An article in today’s Telegraph (registration required, bugmenot is your friend) takes the false ‘fighting burglars in the UK is illegal’ meme to new levels of absurdity.
It features interviews with a long list of people who injured or killed burglars, none of whom were convicted of anything (or sent to jail on remand). It attempts to present this as evidence *for* its assertion that a change in the law is required.
Apparently, the burglar-killers in the piece didn’t like being arrested, interviewed and locked in cells by mean, thuggish policemen. At this point, if I were an authoritarian commentator writing about drug laws or political protesters, I’d probably say something smug and sarcastic like ‘Bless’.
Killing someone is rather serious, no matter what the causes. The circumstances around any homicide should be investigated, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable for the police to treat admitted killers with suspicion until more evidence is available. In all the cases cited in the article, the people were either released without charge or bailed the next day, once the facts had emerged.
If we believe there is a problem here, we have two options:
a) stop investigating homicides where the killer claims that the victim was a burglar
b) get policemen to treat suspects less thuggishly
I’m actually quite keen on option b), and presumably I don’t need to explain why option a) is monumentally stupid. I suspect that realising they’re in favour of liberal police reforms would make many of the relevant protesters’ heads explode, however.
You’re being a little misleading here. Most of the people in that article seem to have been at least as distressed by long delays before the CPS dropped any case against them, or such cases went to court, as by their treatment by the Police.
I look forward to the Telegraph’s campaign for more funding for the CPS to address these issues in all criminal cases, not just those arising from self-defence.
We’ve taken steps to ensure that witnesses and victims of crime are provided with conditions that are compatible with the production of ‘justice’ in an adversarial system, i.e. built measures into the system to reduce outright hostility. Given that the accused are also innocent, at least during the process of the trial, why do we not offer them the same opportunties for giving evidence.
Furthermore, despite the Tories (and most of the media) propagating the myth that there are legions of householders in jail for self-defence, the truth is that they have been unable to name a single person in jail for ‘self-defence’ who shouldn’t be there. Less thoughtful commentators point to Tony Martin (shot someone running away in the back, while sentencing had to take into account his genocidal fantasies), a drug dealer in Manchester who stabbed a guy in the back as he ran away, and a third guy who seems to have a decent case but pleaded guilty! Now, this might confirm what the Tories claim, that the criminal justice system is institutionally biased in favour of the accused, but it is difficult to hold this position while asserting that the accused get a raw deal, especially without a single piece of evidence. Unreason and inconsistency make good soudbite politics though. Bad democracy.
I posted a generous chunk of a very sensible piece by Anthony Scrivener (Tony Martin’s QC) on my blog yesterday.
To anyone who actually knows what powers the existing law grants you (i.e. a hell of a lot, and juries almost invariably favour the householder even in contentious cases) it’s no more than a statement of the obvious, but there’s so much bibble flying around with regard to this particular issue that the obvious badly needs repeating.