There’s a world of difference between “trespassing” and home invasion. Walking your dog across someone else’s lawn is technically trespassing (in the US, anyway). It’s an extremely minor property crime to which the proper remedy is asking someone to not do it in the future. Forcibly entering an OCCUPIED house is a tremendous assault on the safety and security of PEOPLE. It’s not a mere property crime whatsoever and I think anyone who is subject to it is perfectly justified in fearing for his life.
Agreed. And the law in England and Wales (and Scotland too) reflects this view. That’s why only the most egregious cases of home owners attacking intruders are prosecuted.
One reason that people get the impression that there IS a problem with defending yourself against intruders is that when an intruder ends up injured the police will automatically question the home/business owner. Some newspapers like to use those circumstances for banner headlines about the injustice of being accused of a crime when merely defending oneself. Then, in the vast majority of cases the homeowner is found to have used reasonable force and the case is dropped. Those newspapers are a bit quieter about that.
As for Tony Martin, it was a difficult case but to see the other side of that coin just google Kenneth Noy who managed to get away with the self defence argument after he killed an undercover policeman.
Tosh, if you are only protecting property then the view is “it’s only property” if you are actually defending a real threat to you or your family you would be fine, but reasonable force test is used.
This wasn’t a home invasion they entered the house as trespassers with intent to steal, this is a property crime. Tony Martin’s actions before and during the incident made it very difficult for him to argue that he was acting in self-defence (for example he shot them as they were fleeing the property). English law says that you are allowed to use the force reasonably necessary to defend yourself and no more, but in the heat of the moment that your not expected to exactly judge the level of force required. Tony Martin’s actions went well beyond what he could’ve judged to be reasonably necessary, which was why he was convicted.
My own personal view of the Martin case is that I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the burglars who were shot- you break into someone’s home, whether you think they’re there or not, and you take your chances on what might happen if they confront you. But on the other hand you can’t just decide to kill someone for breaking into your house, the law on self defence isn’t there for people take retribution as they see fit. Tony Martin’s extreme reaction to any perceived threat to his property made him a danger to the public, he had a paranoid personality disorder.
I’m not talking about that specific case, but I reject the idea that breaking into an occupied house is primarily a “property crime.” Whether the burglars know someone is home or not, the chance of it escalating to an assault or murder as soon as they encounter an occupant is so great as to be simply assumed for purposes of self-defense or anything else.
Actually most burglars when disturbed will flee, though of course confronting a burglar is not recommended as there is a genuine risk of assault, murders do occur in the course of burglaries, but are thankfully very rare. In the UK, people do kill people who break in to their houses and the majority of the time they aren’t prosecuted and they’re rarely convicted.
A prosecutor has to convince 12 (or at least 10 out of 12) randomly* chosen in members of the public that a defendant used unreasonably excessive force against someone breaking into their home. That’s pretty much impossible to do without clear cut evidence.
*and in England juries genuinely are random, the only time jurors are rejected is if they have direct connection to the case, such as knowing someone involved or they are impaired in some way which prevents them from being able to consider the evidence (such as being blind in a case with visual evidence)
Absolutely agree. Breaking and entering of a residence is a heinous crime. A homeowner is awakened, disoriented and not sure what is going on. Maybe the two shadowy figures that he sees are simply drunk and looking for a place to sleep. Maybe they are there to rape his wife, and then kill his whole family.
I like the U.S. law in that this groggy homeowner doesn’t need to become Sherlock Holmes and determine these intruders’ intent before protecting himself, his home, and his family. It can be presumed that an intrusion into a residence, absent other obvious evidence to the contrary, puts the occupants of that residence in immediate fear of death or serious bodily injury, permitting lethal force in self-defense.
UK law does too. You’re supposed to attempt to wound not kill if feasible, and not continue to attack them once they’re fleeing. The latter is the reason for those high-profile cases.
Nitpick, but no it isn’t. One of the elements of both civil and criminal trespass is that you have to be told to go away and refuse or fail to do so (absent posted notice which satisfies the requirements of the law of the relevant jurisdiction, or an enclosing fence or wall).
For shame, law student! 
It may not be criminal trespass, but civil trespass is absolute. You are entitled to damages for the “bending of blades of grass” or some such thing that Prosser said.
Erg. No idea why I included civil in that sentence.
I thought that we were going to introduce a right to use excessive force on home invaders? Not an absolute stand your ground type thing, but something where you would really have to try something like the “pit of fire” guy above to get prosecuted. Martin would get released fine.
I still support the right to self defence by excessive means, and I support the right of people to get weaponry to do it. Ain’t ever gonna happen though and I also think frankly you’d be very paranoid in almost all parts of the UK to want to use it, I mean I wouldn’t. But it fucks me right off I’m not allowed to. Hell I should be allowed plastic explosives if I like.
I will kill anyone who wants to harm my family but I am not going to kill a junky who is trying to nick my tellie, it’s insured. I have had people break into my house when I was younger and lived in Redfern in Sydney, a dodgy area at the time and they ran away when they realized someone was home, in the one case where one wanted to confront me I held my baseball bat and my flat mate called 000 (our 911) and reds and blues were flashing out my front door in a minute. If he had had a go at me I would knocked his block off without a care.
Shooting this guy would not have lead to a better outcome and as not many Australian households have guns at hand our burglars don’t carry guns.
Not sure how I would feel if it was mum’s house they broke into and confronted her but the chances of this happening are so astonishing small it’s not worth losing sleep over.
Yes, and you can use lethal force if it’s reasonable under the circumstances. The definition of “reasonable” is already weighted in favour of the property owner which is why there are so few prosecutions in these circumstances.
We have all been saying this for a while, though, apparently to little avail.
The problem was you quoted NSW in the same paragraph as your UK question, I can imagine some people because it had Wales in the state name may get confused. Just helping out our non Australian friends.
I think the Tories are proposing a law along those lines, yeah. They’re fond of proposing laws that are actually already laws. Doubt they’re actually sanctioning using excessive force, though. Are you using that word correctly?
And any law that allowed you to shoot someone in the back (as Tony Martin did) after they’d run out of the house, into the garden and over the fence, and thus were too far away to pose any threat, probably would not be passed.
Particularly in a country awash with guns. Elsewhere, not so much.
Not nearly as much as going abroad for the first time and finding the cops are routinely armed is… :eek: “Where’s the bank job?” was my immediate reaction.
I would feel more unsafe if cops didn’t have gun’s, but then again if is a safe country (eg japan) i wouldn’t mind