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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To have no sympathy for the burglar

758 replies

Mitmoo · 19/09/2011 09:10

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.

OP posts:

pigletmania · 20/09/2011 11:50

Meant greif

kelly2000 · 20/09/2011 11:53

miflaw,
But you are also making the assumption that the victim killed the deceased. For all we know one of the intruders was holding the knife and in the struggle which all three were involved in stabbed the other one. There has been no inquest yet. And even if the householder weilded the knife at the point of death, if the deceased was an intrudor then the only one responsible for his death is himself and his co-intruder. The householder has no reason to feel guilt. He saved his child from a hideous ordeal.

And lets face it trying to rob someone with a knife and then being shocked that you get knifed yourself, is akin to putting you arm in a machine labeled arm removing machine and being shocked your arm was removed.

kelly2000 · 20/09/2011 11:56

piglet,
I also think his family are behaving dreadfully, putting flowers outside the scene. They have a right to be upset, but they should feel shame as well (they know he is a violent criminal) and should stay away from the victims.

bemybebe · 20/09/2011 11:59

Nobody on this thread was saying the killing should not be the subject of the judicial process.

mayorquimby · 20/09/2011 12:09

Lots of people are. Otherwise what do the people who are saying "once you enter my home you forefit your rights/ I don't care about the burglars rights" etc mean? They mean that the burglar has forfeited any protection from the law and that the homeowner should not be subject to legal sanctions surely? Or are those who have said this simply spouting soundbites and cliches which they have not fully thought through? Because that seems highly unlikely

kelly2000 · 20/09/2011 12:22

Saying once you break into my home you loose your rights is not the same as saying there should be no judicial process. The fact is the law agrees, as although the law guarantees your right to life it will not punish anyone who takes away your life in self defence so in effect when committing a violent crime against aperson you loose your right to life.

BupcakesandCunting · 20/09/2011 12:24

Of course the victim (and by victim I mean the homeowner) should be investigated by police. I agree with Ormirian's last post here. "Scum" is subjective and if the majority view on a murder is that the victim was scum and had it coming, where is the line drawn? However, Ormirian did make a post earlier in the day saying that the homeowner had murdered and therefore must be punished. I think that this kind of thing is what riles people into fits of pique...

FWIW, I would imagine that the police treated the victim courteously and kindly. He would have been in shock and to some extent, traumatised.

MIFLAW · 20/09/2011 12:26

"Miflaw,
You are concerned that in this country we have a presumption of innocence not guilt? It is not up to the victim to demostrate he is telling the truth, it is up to the cps to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to at least ten people on the jury of twelve that the convicted violent criminal was not killed in self defence."

No, of course I'm bloody not. i am saying that it is right that this death is investigated as we have only got one side of the story; and that the "presumption of innocence" you are so fond of is being applied selectively here. Had the burglar lived, he too would have had the right to a trial by jury with the presumption of innocence; but, in the minds of most here, not only is he definitely guilty, but he therefore deserved to die.

mayorquimby · 20/09/2011 12:30

No your right to life is restricted in accordance with your legal rights. You can't shoot a burglar in the back as they attempt to flee your house. So their right to life remains. You can if their death is a result of reasonable force used in self-defence, if you use unreasonable or knowingly excessive force then you will be punished for violating anothers right to life and the law.
As stated above you couldn't incapacitate them and then subject them to torture or rape, so their right not to be subjected to torture remains.
Saying once someone enters your house they forfeit their rights is either saying that judicial process should not be followed or else they are simply saying something which they haven't thought through.
What actually happens is that once a burglar enters a house many of their rights are restricted and others remain completely unaffected, all in accordance with the law. As such no rights are lost at all they remain in operation subject to the law which is exactly the same as at all other times.

MIFLAW · 20/09/2011 12:30

"The householder has no reason to feel guilt." Nevertheless, he WILL feel guilt because that is the normal reaction of a human being after killing another human being and watching them die.

I thought it was established, incidentally, that the householder killed the deceased. If it is not, then I am sorry.

"And lets face it trying to rob someone with a knife and then being shocked that you get knifed yourself, is akin to putting you arm in a machine labeled arm removing machine and being shocked your arm was removed." No it isn't - that's a silly argument. rightly or wrongly, lots of crimes involving threat with a weapon take place every day and it is far from true that all of them end in the use of the weapon. So let's not face it, because it's not true.

MIFLAW · 20/09/2011 12:31

"Nobody on this thread was saying the killing should not be the subject of the judicial process" - yes they were. Read it from the beginning.

MIFLAW · 20/09/2011 12:34

"The parents and family have shown no empathy for the homeowner and have overtly displayed their grief with near the homeowners home. Just tells you something about the family doesn't it." Yes - it tells me that they have lost a relative whereas the householder has lost neither a relative nor even his possessions, because he foiled the attack. Let's get a bit of bloody perpective in this case, for fuck's sake - the burglar was a criminal but he is now dead. The householder has been scared and severely shocked. I would say he has come out of this one better, and his family has certainly come out of it better than the deceased's family.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 20/09/2011 12:36

The family are not only showing no empathy for the homeowner they are sticking up two fingers with their floral shrine.... Would it have been OK for Thomas Hamilton's family to leave flowers saying 'miss you' at the school in Dunblane? OK for the 7/7 bombers' families to make shrines at the scene of their crimes? Time you got a bit of bloody perspective for fuck's sake...

Most people in this situation would grieve for their loved one but have the good sense and common decency to keep their bloody heads down

Animation · 20/09/2011 12:39

"In 1999, he and two friends beat a man to a bloody pulp after a row at a pub in nearby Handforth. A witness said the victim was left like a piece of meat and Jacob got 18 months after he admitted GBH."

Raymond Jacob was a dangerous guy.

The householder (his wife and child) did well to come out of this unharmed.

I imagine things must have stepped up a gear when his wife and child arrived home.

BupcakesandCunting · 20/09/2011 12:41

" I would say he has come out of this one better, and his family has certainly come out of it better than the deceased's family."

I wouldn't bank on it. I would imagine that all sorts of harrassment campaigns/claims for "compo" are now in the footing....

MIFLAW, I respect that you have your opinions and I think that you've held your own well on this thread. But even you, surely, can see that the family leaving flowers outside the house is a bit off, no?

MIFLAW · 20/09/2011 12:41

"Would it have been OK for Thomas Hamilton's family to leave flowers saying 'miss you' at the school in Dunblane? OK for the 7/7 bombers' families to make shrines at the scene of their crimes?" Well, no - because, do you see, people DIED at those places.

What happened at this place was a break-in got foiled. One man died - the burglar. I mean, personally I wouldn't be setting up roadside shrines anywhere because I don't like them, but the people who have actually LOST someone here are the family of the dead man. So, while there are undoubtedly more decorous ways of expressing grief, I am prepared to cut the man's family some slack on this one because he is DEAD and that is not their fault.

MIFLAW · 20/09/2011 12:44

" I would imagine that all sorts of harrassment campaigns/claims for "compo" are now in the footing...."

No doubt I'm back in la la land, but I would still say that that was preferable to death. I mean, looking at things dispassionately, putting aside the rights and wrongs of it for now, you'd rather be hassled for compo than get stabbed to death, wouldn't you? I know I would. That's probably the woolly liberal in me coming out.

Animation · 20/09/2011 12:46

It's completely inappropriate and intrusive to lay flowers at this guys house. It feels a cynical ploy to me - a loaded agenda.

MIFLAW · 20/09/2011 12:48

"It feels a cynical ploy to me - a loaded agenda." well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't - but, as we don't KNOW one way or the other, perhaps we could, at least for a couple of days, cut a bit of slack to the family of a dead man while we wait and see how it pans out?

CogitoErgoSometimes · 20/09/2011 12:48

A family have had their home violated and the relatives of the person who did it.... now dead.... want to build shrines at the spot and then post on a memoriam board that he was 'murdered'. Do not be suckered into believing that they are mourning a loved one in an 'indecorous' manner. It is a deliberately provocative symbolic act against the man that killed their son.

MIFLAW · 20/09/2011 12:49

"Do not be suckered into believing that they are mourning a loved one in an 'indecorous' manner. It is a deliberately provocative symbolic act against the man that killed their son." And that's something you KNOW for a fact, is it?

And to think there were people on this thread worrying about ME doing jury service!

Ormirian · 20/09/2011 12:50

A lot of people are saying the it shouldn't be investigated. The ones who are saying 'he got no more than he deserved and the man shouldn't even have been detained by the police'.

bupcakes - my earlier post was meant to read that if he had been found guilty of murder than he should be punished.

SpaghettiTwirlerAndProud · 20/09/2011 12:50

One of my DPs colleagues was about to be burgled, but the guy stood on a glass patio table (as you do ) and it fell through, the burglar got 10,000 compensation. Your home has to be safe to break into!

CogitoErgoSometimes · 20/09/2011 12:51

Yes, I know that for a fact.

MIFLAW · 20/09/2011 12:51

Buffoon.

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