how far would you go?...

so he should have been cleared i am shocked they took him to court in the first place.
 
Sums up the way things are, those that steal and cheat all their lives get away with it and the hard working person gets screwed by the government or punished OTT when they may do something remotely wrong (or in this case nothing at all).

If someone breaks into your property they forgo any rights imo.
 
It's ridiculous there was even a consideration to prosecute the victim here....... Let's not forget the this man was defending his property, if these two scumbags weren't up to no good then they wouldn't have got hurt.... simples!
 
The guy deserves a medal. He was faced by two intruders, one of whom attacked him. But still he had the guts to disable one of them and detain the other until the old bill turns up. These actions are not court material, except perhaps to give Mr Woodhouse an award from the Public Purse.
 
Round of applause for a sensible jury.
 
Not often you get a sensible outcome these days!
 
trevormc said:
I'm glad that he got away with it .

Trevor
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He didn't get away with it, that implies he was guilty. He was found Not Guilty. There is a difference ie he was judged not to have committed a crime;)
 
To the original question. I'd go as far as I had to to protect my safety and that of my family and property.
 
I was about to say the same as Brash, he didn't commit a crime if it was self defense, they gave up all rights as soon as they broke the gate and entered his business property. I'm actually disgusted that they only received a £75 fine even though it went to crown court, what a complete waste of public funds yet again. What's to say now that the defendants families do not intimidate the guy after the court hearing?
 
mark richards said:
haven't you heard of the human rights bill?:) minimum force...:LOL:
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What? You mean "Human Rights Act" presumably, since it received Royal Assent in 1998 and thereby stopped being a Bill. Why it's relevant is anyone's guess, since it has nothing to say on the matter at hand :rolleyes:. Possibly you don't understand the purpose and scope of human rights legislation?:banghead:

The phrase in statute (Criminal Law Act 1967) is "A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime", commonly shortened to "reasonable force", not "proportional", or "minimum" or anything else (there's clarification in the Criminal justice and immigration act 2008 as well, for the terminally bored). It is left to a jury to decide what is "reasonable" based on the evidence in the case. Given the level of force used, the CPS had some justification for putting it before a jury to determine if it met the test of reasonableness. The jury heard all the evidence and decided it was reasonable. I have no complaints about the verdict.

This is far from a rare sensible outcome, juries are reluctant to convict victims of crime who have acted in the heat of the moment when interrupting the crime in progress, because juries are made up of people who have the same fears about being victims of this sort of crime as everyone else.
 
Flightphoto said:
I was about to say the same as Brash, he didn't commit a crime if it was self defense, they gave up all rights as soon as they broke the gate and entered his business property. I'm actually disgusted that they only received a £75 fine even though it went to crown court, what a complete waste of public funds yet again. What's to say now that the defendants families do not intimidate the guy after the court hearing?
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Yet 2 people were today jailed for 8&12 weeks for a few abusive tweets!!!
 
I think the balance is probably about right. If you give the right to defend without fear of prosecution then you'll open up the floodgates for certain people to abuse the system and I could foresee situations where perfectly innocent people get seriously assaulted or even killed. In a situation like the one reported, the business owner has had to go through a year of uncertainty but ultimately the jury system has come up with a sensible verdict.
 
Simon
I am not sure I disagree with the sentence for the tweets, more that the £75 is way under what it should have been for the offence. Although I'd expect the mitigation to have been a long tale of woe along the lines of them being perfectly respectable thieves going about their business and set upon by a nasty greedy business owner who has left them disabled for life. A small fine being the appropriate sentence given that totally unreasonable punishment handed out without recourse to due process by aforementioned aggressive business owner.


Anyway, the proper place to judge if the defence was reasonable was a court, ie 12 good men and true. Thats whats happened, he's in the clear and justice has been done. Yes, i accept that his life may well have been made miserable for the last year, and that's of course regrettable.
 
Hopefully he will take some solace in how uncomfortable the guy with three broken limbs is going to be for a while.
 
I totally support what the guy did, as well as agree with the jury.
His only mistake was leaving 2 bodies to tell the tale: had they been 'disposed of' it would save the taxpayer money for their prison terms in later life.
 
The idea that you're not allowed to physically defend yourself and your property from crime is a nonsense. It's a spook-story Daily Mail readers like to tell one another around the campfire.
As has been said above, you can use "reasonable force", up to and including lethal force. This has been the case for decades. If the CPS decide that the force may have been unreasonable, they take it to a jury. Sometimes the jury will decide the force was indeed unreasonable - like in the case of that farmer who shot a teenage burglar in the back as he tried to run away. Sometimes, like here, they decide it was reasonable.
Pretty sensible system, I think.
 
cosmicma said:
it's about time the laws were changed we should have the right to defend whats ours without fear of prosecution
not guilty was the right decision
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you do realise that you can defend yourself and your property without fear of criminal prosecution. The reason the CPS took this to court was because they thought he went beyond. Without knowing the full facts of what happened you can't make any comment about it.
 
POAH said:
you do realise that you can defend yourself and your property without fear of criminal prosecution. The reason the CPS took this to court was because they thought he went beyond. Without knowing the full facts of what happened you can't make any comment about it.
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yes i do realise you can defend by means of reasonable force the grey area is what reasonable force is i think that if someone breaks into your property and you are present at the time their rights should be left at the door so to speak
the problem i have is if someone does decide to enter your property there is very little chance of knowing exactly why they are there
the obvious is they have come to steal but there intentions might be much more sinister, the ones who are there solely to steal will probably flee if they are disturbed but the ones that don't flee are probably willing to do you harm or worse to get what they want
this is where reasonable force falls apart for me do you have to wait for them to attack you so you can defend yourself or can you attack first ?
if you attack first and do some damage there's a good chance your going to find yourself in front of a judge for going beyond reasonable force and this is where i think the law needs changing

the world has changed since the laws were put into place i think we need to catch up
 
cosmicma said:
yes i do realise you can defend by means of reasonable force the grey area is what reasonable force is i think that if someone breaks into your property and you are present at the time their rights should be left at the door so to speak
the problem i have is if someone does decide to enter your property there is very little chance of knowing exactly why they are there
the obvious is they have come to steal but there intentions might be much more sinister, the ones who are there solely to steal will probably flee if they are disturbed but the ones that don't flee are probably willing to do you harm or worse to get what they want
this is where reasonable force falls apart for me do you have to wait for them to attack you so you can defend yourself or can you attack first ?
if you attack first and do some damage there's a good chance your going to find yourself in front of a judge for going beyond reasonable force and this is where i think the law needs changing

the world has changed since the laws were put into place i think we need to catch up
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Or their intentions might not be sinister at all.
Do you want a situation like exists in some parts of the USA where people have entered a property for help after being injured/lost/stranded and have been shot with impunity by some paranoid nut on the inside?

Also, yes, you can attack first. Even if you lash out with a weapon and kill them in the heat of the moment, you may not find yourself in front of a judge. I expect this man has been prosecuted (unsuccessfully, remember) because he has delivered what would appear to have been a sustained and clinical beating.
 
ghoti said:
Or their intentions might not be sinister at all.
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as unlikely a scenario that is i would think whoever it was would make there intentions clear if it was a cry for help

you can only attack first in your own home to defend yourself or others but not to protect property in a place of business you would be acting unlawfully if you attacked first

i still think the laws should be changed
 
Scum was in the paper today moaning he's hard done by and can't go fishing coz he's in pain! .....Jeez what a weird world
 
He should have stuck to fishing in the first place.
 
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