JURIES - Not boaty

[BarryH]

Re: On the other hand

Didn't know who to reply to, so I'm doing as usual, telking to myself ! The gun thing. The shotgun that Martin had wasn't his. It was borrowed from a friend. Nice friend! So seeing at was an illegally held firearm it adds another twist to it. Now I'm a firearms ticket holder. No way am I allowed to 'transfer' shotguns/rifles to another non 'ticket' holder. I can transfer to other holders, but for periods of more than 72 hours I have to inform my FLO in writing and enter the transfer onto my ticket/s.

So martin shot and killed one person and wounded another with an illegally held firearm. OK the book should be thrown at him. But why did he have this shotgun. Theres more to it than a cut and dry case. It was known that he had been targeted more than once over a period of time. With on going problems with these pikey's, lets face it, not the most law adiding or socially responsable group of people, he was at his whits end. What no one can do is put themselves in his place on that night.

As an aside. If a lightfingered pikey entered my house, I don't think I would have many qualms in dishing out a bit of DIY law enforcement and giving the twat a battering with something long and solid, sort of club shaped.

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[tripleace]

Re: On the other hand

so the fault is really the police. under resourced and unable to help a law abiding person protect his property and thus he is forced to protect it himself.

As an Insurance broker, I am permanently amazed when client are broken into and a crime numebr is issued without even a word or a home visit.

More resources to the police would / could have stopped this event.



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[BarryH]

Re: On the other hand

Well yes and no. We're all responsible for our actions.......most of the time. Have we heard how many times the police were contacted/visited the property and followed up with enquiries. If the coppers are anything like the ones in surrey, your lucky if you can get them to answer the phone, apart from 999.Now in the past, coppers used their discresion. I was clipped round the ear more than once by our local bobby, PC Savin, when I was a kid. How many of us know the name of our local bobby now. I haven't seen one round here in ages, then they are always in a car.

Problem here is we're dealing with pikey's. They operate outside the law and have an ingrained contempt for the law and law enforcers, unless they can work it in their favour. We had problems with pikey's round here a while ago. Basically they set up camp on a private field in green and pleasant commuter belt Surrey. From day one problems started. Variuos phone calls to the police resulted in nothing. The path that needs to be followed thru the courts just takes to damn long to get results. Cars went missing, horses went missing, houses broken into. If it wasn't nailed down with savage looking dogs protecting it, it went!
Basically the populace took things into their own hands. Shots were fired and hole peppered caravans trucks etc, but no one owned up, and they moved. Not before the pikey's called the police and reported it, citing harasment. I'm not saying its right!, but you get the picture. Now Martin was subject to this over a period of time and decided to speak to them in the languge that they could understand in no uncertain terms.

Does all this make it right for him to shoot and kill intruders.........don't know, only he knew that when he decided to "borrow" a shot gun. Did he mean to injure them with it......more than likely he did.

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[ccscott49]

What kind of crime? How many rights should they lose? Who decides what rights they lose? You? Me? You are stepping into a minefield with your hands over your ears and your eyes closed! Society must not be allowed to dissolve into anarchy, there lies only death and destruction, for everybody.

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[jhr]

Reasonable force

Several people have raised the question "surely, in circumstances like this, a burglar loses his rights?". Though I'm no lawyer, I am pretty sure that the answer to this question is "yes - up to a point". When a householder attacks an intruder in defence of his or her property, their defence is that they used reasonable force appropriate to the circumstances. In some cases (e.g. knife wielding maniac throwing themselves at you?) I'm pretty sure that blasting your assailant with a shotgun would be deemed reasonable. In lesser cases, such as a burglar trying to get away, reasonable force might amount to bringing them down with a rugby tackle and then restraining them. The law already allows for this. What disturbs me about the Martin case is that I have a sneaking suspicion that, as I said above, he had "murder in his mind" from the off, and intended to open fire, whatever happened, once the burglars had gained entry. (My opinion only, I hasten to add, in case there are libel lawyers present).

What is plainly wrong (and here I align myself with the Attilla tendency) is that there should be any question of Fearon (the surviving git) suing for damages, particularly if it were to be done on legal aid - and this is an area that the Government have confirmed they are going to look at, according to the Today programme this morning. I also believe Fearon or his family have said that he won't be going ahead with the case, though I am not sure one should place 100% reliance on the word of a self confessed career criminal and heroin salesman.



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[ari]

Re: On the other hand

>>> As an aside. If a lightfingered pikey entered my house, I don't think I would have many qualms in dishing out a bit of DIY law enforcement and giving the twat a battering with something long and solid, sort of club shaped. <<<<

And I think you'd be entirely right.

But what if you accidently killed him? Whers the difference between that and shooting him?

See what I mean?

Tricky business...

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[ari]

Re: On the other hand

Hers some fuel for the fire!

On a similar line regarding people being responsible for the results of their actions (ie being shot cos they broke into someones house) how about this guy winning £85,000 in damages.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3045440.stm

Whee is it going to end? I reckon in a few years intruders will be sueing homeowners for wasting their time and effort because they didn't have anything worth stealing!

There's something wrong somewhere when this kind of stuff is occuring in this country...

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[ArthurWood]

Byron - I haven't followed the whole story, but surely firing the shotgun into the air would have been adequate. You don't want the Wild West situation we have over here, do you?

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[byron]

<font color=green>Simply put, if you want the law on your side then you should operate within it, not break the law and then complain when someone retaliates in a way the is also outside the law.</font color=green>

Now! That sounds eminently sensible to me.


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[duncan]

Re: On the other hand

sorry but I can't agree with your sentiment

in the position the gentleman was in, and it could have been a blind nun, an 18 month old child crawling, or whatever then the person driving should be taking sufficent care to avoid.

The issue here was whether that care was being taken or not and the court seems to have decided that it has sufficent evidence that it was not.



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[byron]

<font color=green>You don't want the Wild West situation we have over here, do you? </font color=green>

Well I wouldn't mind a touch of Texas style, if robbers knew they were going to get rough justice they'd be more likely to earn their dosh another way.

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[ari]

Re: On the other hand

>>> sorry but I can't agree with your sentiment

in the position the gentleman was in, and it could have been a blind nun, an 18 month old child crawling, or whatever then the person driving should be taking sufficent care to avoid.

The issue here was whether that care was being taken or not and the court seems to have decided that it has sufficent evidence that it was not. <<<

Interesting.

So you feel that if I decide to get absolutely hammered, then stagger down the middle of an A road, at night then I should expect everybody else to watch out for me cos I'm not prepared to be responsible for my own actions?

Comparing it with a crawling child is interesting, agree entirely that then it wouldn't be the childs fault, but I would suggest it would be the parent or who ever was responsible's fault.

There just seems to me a culture springing up that people can act as stupidly as they like (and staggering drunk down a main road at night is pretty stupid) and expect to get financially compensated when things go wrong.

What happened to the notion of people being responsible for their own actions? If I decide to jump in the harbour I shouldn't be able to sue the harbour master because there was enough water in it for me to drown in and if I decide to walk down the middle of a busy main road at night I shouldn't be surprised to be run over and if I decide to break into a house I shouldn't expect the law to come to my aid when the occupant does something about it.

Just my twopenneth worth, interesting subject!!

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[martynwhiteley]

Re: On the other hand

Having half a dozen pints and driving home must be a far worse crime than Martin's.

If you did cause a serious accident, your perhaps just as likely to kill someone, in cold blood, with no motive, and no cause or law breaking on their part.

Who hasn't done this at least once in their life?

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[duncan]

Re: On the other hand

I agree that these are interesting issues, and everyones tuppence is exactly that (and equal to mine!)
Not surprised you chose the child rather than the blind nun to reason - dificult one eh?
I find the constant reference to 'responsible' difficult; if you are hammered you are quite clearly incapable of being responsible for your actions, although you are supposed to be - this parallels your jumping into danger and it would therefore be the drinking (concious decision) rather than the walking down the middle of an Aroad that compares. The gap between those that get 'hammered' and, metaphorically, turn left (trouble/caught/hurt) rather than right (get away with it/ have a great story to tell even) is of course massive.

I stick to my view that whether walking, boating (Bournmouth...), running, riding a horse or bike, car or plane you are responsible for avoiding damage, hurt or whatever..if you can - in this case it was considered by our peers that he could have and failed to.

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[Col]

Re: On the other hand

I was involved in an accident a few years back. A car pulled out in front of me and I "T" boned it. I happened to be followed by a police car at the time, he could see I had no chance to miss the other car. The first thing he did was to breathalize me (negative) Then he nicked the other driver for driving without due care & attention. I asked him why he tested me first and he said if I was pos, he would have nicked me instead citing that if I was over limit, I shouldn't have been there, so there would have been no accident.

What's the difference? being Drunk & disorderly is also an offence, so he shouldn't have been there. No?

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[Col]

Re: On the other hand

Regarding appropriate action, several people have suggested some kind of warning, or rugby tackle.
I can't help feeling I would want to take some kind of action that doesn't compromise my safety. He was out numbered by 2 younger men don't forget.
I can't help thinking about the guy who was stabbed to death by a couple of thugs trying to steal his father in laws car.
With more and more crooks resorting to violence, I would tend to side with the farmer.

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[BrendanS]

Re: On the other hand

>>I don't think I would have many qualms in dishing out a bit of DIY law enforcement and giving the twat a battering with something long and solid, sort of club shaped. <<

Problem is, they'd get let off with their third ticking off in court that week, and you'd end up in prison for assault or similar. God help you if you so much as bruise a burglar in your house, cos the system will come down on you like a ton of bricks, and let the burglar go for lack of evidence or a cock up in administration.

You can't even do things like put broken glass on tops of walls anymore. Apparently it's dangerous, and people could hurt themselves, oh and of course the burglar can sue you as well.

I suppose you can always warn them, with a notice outside "Beware of tripwire operated crossbows and electrified floors" so when they get shot and electrocuted you can claim they were warned.

Personally if I caught anyone in my house I'd use a healthy amount of unreasonable force, and hang the consequences

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[tripleace]

Re: On the other hand

hooray common sense.....


rule one ..... don't put yourself at risk....

rule two ..... protect whats important to you.....

__________

I want Tony Martin to be my local beat police officer. That would sort out crime in camberley for the next 10 years..

Or even he could be security at your marina.. it would be worth it.

all he would have to shout out is I'm Tony Martin ..... Please turn round....





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[duncan]

Re: On the other hand

rule 3. insure against it?......./forums/images/icons/smile.gif

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[Col]

Re: On the other hand

............................And then your insurance premium goes up!!

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