Hmmm....
You have a legal right to use reasonable force in self-defence; you may even have a right to defend others - but that right is minimal.

From the law's point of view, you committed an assault; the bona fides of the people you assaulted (and, in the process, wronged) are neither here nor there. It seems like the courts found your actions unreasonable; they had no choice but to convict.

It's got nothing to do with bloody lefties; it has everything to do with the state/ crown/ whatever you want to call it having the monopoly of force and - surely rightly - being blind to the details of the person whom you (allegedly, at that point) aggrieved. The tearaways you mentioned had a duty not to attack others, but a violation of that duty does not deprive them of their rights not to be assaulted in turn. Being a scrote doesn't make you outside of the protection of the law.

Maybe you were unlucky; natural sympathy would, I think, be on your side. Maybe you had right on your side when you intervened. That isn't the same as having a right to intervene.

Sorry to bring clarity of thought to the party.



And, yes, I am something of a lefty. Flame me. See what I care.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 15:55, Reply)