Isn't that state of legal ambiguity nice for the homeowner. Ya gotta be a fricken barrister to understand the crap shoot that defending yourself and your home entails. All for the low low price of 50% of everything you earn. wow now that's govt service, I tell you yessireee that's where we're headed too. Liberals want us to march to the band of the euro-weenies. I say no thanks. btw : I wonder how their mudslime (I mean muslim ) problem is going in euroweenie land?
What you say is true in terms of self-defense, but not in terms of defending property. If someone breaks into your home and you smack him over the head with a fireplace poker when you could have retreated and safely abandoned your home, you will be charged with a crime. When my wife and I were in London such a case was in the news. The homeowner was convicted because he behaved "unreasonably" when he "failed to retreat" when he had the opportunity. Had the burglar assaulted him I suppose he would have a legitimate claim to self defense. But since he chose to confront the burglar instead of retreating and abandoning his home he was convicted and sent to prison.
With all due respect, tom, you're incorrect... Based on a few cases of the 1970s, the courts used to rule that the defender was under a duty to retreat and that retreating or disengaging is necessary to establish that the defender was acting reasonably. The present position of the law (as per Bird 1985) is that a person can act lawfully in self-defence without temporising, disengaging or withdrawing. Again, the key point is that the court rules in each individual case, depending on the specific circumstances.
I'm not referring to self-defense. If someone is directly assaulted I assume he has the right to defend himself. I'm talking about a situation where someone (a criminal) forcibly enters your home and you have the opportunity to retreat without confrontation. If you choose to confront, you have behaved "unreasonably" and will be charged with a crime. When my wife and I were in London (in 2003, I believe), the case I referred to in my previous post was in the newspapers. I read it a half-dozen times because I couldn't believe what I was reading. A criminal breaks into a guy's home and the homeowner ends up being charged with assault. Seems outrageous to me.
Well, ignoring your other attempts to provoke me (I assume), I am happy to discuss this with you. The main point here is that the state of ambiguity exists for the homeowner to begin with. For instance, let's say a teenager kicks a ball that ends up on my property, comes over to retrieve it and I shoot him in the head for trespassing. What should be the justice in this case? Do you think there's less ambiguity in the following New Jersey State Statute on Defense of Property? http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/criminal/charges/justif006.pdf
If you remember the names of people involved, I'd be happy to look up the specifics. In general, possibly because of the public's outrage over the case you describe, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 modified the legal language. The homeowner can only be countersued by the intruder if they used "grossly disproportionate" force. The specific recent test case of this principle was Hussain & Hussain 2010, where Lord Chief Justice ruled that the defendants acted in reasonable self-defence (they chased after and beat intruders who burgled their home).
So, how do you know it is a burglary and not an attemped murder or kidnapping? Do you have to wait and see if the perp starts looking through your bedroom drawers or puts a noose around your neck before you take action? It just sounds like the English are a bunch of pussies who value a criminal the same as the home owner or law abiding citizen. Or, in other words as Lucrum put it, it's the stupid liberal way.
I don't recall the names of the parties involved in the case, but if they've changed the law since then, that's good news.
Why do you need to know that it's a burglary? The law applies to self-defence of any sort. What does it have to do with "liberal", which, in the context you use, is a uniquely American term? How do you mean "the English are a bunch of pussies"? Compared to whom? The US?