think we have it right in terms of law: this has to be investigated to make sure that all is as it seems. If self defence can be proven, so be it.
I would be very uncomfortable about current government going with further laws to protect homeowners, as the burglary vicitm will be covered if it was as it seems and it was in self defence.

Lots of people have shitty upbringings and do not choose to burgle houses. It would seem that the burglar who died is a victim of his crappy upbringing more than anything else. If his family are willing to show their faces in public and the media, and acknowledge to the world that their son/partner was a burglar, then they have no shame and are not "decent" in anyway. If either of my sons did something like this in their later years, I would be cowering (and grieving) in shame in the privacy of my own home.

Great debate on a subject very personal to everyone.

So now his family shouldn't be allowed out in public either? His death isn't enough to absolve the heinous crime of not stealing anything or hurting anyone (perhaps he would have - or perhaps he'd have bottled it and run away. We'll never know now, will we?) His family also need to purge themselves of being related to a wrong'un?

Yes, this is spot on. let's stone the bastards.

Jesus,

MIFLAW, everyone is allowed out in public, far be it from me to detain them, but have they no shame?

I am not suggesting anyone be stoned, and as I started my post with support for the investigative/ legal process rather than vigilante justice, I think you have misinterpreted what I have said.

I happen to think that "hurt" in the sense of "upset and deprived of goods" is a bit different to "hurt" in the sense of "dead" or "deprived of a parent/husband/son".

It's not just about possessions. In fact, this message ain't getting through so...

IT'S NOT JUST POSSESSIONS, YOU KNOW?

It's the psychological trauma of being burgled at knifepoint. Of realising that you may not be able to protect yourself in your own home, in the one place that you should feel safe. And you are assuming that loss of possessions would be the only loss on the owner's part. Burglaries can and do turn into murders.

Oh and when you take my quote about right to mourn out of context like that, it does sound arsey, but I would hope that you would know what I truly meant by the other words that surrounded it.

I do agree with you about the outcome of this being punishment enough for the homeowner. I would also add that it would never had happened if trouble hadn't come looking for him.

I'm not quite sure where you're going with the "stripey jumper/swag bag" thing. It's what I've been thinking all through this thread in relation to yours and other's posts. You seem to be under some illusion that burglars are just hapless chancers, only after the gold candelabra and brooches, like some Beano villains. Burglars, a lot of the time, are nasty, vicious bastards who quite like to mete out a bit of torture/ABH/sexual assault with their comical robberies. Are we, as homeowners, supposed to ascertain which type they are before deciding whether we'll try and defend ourselves/our homes or whether we'll say "righty-ho, you carry on I'll put the kettle on."?

"So now his family shouldn't be allowed out in public either? His death isn't enough to absolve the heinous crime of not stealing anything or hurting anyone (perhaps he would have - or perhaps he'd have bottled it and run away. We'll never know now, will we?) His family also need to purge themselves of being related to a wrong'un?"

They haven't just "been out in public" though, have they? They've been to the scene of the stabbing to lay flowers, so they're obviously not that arsed about their relative being a nasty shit.

Had they have given a statement out saying something along the lines of "Whilst we don't condone what X was doing at the time he was killed, we shall still grieve for him and miss him etc etc" they'd get sympathy. But going out of their way to lay flowers outside the house? Pffft.

Scum got what he deserved! I've been burgled twice so know all about the trauma/aftermath.

LadyGooGoo I won't deny that behind many crimes there will be a story. I just don't think I need to hear them.

I would like all kinds of counselling/treatment to be available so that if someone has the urge to commit a crime they can get help immediately. To stop them offending and to help them through whatever causes it. I also think that we should be looking at things like poverty because it is not right that the gap should be so wide.

But, once they commit the crime I don't want to hear them asking to be let off because they have 'taking-other-people's-money' syndrome or that they mug old ladies because they were bottle fed.

If they offend they risk injury or death from the victims or the police and they will be punished. If they don't like the sound of that then they should just not do it.

"MIFLAW, everyone is allowed out in public, far be it from me to detain them, but have they no shame?" Shame of what? That their son/father/husband fucked his life up to such an extent and did something so monumentally stupid - quite probably despite their asking him not to, if only in the interests of self-preservation - that he died in his own blood among strangers? Do you not think they might have more important things to think about, just this once, than what the bloody neighbours think?

"Burglars, a lot of the time, are nasty, vicious bastards who quite like to mete out a bit of torture/ABH/sexual assault" - I can quite accept that, as long as you can accept that, equally frequently, they will be hapless clueless bastards who haven't got the sense they were born with, or else they wouldn't be breaking into occupied properties and risking major prison sentences.

More important, though, is that you either bring the death penalty back for theft - or you refuse to glorify the unfortunate and literally useless death of an idiot. I am in the latter camp. I don't think this man thought it through, I don't think he went there intending to kill anyone (or else he would have killed him on the doorstep and left) and I don't think he deserved to die. Yet die he did, and no one is the better off for it. Not him; not his family; and certainly not the man who was unlucky enough to kill him.

And you continue to talk about defending yourself and your home as if it was the same thing. It really, really isn't.

The reports I have read say that the home owner was at home at 19:50 hours and answered the door to the "burglars".

I have never heard of a burglar that knocks on your door in the early evening so this makes me think there is more to this story. What was he doing? Knocking to say "Top of the evening to you, mind if I come in to burgal?

Personally though I do feel that it is ok to use reasonable force to protect yourself, but not just to protect property that is in all likelihood insured anyway (not that that makes it ok).

If the burglar was stabbed and was killed accidentally then that in my mond is reasonable force, if the burglar was turning away to leave, was stabbed in the back or stabbed repeatedly more times than was needed to diffuse him, then that was not reasonable force at all.

YANBU OP.

" I can quite accept that, as long as you can accept that, equally frequently, they will be hapless clueless bastards who haven't got the sense they were born with, or else they wouldn't be breaking into occupied properties and risking major prison sentences."

I do accept that. But what I am saying is, is that you shouldn't need to be put into the position of deciding which type of burglar you are dealing with before deciding what course of action you take. Whatever your intentions are, you aggressively enter someone else's property, you take the risks associated with it. In this case, it happened to be the risk of death because he came up against someone bigger/stronger than him. No-one is that clueless that they think that a career as a burglar is risk-free. He knew this, I am certain of it.

"And you continue to talk about defending yourself and your home as if it was the same thing. It really, really isn't"

No-one is saying that it is the same thing. What I, and others, have asked, is when are you able to evaluate what it is that you need to be defending? You have, what? Five seconds? Take the facts into consideration... faced with two men (there is one of you), trying to break into your home, one or both have knives. These are the facts you have to work on, plus a limited time to react. How do you assess whether they are there to just take property or whether you are going to get slashed into the bargain too? We all have the benefit of being able to think about this rationally, behind a computer screen. A million worlds away from being faced with it. Plus, the homeowner was probably scared. With scared comes adrenaline. I can easily see how and why this happened.

Pippi, I have heard it a lot and i has happened in my building several times. Apparently burglars often ring the bell and then run off when you answer. Basically checking first it's ok to come in. Obviously not the case here, I am just pointing out that it does happen.

"Yet die he did, and no one is the better off for it."

I would like to disagree with this.

"The reports I have read say that the home owner was at home at 19:50 hours and answered the door to the "burglars""

This might suggest that they were planning on making him tell them where a safe was/money was being kept. They need a compliant victim for this so it would make sense to get hold of him at the door at knifepoint, get directed to the safe/cash, leave immediately.

Of course, as others have said, there could be more to this than meets the eye...