to ask your thoughts on this? Fatal shooting during burglary

[itsjustataste]

Happened near me very recently and our community seems very torn with lots of people slinging insults at both sides. Lots of people shouting about playing stupid games, win stupid prizes etc... whilst others calling the shooter a murderer.

I find it very sad that someone so young has ultimately lost their life and has got mixed up in this sort of thing.

BUT that being said, I don't have any ill feeling toward the farmer either and cannot say that I wouldn't do the same if faced with 3 people breaking into my home, especially if I had my children in the house.

The other 2 suspects arrested for aggravated burglary meaning a weapon was involved and there had been a break in at the same home the night previously too.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-68942085.amp

When you burgle a premises you leave your human rights outside on the doorstep. End of. Death is an occupational hazard of being a filthy burgler.

Zero sympathy. I have alarms, CCTV and a panic alarm. Ive been burgled twice - 3rd time? ....lm with the farmer

Ive donated
Id probably come out of retirement and represent him for free

It's impossible to know from the news article if the farmer's actions were proportionate or not. Certainly aggravated burglary is a serious charge with the potential for violence against the farmer and his family. But we don't know if that charge is a fair reflection of the actions of the three men, what weapon(s) they had with them or what they were doing when they were shot at.

I don't think shooting a burglar is wrong if you could reasonably think they pose a physical threat to you or your family and other attempts to get them to leave are either impractical or don't work. But I don't think it's okay to shoot a burglar if there are alternatives just because the burglar shouldn't be there in the first place. It's always going to depend on the particular circumstances.

I thought the law in this country was that you are able to defend yourself against burglars if you feel threatened. So hopefully he’s just being questioned without being ultimately charged?

I’m a 5ft tall woman with a 3 year old and a baby. If a man broke into my house, I would not hesitate to do whatever necessary.

I don’t care at all that someone lost their life. Burgling someone is terrifying experience for the victim, so I consider anyone who is ok with doing that a waste of space anyway.

It’s an interesting question though. Does a big male burglar who has broken into my home illegally to cause harm feel less threatening to me as a petite female just because he doesn’t have a weapon?

Come on, we know they had weapons - and why would you carry a weapon with you in those circumstances if not to use it, or at least to frighten your victim into thinking that you might? People only carry weapons for two purposes: for committing (or threatening) acts of aggression/intimidation/violence/murder or similar; or to protect themselves from the effects of other people carrying them for the first purpose. These thieves most clearly don't fall into the second category, so the circumstantial evidence is shouting from the rooftops.

What's the point in trying to analyse exactly what format those weapons took and to seek to get inside their heads as to how far they would have gone to hurt/kill the farmer?

The only way we can know that for a fact is by removing all rights of the farmer to defend himself in any way and then seeing what the results of his post-mortem say - not that helpful for an innocent man just peacefully living in his own home, really, is it?

We were talking about this with our friend who is a police sergeant. I have no idea if it's correct but he said it depends on the reason the weapon is there.

So if you keep a baseball bat under your bed for the sole purpose of using it as a weapon for an intruder, and you happen to use it for that purpose you could be charged.

However if you're a baseball player and your sports bag with a baseball bat and ball is at the bottom of your stairs after coming in from a match is around when an intruder breaks in and you grab the bat to protect yourself you'd probably be fine.

Our friend in the police said he keeps a hammer, a few nails and a photo frame on the landing windowsill, as if it's about to be put on the wall.

Like I say, no idea if he's right.

Anyway, I'm firmly team farmer. Poor guy must be beside himself.

The family of the boy should be ashamed.

What are the family actually saying?

I'd be mortified if that was my kid. Can you imagine the shame you'd feel.

Did I miss something in the report? I didn't see anything detailing weapons.

Sounds like the poor guy is still in custody. Disgusting.

These scumbags knew the property was occupied and took weapons. They came twice in two days if the reports are correct. The ones left can’t say they didn’t intend to cause him harm in his own home. He should never have been arrested.

I hope the decent locals get behind him and come together to shut down the threats and abuse being thrown at him. His family should be thoroughly ashamed of what they raised, not trying to get sympathy and ‘heartbreaking’ comments. Hope they get run out of town. I’ve donated too. They’ve almost reached the £20k mark on donations.

I don't think the weapons are the key thing, though bringing weapons with you as a burglar indicates an intention to use force if necessary. As a petite woman faced with a big guy, I think you'd be in a position to reasonably need to use a weapon against a burglar in situations when another big guy might not.

But just because a burglar is a big guy doesn't mean he's intending using violence. Most burglars do not want anything to do with violence and will run off if they find someone awake (as happened to me the time I was burgled while home). If, as a petite woman, you shot a fleeing burglar in the back, I don't think that would be reasonable, however big he was and whatever weapon he had (probably - though someone might come up with something that would change my mind on that).

I hope the farmer is released without charge.
What right do these people have to enter your home?
It must be terrifying to find three armed men in your home, particularly if you have family.

My sympathy is entirely with the farmer. It's all very well to speak of it as a "burglary" (which may well have been the only intention in their minds) but the situation the farmer was faced with was that three men - apparently armed - broke into his property to do god knows what and he had to choose - most likely through visarel terror - how to react to best protect himself and his family.

We all know that people have been assaulted, raped and killed in their homes as well as simply burgled and you simply do not know which is intended. All you know is that someone (or in this case a gang of people outnumbering you) has seriously broken the social contact already by forcing their way into your home during the night. At that point predictability and all bets are off.

If you seriously frighten an animal in its lair, injury or death is an entirely foreseeable outcome as they seek to protect themselves - even more so if it turns out they also have young to protect. This is as true of humans as any other animal. I have very little time for the surprised Pikachu face when that foreseeable outcome occurs.

I didn’t realise there had been a break in the night before, that’s horrendous. We were broken into a few months ago. We had lots of security measures and cameras in place but our alarm stupidly wasn’t set so we didn’t wake up. They were in our house for almost 10 minutes and stole anything of any value from our garage (the door to it is within the house). It was thousands of pounds in the end and most of the items weren’t covered by our house insurance. Weirdly as much as it annoyed me that they’d got away with it and will have been able to sell our stuff, the thing that bothers me is knowing we were completely oblivious in bed (our young children too) and these unknown people were going through our things, deciding what to steal, with no great urgency. Our cameras showed them leaving, texting and generally acting casual on the way home.

I haven’t been able to stay alone since if my husband has to go away for work. Every night if I’m the last one downstairs I feel so uneasy, like they could be watching me from outside. I haven’t watched anything on tv that’s remotely scary since as I’m already so on edge and we’re still talking about selling our house.

I genuinely think if these people saw the aftermath of what they do to people by breaking into their homes, they surely wouldn’t be able to do it. At the same time though they are people and lock their own doors at night so are bound to understand how it feels! I have no sympathy for these smug little gets, coming back to terrorise someone for a second night. It also just seems sooo stupid when people do that at a farm, when the likelihood is they will have a gun 🤦🏻‍♀️

It is not reasonable to use lethal force to protect property. We do not have the death sentence for burglars. Killing someone when the worst that happens if they "get away with it" is that you have to make an insurance claim is definitely murder.

Lethal force is only justified if the opponents is credibly threatening your own life or that of others - if the burglar has a loaded gun and is pointing it at you/your family member then yes go ahead but if they just have a knife and no victim within arms reach they don't have capacity to harm anyone and shooting them is wrong.

I remember a case like this a few years ago where the farmer in question shot the fleeing burglar in the back. That was definitely murder. Whether there was sufficient justification in this case that it could be proportionate self-defence rather than murder will be for a court to decide and speculating about unknowns in a live case is unwise as it can lead to a mistrial if there's so much public speculation that it would be impossible for a jury member to look at the facts uninfluenced by all the gossip.

He didn't get the death sentence - he died at random while the farmer was defending himself.

OP… kindly, farmer is not at fault here.

I wouldn’t think twice to shoot someone dead if they broke into my home whilst I was there, much less with my young child.

Tony Martin was a completely different case. Tony martin was not convicted because he shot the burglar, but because he left the burglar to bleed to death without calling for help

I think this man needs to be put on trial as quickly as possible -I know not all trials work out fairly, but I have faith that most do. If this was as straight forward as it sounds, he will be publicly cleared and can carry on with his life with his head high.

When I was 14, my house was broken into when I was home alone. One of the first times I was ever left alone and I’m still traumatised by it. I ran up to my bedroom and locked the door, they tried the door and kicked it in before seeing me. Thank god they ran off after that. Still dealing with the repercussions a decade later, despite moving house as I developed a huge amount of anxiety, resulting in a chronic medical issue. He probably will be tried for murder, given his intent was to seriously injure the burglar, but self defence is a pretty watertight defence in this situation I would think. 100% on the farmers side.

There's not enough detail in the news article to be able to tell what happened- if he saw them sneaking into a barn and opened fire then that's not OK, but if they were actually threatening him or his wife with violence then it's likely to be self defence

But how do you know you are just protecting property when you wake up in the night (and for the second night running) to an armed gang? Genuine question. God knows what they're after. All you know is that they have the means to seriously harm/kill you and your family and are obviously very determined.

Similarly - "if they just have a knife and no victim within arms reach" - just? I would absolutely fear for my life if confronted by someone with a knife in any situation. What about those poor people faced with that sword attacker the other day?

Couldn’t care less about the burglar.

Scum.

I hope the farmer is released as soon as possible.

He's done the world a service. One less piece of scum in it. It's a shame the other two weren't hit as well.

My sentiments precisely.