Householders Who Use Violence on Burglars
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- At the 2012 Conservative Party conference, new Justice Secretary Chris Grayling announced plans to amend the criminal law to ensure that even householders who react in a way that may seem disproportionate in the cold light of day will be protected from prosecution. This reopened a long-running discussion about the balance of legal rights between the home owner and those trespassing onto the property for criminal purposes. The law received the most scrutiny in the case of Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer who killed one burglar and wounded another who entered his home in 1999, and was subsequently convicted of murder (reduced to manslaughter on appeal).
Professor John Spencer discusses the new proposal, and considers it in the light of the current law and previous suggestions.
Professor Spencer is Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Centre for European Legal Studies, and Honorary President of the European Criminal Law Association. He has written extensively on criminal justice matters and has been involved in a number of law reform projects.
For more information about Professor Spencer, please refer to his profile at www.law.cam.ac....
Law in Focus is a collection of short videos featuring academics from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, addressing legal issues in current affairs and the news. These issues are examples of the many which challenge researchers and students studying undergraduate and postgraduate law at the Faculty.
Once someone enters your property, he/she has lost their rights as law abiding citizen; therefore, we can deal with whatever option given.
Use of deadly force to protect property should be a statutory right, not least when alone in a house at the dead of night. Violating the sanctity of a home is accompanied by the assumption of risk that the homeowner may use deadly force in self defense and in the protection of his property. Shooting the burglar in the back and calling it murder places is ridiculous and is no vice except when the burglar is killed after falling unconscious.
I made more or less the same sort of agruments regarding the planned 'changes to the law' during a conversation in a pub the other week. I was told to shut up and learn something about law before I opened my mouth again.
Figures.
It is interesting to note, that in ancient vedic law, one of the circumstances where killing is lawful, is the invasion of the home. I suppose that it cannot be murder, if it is self defence.
If, for example, a householder is confronted by a burglar, armed with a gun, threatening harm to the householder, or his family - or if he fears that they are in immediate peril, and in defence, he kills the burglar with a stick or a knife for example, then it is simply not murder in any case is it...? Thus the mandatory charge of murder does not, as is implied in the video, apply. Correct...?
Tony Martin. Top man
Excellent series of videos.
These are an excellent series of videos so please keep them up. I