To agree that Tony Martin's murder conviction should be over turned?

[FeckingEll]

Just read an article that he is appealing against his conviction so his name is cleared before he dies. It always troubled me.

Putting myself in the position of living in a isolated farm which had been continously burgled, probably living in a state of hyper vigilance. Home invaded by a group of young men in the middle of the night. It was not right that he shot when they were not actually advancing towards him but he wouldn't have known that they weren't going to turn round and come back.

He didn't seek anyone out to kill them and he couldn't have been expected to have taken account of the age of the people who had invaded his home.

Much was made of him 'booby trapping' his house but who wouldn't so you could hear if anyone got in while you were sleeping?

The people responsible for the 16 year olds death were the adults who took him with them to invade someone else's house! It could easily have been Tony who was murdered. If someone invades your home in the middle of the night, you can expect that to be a potential outcome, no?

The way Tony was portrayed in the media was abhorrent especially as it has come out that he is on the autism spectrum.

?

Eliza9917

I think once you break the law yourself you give up all rights to being protected by law.

By your argument Martin had given up his rights by owning an illegal firearm.

Brendon also got compo after the trial and loved making a joke about the fact he had been paid to Rob someone

He got criminal injury compensation because someone committed a crime by shooting him.

Tony Martin got £125,000 for an interview with The Mirror. Brendon will have got nowhere near that amount in compensation.

He’s got a cheek. His murder conviction was reduced to manslaughter already.

He shot someone in the back as he was running away with an illegally held firearm, and even if he hadn’t had his firearms certificate taken away the one he had would still have been illegal.

Plus he lost his firearms certificate for shooting at someone who stole apples frim his trees so he also has a history of over reaction.

I agree with Every word of that. Add the bit about lying in wait in an empty house. TM wanted to hurt someone and didn't care if he killed them. It was predatory behaviour.

People do die from being burgled - elderly people in particular.
My 80 year old aunt was knocked to the ground in her home and locked in her garden in January while the thieves robbed her. She never recovered - but the stats would not say it was "murder", (of course it wasn't legally).

I have been burgled and the effects are life-changing. (To make it about "property" is dismissing it.

The wee girl in front of me in the shop was a penny short when buying her sweeties earlier on and tried to make off with them regardless. Obviously, I shot her in the face because she had placed herself BEYOND THE PROTECTION OF THE LAW.

This reminds me of a case I heard about that happened in South Africa something like 15 years ago. A shopkeeper suspected a teenager of shoplifting, wrongly it emerged, and shot him in the back, killing him. It was determined that he had done nothing wrong as the law did allow you to do whatever necessary to stop a suspected criminal from escaping.

I think the law has since been changed, though I think I read that the police were opposed to that, as some of their own powers were derived from it.

Is there anything in UK law that says you must permit a minor crime if you can only prevent it with extreme violence? Suppose someone tries to take my wallet, which is virtually empty, and the only way I have to prevent that is likely to kill them. I wouldn't do it, but some bit of my brain believes that it would nevertheless be lawful if I did choose to. Can anyone quote exactly what the law says on this?

And it wasn't just one little trespass - it was sustained.

And if he had killed himself instead, (because the police do nothing about burglary or home -bullying), - we'd all be hand-wringing.

There was a programme about this a few years ago. Fred Barras had 29 convictions when he and Brendan Fearon went from Newark to Norfolk. Fearon left the property without checking what had happened to Barras. He should have made a 999 call before he left.

Martin was well known to the police and was not considered responsible enough to hold a firearms license. Martin was on his own property in the dark and shot at the burglars with his illegal firearm. He then left the property and walked to the local pub where he spent the night before reporting the burglary in the morning. Barras could have survived had he made that call at the time he arrived at the pub.

I think it is generally accepted that Martin had some mental health issues. I think that Fearon has to be accountable for leaving his accomplice as does Martin for failure to report. These gangs of travellers do terrorise people and that is a factor. I can understand why Martin wants to clear his name but I am not sure he will succeed.

Well, having just googled, the answer turned out to be obvious, and what I already knew. You have to be reasonable and proportionate in a self--defense situation, so the law isn't going to allow more freedom than that in a situation where it's merely about preventing theft.

Tony Martin was well known to local police, and not just because his house was burgled. He was quite the local character I believe and it came as no surprise that he used an illegal firearm to shoot someone in the back as they were running away from him. He was far from being the victimised frail old man some will have you believe. He collected enemies like some people collect stamps. He didn't deserve to be burgled, and I do think that if you decide to burgle someone, especially someone like Martin, then you accept the risk. But he was guilty, and he served (a small amount of) time as a result. By law he was found guilty, and he admitted shooting and killing the boy. On what basis can/ should his conviction be overturned?

Am I the only one who feels justice has been basically served?
All of what happened was wrong. Martin was obviously driven mad by multiple break ins, irrational, but with the mental capacity to prepare himself with a firearm. The law cannot say “that’s ok, you are absolved of any crime”, but manslaughter, reduced sentence and a few years in jail fits. Because shooting someone in the back is wrong. Because being broken into multiple times when you live alone is enough to drive anyone into paranoia.
The man is not going to show phoney remorse, there’s too much of that as it is. But we can’t say what he did was right either. It’s one of the few times I feel that the Criminal Justice System has got it just right.

I don't think the conviction should be overturned. He shot someone, they died.

I don't have much sympathy though for the burglar either. If he hadn't been there he wouldn't have got shot.

bella the court judgement gives a very different version of events to the one you’ve described.

Fearon (who had also been shot) and Ballas both escaped through the window and ran away. They were just fleeing, and weren’t even together. Ballas collapsed at some point on Martins land, and died. Fearon made it to a neighbouring property, where he alerted the home owner. The home owner called the police and ambulance and Fearon was placed under arrrest and transferred to hospital. Ballas was missing at this point.

Martin claimed that he was just shooting in the dark and had no idea whether he’d hit anyone or not. He left the property, went to his car, got a torch (it would appear all of this had happened in pitch darkness) and checked the house. He also claims he got in his car and drove round his property, looking for anyone who might still be around. Following that he drove to a “friends” (in the pub or not, who knows?) and slept there.

Ballas’ body was found the next day by a neighbour, who was trying to round up Martins Rottweilers, Rottweilers who protected the property. Fearon actually said in his statement the Dogs had chased them when they had entered the property and they had jumped through the window to escape them, but who knows whether to believe that.

I’ve googled in light of this thread to refresh my memory.

He’s still not sorry, doesn’t regret it, the fact that the boy is dead is neither here-nor-there and the only (slight) sympathy he has is for the boy’s mother.

Hell mend him. Conviction should stand. He got off lightly.

@wotsittoyou yes. Medieval style torture for rapists and child abusers sounds like an excellent idea actually

"Is there anything in UK law that says you must permit a minor crime if you can only prevent it with extreme violence? Suppose someone tries to take my wallet, which is virtually empty, and the only way I have to prevent that is likely to kill them."

It's going to depend completely on the circumstances tbh but it could be that stuff defence against the crime of theft could end up in someone's death, but it's so theoretical and dependent on variables that it's impossible to bail down something as a hard and fast rule.

So in your wallet scenario you could have multiple ways this plays out which results in the death of the thief were the killing could be lawful or it could go beyond the scope of self defence.

Thief : give me your wallet
You:no immediately take out gun and shoot him

Obviously disproportionate

T: give me your wallet
You : no
T: takes out knife give me your wallet or I'll stab you
Y: reach for nearest object and swing at him. Results in death
Quite possibly legitimate self defence

It's rarely going to be a case of " I killed him because he tried to rob me"
It's almost always going to involve some escalation whereby the refusal or attempt to prevent the theft leads to the assailant threatening the intended victim. So it's more a case of the person acted in self defence against a physical threat (real or perceived) that was being used in the course of a theft

But you have no obligation to allow another person to commit a crime against you because a refusal might escalate the situation

I think martin went beyond in this case though and a manslaughter conviction was the correct result

I also think the burglar got what he deserved

I'm very firmly of the view if you break into someone else's property - occupied or not - you face getting an arse kicking. If you have never been broken into you will not understand the lasting damage it does. Our student house got broken into 3 times in a year...the third time a friend & i confronted them with bed slats!

He shouldn't have had a gun & he got done for that. But after so many times of being burgled i can appreciate that his mental state was probably shaky. Do i feel for the lad who was killed? Not really. He had a record, he clearly didn't give a shit what impact he had on other people

The law even in this country (far more restrictive than ie south African and USA) is fairly is generous I think (from what I know of it) you don’t actually have to be threatened- you just have to illustrate (and potentially convince a jury) that you FELT threatened. Even if that was wrong, you’re genuine belief there was a threat is enough to defend yourself. You are also permitted a pre emptive strike- hitting someone who has not yet hit you as you have genuine belief they were about to.

However, let’s face it, gun laws are extremely strict in this country and even if you have a gun license (especially if you have a gun licence) you are not allowed to use it to defend yourself. Self Defence is based on fighting, hitting with objects etc. Potentially being able to grab a knife or cricket Bat.

Fans of Tony Martin always suggest he was a victim of the state. Like everyone else in this country he was tried by 12 ordinary people who listened to all the evidence and decided it was murder.

And yet people who weren't in court still think they know better.

The tresspasser/burglar got EXACTLY what he deserved. Conviction should 100%be overturned.

But getting what they deserved doesn’t mean you haven’t committed a crime. If I killed the person who mugged my elderly relative they’d deserve it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not guilty! These are completely different situations

No, he shouldn't have it over turned, nor should it have been reduced to manslaughter.
he shot a man in the back who was fleeing and posed no more threat to him.
I was living in the area at the time and at first I was completely on his side, until we found out what happened.

I can't get too worked up about the murder of a person who was continually burgling someone else's home, and doing goodness knows what else to get 29 convictions. How many crimes did he get away with? The world is better off without him.

I don't think Tony Martin should have received a custodial sentence.

So much for two wrongs don't make a right, eh? The burglars were doing something they totally should not have been, in response to which their victim did something he too should not have done. The difference is that what he did resulted in a death, which is rightly taken seriously even if the deceased was not very nice. Either we live in a country ruled by law or it's every man for himself. I prefer the law, thanks, even if I don't always agree with the way it works.

I think some people are confusing what they would like the law to be (the right to kill burglars) and what the law actually is (ie it allows proportionate self defence). In this case, it seems pretty clear that Martin acted unlawfully in killing the burglar and was therefore convicted of murder by a jury. Unless you can show that Martin was being attacked by the burglar, or thought he was about to be attacked, it's difficult to see how that verdict can be overturned.