that the Man who killed a burglar he saw breaking into his house should not be jailed for 19 years

[LargeDeviation]

He saw the man breaking into his house on a video doorbell, armed himself with a knife and went with his half-brother and killed the burglar. He has been jailed for 19 years.

Yes the violence he used was very extreme, but the burglar was breaking into his home! It is unreasonable to expect a dispassionate response. People should be able to defend their home and their family from intruders, including using force which would be considered unlawful or unreasonable in other settings.

Even if he must be found guilty by law, the sentence should take the circumstances into account and it should be a slap on the wrist.

OP, you're missing the point about disproportionate force.

You might consider a premeditated murder to be a proportionate response to someone breaking into your house when you are not there, but the law does not agree. And rightly so. You do not have the right to unilaterally enact the death penalty on someone, without any trial, because they happen to have broken into your house. It would be absurd if the law allowed this. You are being ridiculous.

I agree with PP that in this specific case the man is a violent killer. Not an innocent homeowner killing in self-defence.

It's one step away from something like Purge.

I said that (without realising the drug angle) that 19 years was too long a sentence.

19 years for taking a life is not enough tbh.

I think the tolerances are most probably just right. There's too many thickos think they ought to be able to do whatever they want, because they feel threatened, or insulted.

Of course he deserves it. Absolute psychopaths, both him and his brother.

People are only laughing at you because you are talking jibberish - it could never be legal to use disporportionate force.

Please do try to be logical and sensible.

What you are proposing is carnage.

I always think this is a really tricky area.
When I was a single parent of a newborn baby, and moved to a quiet village, I felt quite vulnerable. I remember reading that if I had a baseball bat by my bed, and whacked an intruder with it, I could be in trouble. If I played baseball and happened to grab my bat in self defence I'd be OK. But if I had the bat specifically in case of intruders, then I'd be prosecuted, because it would count as a offensive weapon. Instead I have a massive heavy torch beside my bed.

But I remember thinking that if someone broke in I would be terrified, and really wouldn't be able to think clearly. Obviously this isn't the situation in the case being discussed, but I do have sympathy for people who kill intruders who scare them.

Home is where you are meant to be safe and there should be far more legal protections for you in your own house than are currently the case.

What there should be is far more police officers to bloody a) deter crime b) attend crime and c) investigate crime.

If you vote Tory, thanks a fucking bunch for the fact that crime is pretty much ignored these days

You still can't murder people for burglary though.

I said that (without realising the drug angle) that 19 years was too long a sentence.

It's almost like the Judge, Jury and CPS knew more than you did with your very very cursory Googling of headlines. It's entirely possible they know more in almost every case.

Reasonableness is a concept enshrined in law. You appear to want to dismantle the entire legal structure because of your reckons. Best leave it to the professionals.

But what if you were home, wouldn't you feel threatened if someone was in your house? Surely if you feel threatened you do whatever it takes to defend yourself regardless of what property is worth. If someone was in my house I would feel threatened and would grab whatever was to hand - tough if the burglar got hurt, he shouldn't be there.

(Obviously I'm not condoning what happened in the case today)

Child? Grandchild?

I'd think I'd kill to protect my own kin from being killed by a scumbag.

I think if his life had been in danger then it would have been understandable that he reacted the way he did but this is different. His actions are more methodical and calculating and he was aware of what he was doing so was not psychotic - no reports of him suffering delusions, hallucinations or thought disorder which is what psychosis is. It's not a byword for violent.

Sincerely someone who suffers from actual psychosis and who has never been violent.

Won't anyone think of the poor drug dealers just defending their livelihood?

The Daily Mail tendency have been arguing that our legal system is soft on burglars and householders should have more rights to attack them. But I think since the best examples of "injustice" that the vigilante tendency have are this case, and the case of Tony Martin who shot a man in the back while he was running away (and who was still eventually found not guilty of murder) indicates that the English law has got it pretty much spot on.

Sorry, I disagree.

He travelled back from wherever he was and stabbed a person multiple times. Multiple times. You don’t get to rampage on someone because they’re breaking into your house. He wasn’t defending anyone.

The police would have done naff all if he had called them and the world is a better place thanks to his actions. There's not a chance he will serve anything close to his sentence.

@carefullycourageous I used to vote Labour until Corbyn. Then I didn't vote at all.

I think crime is a much bigger political issue than it was even a few years ago - probably third just behind the economy and NHS, and just ahead of education and defence.

The politicians need to get the police to stop filling in paperwork and instead catch shoplifters, burglars, and muggers and the courts to actually lock them up for long prison sentences. Whoever actually has a plan to do that could win a lot of votes.

He murdered a man. Burglary does not deserve the death penalty. Of he had been in his house and scared for his life that would be different but someone passed him off and he armed himself with a lethal weapon and went to kill him. Murder.

He probably wouldn't have been prosecuted had he been in the house at the time and genuinely defending himself and his property. He wasn't. He chose to take a life so he deserves the sentence he got.

Well luckily the law in this country disagrees with you.

As others have said:

your life?
Partners life ?
Kids life?
Grand kids life?
Rape?

Your loking at it very simplisticly

His house was empty so this point is invalid

Think about it. If you saw this on your Ring doorbell, what would you do?

Most normal people would probably panic but their first action would be to ring the police and stay well away!! That's what ordinary Joe Bloggs would probably do.

To arm yourself and your mates with knives and go after the perpetrators and follow through on stabbing someone to death tells me that you're already an angry and extremely violent person.

Well, fund the police sufficiently to police, maybe to populate the police with more people worthy of the office, and that might help. Also, there's no link between longer sentences and lesser rates of criminal activity or recidivism.

However, there is a link between lesser gap between the haves and the have nots, and education, particularly literacy and numeracy.

He got off easy. It wasn't manslaughter. It was murder. He had every opportunity to call the police or otherwise act differently. He set out, tooled up, with backup. He intended to do serious harm and that is what happened. It should have been murder.

Invalid in this case but what if you were home and a burglar broke in? Do you still think there's nothing worth more than a burglar's life?