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.

Well he will serve 19 years before he gets before the Parole Board, and relatively few people get out at first parole. So yes, he will serve his 19 years, and probably more.

If the police did their jobs things like this wouldn't happen. There are some youths near me that are riding round on motorbikes eyeing up cars then come back at night & steal them, names have been given to the police & everyone is dialling 999 when they see them but nothing is being done. It's a matter if time before a few large men lie in wait for them one night & give them a good kicking. The police don't even come out if there is a burglary or a car stolen, they just give you a crime number for your insurance.

All these people saying they would kill someone to defend themselves or their family....you wouldn't. You have never been in that situation. You would be absolutely petrified. It is not easy to kill someone even in self defence.

The law looks at the circumstances.

You hear a burglar coming up the stairs in the night and you grab your DS’s cricket bat to defend yourself. You take a single swing in the dark and it sends them over the banister and they break their neck. No one is going to look to prosecute you.

You see a burglar in your neighbour’s garden, head outside with an axe and it ends up with the burglar in pieces? You’re going to prison.

In reality id be shaking but if I had a gun of course id do it. Only a bozo would spare a burglar at the expense of their family's lives.

@Nat6999 but if your "large friends" stab a bunch of kids to death on the streets for stealing cars, and leave them choking on their own blood on the pavement, your friends will be in jail.

You break into my house, you leave your human rights at the door

Alright Dwight Schrute 😂

I thoroughly agree he deserved prison. However being from the area I will say that the deceased was not a pleasant person and had terrorised the neighbourhood since he was in school. I do not know many who will mourn him.

That he was defending drugs is neither here or there. It was an ultra-violent, pre-meditated murder.

This. I've been in a few very violent situations (work) and people have absolutely no idea how they would react. None. Most freeze IME. Even in the extremely unlikely event that you do fight, you'll probably lose. You don't think a criminal is probably a better fighter than you? Please/

DH is a bloody huge black belt. Even he'd be 50:50 against the drug dealers I know, probably less.

The police, like the NHS, have ever increasingly limited resources reluctantly granted to them by Government. They have been expected to do more with less until they've reached the point that they can't. They're triaging.

Once upon a time, they could be there about Mrs Wiggin's kitten.

Then they couldn't be there for Mr Biggin's neighbourhood dispute.

Now it's got to the point that they cannot attend burglaries etc in a meaningful time.

And then we've got the whole trust issues because of the erosion of trust in the police due to the levels of corruption and criminality within the police.

This is a much better example of the way the law works in genuine cases of self defence.
Repeat criminal is armed and breaks into an elderly couple’s house. Homeowner picks up a knife and kills him. Homeowner was released without charge.

amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/02/hither-green-stabbing-of-burglar-was-lawful-killing-coroner-rules

He stabbed that man not just once but multiple times, he was not at home and was in no danger. He decided to arm himself and attack the unarmed burglar. He could have called 999, he did not need to kill a man over possessions. He absolutely deserves to be punished for the death of another human being.

No, if a burglar dies as a result of you battering them with a golf club that happened to be lying around because you were scared shitless that comes under proportionate response. Each case is taken on its merits.

@PonyPatter44 you might need to lay off American crime dramas.

@heliosunburg obviously if they were attacking you or your family thats different but if they were just in your house I know most people would not even confront them. Also not many people have guns and weapons to hand upstairs. I don't know one with a baseball bat in the room in reality so you'd have to go downstairs knowing you would be confronting them and most people would just not do that.

Aw bless you, I don't watch crime dramas, but I have worked in high security prisons for ten years. Thank you for caring, though.

I was pulled up to be the victim of a mock robbery. I completely froze. I couldn't recall any features. And I'm fairly gung ho.

I was shocked initially and thought it was harsh, but when I read about the drugs I felt differently - as clearly the homeowner was never going to call the police.

If he had gone back and challenged the burglar and it got out of hand it would be different.

Unfortunately these days the police are not going to race round for a house being broken into, so I could understand someone trying to defend their property themselves

Thatswhyimacat In these cases, there is always more to it. The famous case of the man, I forget his name, who shot an intruder and everyone went all Daily Mail about it, what actually happened is he lay in wait and then shot a teenage boy who was running AWAY from his house, with an illegally owned weapon.

Completely different case and not as simple as you are trying to make out. And the case is still studied by lawyers, not just Daily Mail readers as you claim. Tony Martin was convicted because he used unreasonable force and his claim of self defence didn't succeed. However, its still different from the present case because the burglar who was killed was still on his property and in the present case the burglar was in his own home when initially stabbed in the face. Given that Mr Martin lived alone in an isolated house which had been plagued by repeat burglaries and had experienced little police response, I suspect the verdict might have been less harsh in present times as the case did bring the law and policing into sharp focus. Just a couple of decades after the Tony Martin case, 79 year old Richard Osborn-Brooks stabbed to death a burglar at his home in south London, and faced no charges.

The law permits homeowners to use "reasonable force" to defend their homes against intruders, and was clarified in 2013 to recognise these very individual circumstances. Clearly the big difference in this case is that the stabbing didn't take place anywhere in the house or garden.

However if you think that public opinion doesn't influence the application of the law and that factors which influence sentencing over time don't change, then that is a very innocent viewpoint. Just think how some things have changed for women in the light of the Me Too movement - its not perfect but overall, things are not tolerated then that were now.

This. I’d say 19 years for murder is pretty lenient.

He shouldn't have been jailed for 19 years.

Wannabe Charles Bronson should have got longer for pre-meditated murder.

Why would assume a criminal a better fighter .

Alot of criminals use intimidation as a scare tactic . Dont back down or show fear they soon fuck off. Atleast that's my experiance

If he'd rushed around to the house with the first weapon to hand and stabbed the man once after using peaceful means to try to get him to leave then I would have some sympathy (I would still think he needed to be in prison as an empty house is not worth more than a man's life) and would agree that 19 years was harsh bit this was not the case.

He chased the victim down and stabbed him multiple times.

I've called the police twice when I felt my safety was at risk, once at work when a customer was threatening me and once at home when someone was trying to break in. Each time they responded within minutes.

What makes you say it was premeditated?

He could of grabbed a knife for protection, and got a bit enthusiastic with it