Burglar stabbed, dies no charges brought against homeowner.adsgreen wrote:"depends"edge wrote:Whats the rules in the UK, over here you fook someone up you can be arrested for it!!PaulRS4 wrote:Don't forget you have the right to fully protect yourself too.
Bastutds deserve everything they get.
The key bit is "reasonable force for self defence".
Basically, reasonable means anything in proportion to the perceived threat.
So somebody breaks in and you hit em with a frying pan you've been using to cook with would be probably reasonable.
As above though, you can't be "prepared" for an attack. So whilst you could use a baseball bat you'd need to be careful on the story.
"I was in the garage and heard a noise and picked up the baseball bat that I keep there" would be probably ok
"I heard a noise and grabbed the baseball bat from under my bed" -harder to argue
"I heard a noise and grabbed the bat from next to my bed"... onto a loser there.
There other part is you can only defend yourself when you are actually in danger.
Two high profile cases being:
- Tony Martin. Convicted of murder after he shot a burglar dead. The key point on this (apart from sitting waiting with a loaded firearm) is that he shot them in the back whilst they were running away. There's no way you can argue it was self defence as no danger. He had to take aim and fire multiple times.
Didn't help that in court he said he'd do it again no problem.
- Bloke who's house got broken into, family tied up but he managed to escape, scare them out the door to which his brother and extended family who lived close by heard the noise and they chased the intruders down the street, catching one and beating him to a pulp with cricket bat.
This was originally being handled as attempted murder however after alot of public outcry it was dismissed (I don't know if the charges were dropped or reduced). Even though no perceived danger I believe the argument of what the guy had just gone through would have prevented reasonable thoughts at the time. However he was very lucky not to get sent down for what he did.
Personally the best defence is an old one - a feck off big dog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ma ... r-13885457