Re: #2
This is one law I would examine if I were Prime Minister. If a burglar enters a property then they give up any "rights" against the householder, except in the most extreme cases.

For example if your friend of a friend used reasonable measures (i.e pinning him to the ground) to apprehend the criminal then the criminal doesn't have a leg to stand on.

If the householder were to have apprehended him, strapped him to a chair and tortured him then that would be unreasonable and extreme.

But unless there's such an extreme scenario, burglars should have no rights. The law should protect the innocent.
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Wed 11 May 2011, 7:59, 4 replies)

^ This
The whole problem is the vague subjectivity of 'reasonable force'. How much is reasonable? A third-dan judoka who finds someone breaking into his house might think that putting the intruder in a joint-lock until the police arrive is perfectly reasonable (given the size of the tin of whupass he's able to open) but to the average person who knows no martial arts, it might seem cruel and unusual punishment.

It's like the offence of using insulting behaviour. The legal definition of insulting behaviour? Behaviour that is insulting. Glad we cleared that one up, then.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Wed 11 May 2011, 8:43, closed)

^^This^^ also
I'm sorry Mr Drug-addled burgling Chav, but if you come into my house I shall defend myself and my family, and I shall do so 'robustly'.

It's ridiculous that so many rights are afforded to people who shouldn't be on your property in the first place. Embedding broken glass in the top of a yard wall (old terraced house favourite), or running barbed wire around the top of the fence at a storage yard are effectively banned now in case you injure the poor dear climbing over to steal something the scariest deterrent you can resort to is security lighting. Ooh, scary.

Left to me, the security lighting would be accompanied by machine-gun towers and dogs on running leashes, with the odd land mine thrown in to keep it interesting. Hmmm, I might just phone Omnicorp to see if they've got any spare ED209s lying around that I could have.
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Wed 11 May 2011, 10:36, closed)

When my Grandma was alive and living in the states....
...her apartment block had a small break in...the police came knocking on the doors over every apartment to see how secure they all were...my Grandma said she was fine and protected...the police officer asked how as there was no alarm or way to get help if anything happened...she then took out the double barrelled shotgun from the cupboard (not even a gun case!)...The officers reaction..."when the body falls, make sure it's in your apartment otherwise you could be arrested for shooting a man running away from you" i.e. murder...he then continued "if he falls outside of your apartment, drag the body back in before you call us."
(Bushcricket, Wed 11 May 2011, 14:01, closed)

#2: no second blow
My mate's brother caught a burglar coming up the stairs and hit him once. With a cricket bat. Instant cabbage. Plod tried their hardest to charge him with GBH with intent (life sentence), but the CPS wouldn't go for it as there was no second blow, the bat was in a cupboard with other sports kit next to the bedroom, and the perp had an object in his hand (a switched off torch).

BTW, Tony Martin was a complete loon who boasted repeatedly to his neighbours, one of whom I worked with, that he had set the house up as an ambush zone and that he lived for the day he could kill a gypsy.
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Wed 11 May 2011, 22:14, closed)