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Originally posted by 4thTimeLucky
Lebell
The world does not divide so neatly into VICTIMS and CRIMINALS. Nor is one group always in the right and the other always in the wrong.
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It doesn't?
4thtimelucky get the facts please. Tony Martin had been robbed by these specific individuals at least once before. He had also been robbed four times inclusive up to this point. The people convicted of this crime have 114 convictions for various offences at the time of writing.
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In the law the CRIMINAL does have diminished rights and the VICTIM has the right to defend themselves with "reasonable force". What Martin did was deemed unreasonable by a court jury. He was therefore also a CRIMINAL and the murdered intruder a VICTIM.
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More the pity that England has decided a criminal has rights that trump a victim when they break into a home. As I've stated, if Mr. Martin lived in one of several US states there would have been no charges brought.
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Martin's own defence claimed that he had a "paranoid personality disorder", that this 54-year old man considered himself to be ten years of age and that he was traumatised by sexual abuse as a child. He brought a 4 foot Teddy Bear to court every day. He had previously used guns in violent incidents in the past and had lost his licence because of it. He hated thieves and Gypsies with an abnormal intensity.
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Not relevant to this discussion. Maybe he has mental problems, maybe he doesn't. That doesn't mean punks and thugs have the right to terrorize him, in or out of his home.
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None of this changes his rights, but it gives you an insight into the mind of a man who set booby traps in his house, slept fully dressed and with a shotgun, who went downstairs when he heard people (Gypsies as it happened) breaking in, ignored their pleas not to be shot and then killed one of them as they were running away.
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The only thing I see is the shame of a nation that fails to protect its citizens by punishing punks like these and that disarms its citizens, calling them "criminals" if they dare stand up for themselves.
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It seems that you are saying that decisions of justice, law and order, life and death, should lie with a man who was mentally disturbed. I cannot agree with that.
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You have missed the point. What I have consistently said is that when you break into another person's home uninvited with criminal intent, you should be prepared to pay with your life.
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Oh, and violent crime is on the decline in England. I believe it fell by 2% in 2002. Overall crime fell 9%.
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Good!
Because things haven't been looking so good in England lately:
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A Quarter of English are Victims of Crime
By Sean O'Neill
London Telegraph
PEOPLE living in England and Wales are at greater risk of falling victim to crime than citizens of most other industrialised nations, according to a study published yesterday.
The International Crime Victims Survey, based on 34,000 telephone interviews across 17 countries, found that 26 per cent of people - more than one in four - in England and Wales had been victims of crime in 1999. The figure for Scotland was 23 per cent and in Northern Ireland 15 per cent.
Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, said the research confirmed previous evidence "that levels of victimisation are higher than in most comparable countries for most categories of crime". Mr Straw said that although the police and other agencies were working hard to reduce crime, "no one should be under any illusions about the challenges ahead".
England and Wales were second only to Australia in the examination of "victimisation rates", details of which appeared in the Economist. There was a downward trend in crime levels from previous surveys in 1991 and 1999. People in England and Wales were at greater risk than anywhere else of having their cars stolen: 2.6 per cent fell victim to vehicle theft.
The average rate was 1.2 per cent and the Japanese were least likely to have their cars stolen with a victim rate of just 0.1 per cent. Theft from cars was highest in Poland, where nine per cent of people had items stolen from their vehicles. In England and Wales the level was eight per cent.
The percentage of the population which suffered "contact crime" in England and Wales was 3.6 per cent, compared with 1.9 per cent in the United States and 0.4 per cent in Japan. Burglary rates in England and Wales were also among the highest recorded. Australia (3.9 per cent) and Denmark (3.1 per cent) had higher rates of burglary with entry than England and Wales (2.8 per cent).
The risk of robbery was comparatively low in all the countries surveyed. Highest rates were in Poland, where 1.8 per cent of the population said they had been robbed in 1999, followed by Australia and England and Wales (both 1.2 per cent). By far the lowest robbery risks were in Japan and Northern Ireland (both 0.1 per cent)
After Australia and England and Wales, the highest prevalence of crime was in Holland (25 per cent), Sweden (25 per cent) and Canada (24 per cent). The United States, despite its high murder rate, was among the middle ranking countries with a 21 per cent victimisation rate.
Portugal, Japan and Northern Ireland, each with 15 per cent, recorded the lowest overall victimisation rates in the survey which was conducted by Leiden University in Holland and published by the Dutch justice ministry.