Don't defend yourself if you are burgled!!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Actually for me its worked fine, I've only ever had someone try to mug me once. I simply asked very politely what they where doing, why they where doing how old are you. (lots of questions made the kid feel un-comfortable) and reminded him that A there was a busy tube station round the corner, and B I was in no way scared of him, and i could see he was woundering what he was doing as the police had already been called (by my friend I was on the phone too, who I was walking to meet).

Try living in a place outside a city. I never had issues with kids in cities or student towns myself but OTH those in towns with big suburbs are different in attitude. The police are so few in number and overworked that there are hardly any about and the response times are very long. Hence the kids know they can get away with most things.

This compounded by the fact that many towns lack enough facilities orientated towards youth which would probably help.

But I shouldn't have been talking on my mobile anyway, its east London after all...
With a knife, god no. You see I'm not a marshal arts expert, i'm not well schooled in self defence, I have a large frame and a genuine confidence. Thats it.

An OAP versus a few 17 year olds in their home then?? Again you are talking nonsense. I have lived in London too.

If I did arm myself with a knife it would be my paring knife, concealed and not used as a threat. It would be used if I felt there was a real chance that my life was threatened, and i'd go for an eye or something horrific, whatever was easy.

Concealed weapon with intent to harm.

Are you some form of armed fighting ace, because if so your in a differen't league to mortals like me, and this girl in question.No, but if someone broke in to my house, and I have children I would stay locked in the same room as them until the police came eventually.

What would I hope to gain? There is no way I would put any risk to myself, who would take care of the kids!.It does, I've done it, I spent most of my free time at uni doing social work, the trick is to just distract them. If you ask in a completely non-confrontational friendly. Hello, what's going on? You will get a bunch of verbal abuse, but no one will feel the need to use physical violence if your lucky. And if you video it you can press assault.

If you had ever gone after a group of kids with a knife, you wouldn't be arguing this point, you'd be dead (probably).

Because it will happen again. You would be seen as a "soft" target. This is what has happened to friends of people I know.

Hello,what's going on?lucky

Then what about the people who have been assaulted then?? Don't think that all kids respond to nice words especially if the kids are targetting you because of your age or other attributes you can't change.

With old people even if they don't confront the kids the fear is enough to really destroy their lives and confidence. They feel trapped in their homes.

Again your way does not solve anything but actually encourages the behaviour.

But then when we have got experts like the TheAnimus around we can see why the law or even or the interpretation of the law is the way it is now.

[shaithis]

Actually for me its worked fine, I've only ever had someone try to mug me once. I simply asked very politely what they where doing, why they where doing how old are you. (lots of questions made the kid feel un-comfortable) and reminded him that A there was a busy tube station round the corner, and B I was in no way scared of him, and i could see he was woundering what he was doing as the police had already been called (by my friend I was on the phone too, who I was walking to meet).

You were lucky. A different mugger may have stabbed you for trying to "mess with his head".

Just because something serves you once in a situation, does not make it the correct thing to do in every like circumstance.

[Kata]

People like TheAnimus are the ones driving our system towards working for the criminals. 'It's my fault if I get mugged, I shouldn't have had my phone out'. Let me guess, you also think it's a woman's fault if she's raped, as she shouldn't have been looking sexy, right?

Wrong, it's the criminal's fault for...being criminals.

Our society has no use for criminals like these. A lot of US states have the right idea, where you are entitled to kill someone if they illegally enter your home to commit a crime. A criminal does not have human rights, IMO, as they are not fulfilling their own 'human responsibilities'.

The police have since confirmed that she committed no crime, of course, as she was on her own private property, and acting in self defence.

Here endeth today's rant.

[Saracen]

Why doesn't the police then warn the kids for trespassing then??
....

Unless it's changed since I last checked, perhaps surprisingly, trespass isn't a criminal offence or a police matter unless, essentially, it's either in one of a limited number of types of places where it explicitly is, like MoD property or railway lines, or unless the trespassers cause criminal damage in the process of the trespass. But short of that type of situation, it is (or certainly was, and I'm not aware of it changing, though maybe it should) simply a civil matter.

[Saracen]

.... Plus showing anyone a knife in a threatening manner is assault. If you stop reading the daily fail and think about the rammifications of saying you should be able to assault someone who is just outside. Thats madness. A friend of mine down in cornwall had someone nock at their door at 1am in the morning because they'd got stranded, nothing sinester. Imagine if you said it was OK to assault someone who just called after darkness?

You have to draw the line somewhere, her life was not in danger, the police had been called and it was unlikely they where going to break in.

There was a chance of criminal damage been caused however, so instead of a knife, why didn't she politely ask them to leave? let them make abusive comments, and video it?

Of course it's acceptable. She's in her own home, and there are potential intruders.

And you say waving a knife "isn't going to help matters", when the facts appear to gainsay you - she banged on thwe window, waved the knife and they ran off. It seems it worked.

How do you know it was "unlikely" they were going to break in? And there's the world of difference between someone knocking on your door at 1AM and someone poking around in your back garden, where they have NO right to be.

.... Plus showing anyone a knife in a threatening manner is assault. If you stop reading the daily fail and think about the rammifications of saying you should be able to assault someone who is just outside. Thats madness.

Erm ..... no, it isn't assault.

It is possible that it could be, depending on circumstances, but it most definitely isn't the case that it somehow automatically "is" assault.

If she was charging down the garden path, frothing at the mouth, screaming banshee-like that she was going to kill them, that would be different. But they're on private property and they're on the outside and she's inside. It is not conceivable that she can harm them with a knife unless either she chases them or they break in .... in which case, she's got a very credible self-defence claim anyway.

If, on the other hand, she'd been pointing a shotgun at them, well, that might be different.


I notice that the police are now saying that no suggestions about "offensive weapons" charges were made, according to a police spokesperson, who of course wasn't there. The inference, to me, is that the police are now saying Myleene Klass is lying about that. Far more credible, IMHO, is that some police officer was being an idiot and throwing his authority around a bit, and is now in ass-covering mode and denying it now that it's blown up in his face. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

[jim]

Yeah it certainly comes across that way. I can sort of imagine it though - they're at the house of somebody fairly well-off and famous... it must've been enjoyable for them to spend a few seconds being the big know-it-all, having her cowering apologetically at their feet saying she never wanted to break the law.

Then naturally the force comes out and corrects itself when it discovers that one of its officers made a cockup.

Typically though, the media outlets have ignored the denial that came out, so this argument will probably rage on for a couple more days.

[JPreston]

I you ask yourself how come we are hearing about this incident at all, the only likely answer is that Myleene (gawd bless her, she is lovely) hasn't been in the news much recently and her PR correctly guessed this would get folk talking about her again.

She says Hertfordshire Police officers told her that brandishing an "offensive weapon" was illegal.

But a police spokeswoman said that "at no point" were any warnings given.

[TooNice]

Wrong, it's the criminal's fault for...being criminals.

I do not dispute that and I have not a single ounce of sympathy for criminals who end up on the receiving end of some rough justice, as in the case of the story posted mid-December about that guy who tried to keep another's man's family hostage and ended up severely beaten up with brain damage. Yeah, Saracen is probably correct in calling it mob justice, but I am not sure if a fair number of reasonable people would not have lost it it under that circumstances, and I repeat, I have zero sympathy for the original offender.

Still, we do not live in a perfect world, and one should use their common sense. If you know there are criminals around, then it is up to you to protect yourself adequately for the environment you live in. In Japan you can probably leave your mobile on the table in a bar, go to the loo, take a dump and still be able to find your phone when you come back. Do that in some other part of the world (and I rather suspect, here), and you probably won't ever find that phone. The thief is guilty of a criminal act, but the person who knowingly left his phone is at best guilty of naivety, and at worse, stupidity. Not quite as bad as the act of stealing but hardly helping themselves, and my sympathy will definitely vary.

If you go somewhere where people who wear expensive watches routinely lose their arms, don't wear your Rolex for crying out loud. Is it worth being 'right', successfully catching the criminal, and giving him harsh sentence at the cost your arm?

[Saracen]

I do not dispute that and I have not a single ounce of sympathy for criminals who end up on the receiving end of some rough justice, as in the case of the story posted mid-December about that guy who tried to keep another's man's family hostage and ended up severely beaten up with brain damage. Yeah, Saracen is probably correct in calling it mob justice, but I am not sure if a fair number of reasonable people would not have lost it it under that circumstances, and I repeat, I have zero sympathy for the original offender.

In that previous case, I don't have any sympathy for the offender either, but if it's the case I think it is, the reason I compared it to mob justice is that the 'victim' had time to call family for reinforcements on the phone before chasing the bloke down the street, whereupon the beating was handed out.

Had the beating, up to and including brain damage, or even death, occurred while the bloke was still threatening the 'victim' or his family, my view (though perhaps not the one of the legal system) would have been "fair enough - just deserts" etc.

But as soon as you start chasing people down the street and giving them such a severe beating, it is mob justice. It might be well deserved, and even 'natural' justice, but it's at the hands of a 'mob' with little or no justificaction in law. Had they chased him down the street and merely used reasonable force to detain him pending the arrival of the police, then again, fair enough. And, if that "reasonable force" meant he ended up with bumps and contusions, well, so be it. But by handing out such a severe beating, they were extracting vengeance, not an arrest, and while it may be understandable and many of us in those circumstances might feel like doing that, I wonder how many of us actually would?

And suppose there'd been circumstances the beaters weren't aware of? Suppose the bloke had been mentally not responsible. or his own family were being held hostage to force him, or they just made a mistake and grabbed the wrong bloke because he looked similar and was wearing similar clothes?

Regardless of circumstances, there's a reason why we don't allow victims to hand out their own street justice, though in many cases, such street justice might be felt by many of us to be more justice than the "justice" system provides.

As I said, I have no sympathy for the bloke that got beaten up, assuming it's the right chap and I'm not aware of any dispute that it is. But that type of activity clearly goes some way beyond self-defence, as the offender was fleeing, and as such, seems to me to be, while perfectly understandable a serious assault.

[santa claus]

I have deliberated on this for hours. My contribution follows:

Yay Go Myleene! run the buggers through !

[Clunk]

It's all Hearsay.

[ajones]

It's all Hearsay.

Can we have Clunk arrested for assault with a deadly pun?

Someone above mentions common sense.... I think that this is something that has been gradually dissappearing for a few years now.

[floppybootstomp]

This actually happened to me ten years ago.

I was home alone on boxing day and family were at in-laws.

I was woken up around 3.30am by a 16 year old in my bedroom brandishing a knife.

Without going into all the details after I had confronted him my living room was awash with blood and the burglar had left through the front door.

I called the police, they found the burglar staggering down the road and they tell me he probably would have died from blood loss had he not been rushed to hospital and undergone emergency surgery.

He bore a startling resemblance to the retard pictured above (I refer back to the story that started this thread).

I was arrested and spent from 5am to 4pm in the police station, a lot of that time in a cell. I was charged with assault.

All charges were eventually dropped and one officer commented to me 'I'd have given a month's salary to do what you did to him, we've been after him for months, he's caused an immense amount of misery to a great many people'.

He spent six months in custody awaiting trial and when the case came to court the jury didn't believe me, they thought I had attacked him (he actually attacked me when I followed him downstairs wearing just underpants & T-Shirt) and the charge of agravated burglary was dropped to plain burglary and he walked free.

Some poncey over-educated and overpaid barrister done the business for him.

As I said, that's the bare bones of the story but don't look to me for sympathy for people who intrude in your home.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Some poncey over-educated and overpaid barrister done the business for him.

Making them loads of money in the process. The chap re-offends again and the said people make even more money.

[petrefax]

And suppose there'd been circumstances the beaters weren't aware of? Suppose the bloke had been mentally not responsible.

sorry chap, i have to disagree with this particular point. for argument's sake let's say the person was mentally ill, would this make the acts he committed against the person & his family any less harrowing for them? should the victim simply shrug his shoulders & say "ah well, he was mentally not responsible at the time of the offience so all's well that ends well then, no harm done"

whilst i agree with everything else your post covers, this increasingly popular "defence" of illegal actions on the grounds of mental (in)capacity in no way excuses them


the particular point of law that irritates me is the occupiers liability act which makes the owner/occupier of a property liable for any injury that a trespasser upon the property may incur due to "forseeable dangers"

put simply, this law denies you the option of booby-trapping your own home against potential intruders.

as far as i'm concerned if i am going on holiday for 3 weeks and wish to remove the lightbulbs then put trip wires across the bottom of my doors & boxes of broken glass in the area someone would fall into if they were to trip on the wires, i should be perfectly entitled to do so!

[TKPeters]

as far as i'm concerned if i am going on holiday for 3 weeks and wish to remove the lightbulbs then put trip wires across the bottom of my doors & boxes of broken glass in the area someone would fall into if they were to trip on the wires, i should be perfectly entitled to do so!

How about a loaded shotgun on the end of the trip wire pointing at said door