Do We Have The Right To Defend Ourselves , In Our Own Homes

[balli hi]

Quote : Call for clarity on crime victims defending themselves

14/12/2009 - 07:12:58

Victims of crime should have the right to use force to defend themselves in their home, legal experts told the Government today. : End Quote :

The legal experts of Ireland should be commended for their positive stance in attempting to clarify and allow people to defend themselves in their own homes

I switched on the radio this morning , and straight away realised that they were discussing ( on Talksport ) the very case that i have based this topic on , it would appear that both the presenters ( Parry & Townsend ) agreed with me , they had caller after caller phoning in and stating what happened to them when they had confronted a burglar in their homes , and how they had been arrested shortly after and charged by the Police for using excessive force and gbh , 2 cases stood out for me and showed the law up for what it is and how it falls solely on the side of the criminal and protects them .

Case 1 , A homeowner in Scotland hear's a loud banging noise directly outside his home , he looks outside the window and sees 2 men breaking into his car , he go's outside to confront the men armed with nothing but his fists , he was forced to defend himself as both men attacked him , he proceeded to give one of them a good bashing about the head in a straight fist fight as the other one had now ran off , and then the second man also ran away , he went back inside and called for the police , in the meantime both men had returned tooled up , and were now attempting to break into his home , at which point the police arrived , the 2 men were restrained by the police , but the men immedietly complained that one of them had been assaulted by the homeowner , the homeowner was arrested and charged with assault , the case went to court and the homeowner was fined & bound over to keep the peace , no charges were brought by the police against the 2 thieves / would be burglars , despite being caught red handed by the police in attemting to break into the house .

Case 2 , a homeowner in England , returned home to see a light on in his home and could see silhouettes of movement , he immedietly arms himself with a golf club from the boot of his car , go's inside and was confronted by a knife wielding burglar , the man shouted at the burglar to drop the kitchen knife , but to no avail , the burglar then lunge's at the homeowner with the knife , the homeowner beat the burglar with the golf club several times and brought the burglar to the ground then sat on him called the police & waited till they arrived , he was still sat on the burglar when the police arrived , the police shoved him off the burglar and handcuffed him , he was arrested and charged by the police with using excessive force & GBH , the case went to court , and the homeowner was punished , the homeowner also stated that no charges were brought against the burglar and that at no point during the trial was his barrister allowed to mention the fact that the burglar was wielding a carving knife , because of the fact that the burglar had taken it from a draw in the homeowners kitchen & had not brought it along with him , so therefor it could not be used as evidence against the burglar .

These are just two examples of many , which highlight the injustices's that remian within our legal system , the balance of power must be redirected back into the favour of the homeowner , i hope that the legal experts are successfull in clarifying the law in Ireland , as it would be a start , and then hopefully adopted here .

[Bizarra]

Sorry if this is a bit long. It tells the story of Padraig Nally, mentioned in my previous post.

If you read nothing else-READ the last Paragraph !

On 14 October 2004, Padraig Nally, an Irish farmer living in County Mayo shot dead an Irish Traveller named John "Frog" Ward who had been trespassing on his property. In November 2005 Nally was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment for manslaughter. His conviction was quashed in October 2006 and, in December 2006, he was found not guilty of manslaughter.

[edit] Timeline

[edit] Incident

Nally arrived at his farmhouse on the afternoon of 13 October 2004 when he saw a car parked beside an overgrown lane next to his house with a man sitting in the driver's seat. The man was Ward's son, Tom. Tom Ward testified that he and his father used to buy old cars, repair them and sell them. He said that that morning he went with his father to the hospital where he was a daycare patient. He said they later took a spin down by Mr Nally's house, his father spotted an old car, they reversed into the drive and then John Ward went to knock on the door to see if the owner was in. He said Nally approached the car saying: "Who's gone in there?" Tom Ward maintained that he told him his father was gone in to see about the car. According to Tom Ward, Nally replied: "He won't be coming out alive."[citation needed] Nally retrieved a shotgun from the shed and, as he confronted Ward at the back door, shot him in the side. Nally then beat Ward repeatedly with a stick. As Ward was trying to leave the property, Nally went back to the shed, reloaded his shotgun, went back to Ward, and fired a second, fatal shot. It was also reported that Nally dragged Ward's body from the farm yard and threw it over the hedges of a field outside his premises.[1][2]

[edit] First trial

The Circuit Criminal Court decided to hear the Nally case in Castlebar, making it the first murder trial in Mayo for almost a century; the jury was chosen from a pool of more than 200 locals. Travellers' support groups criticised the bias because of the jury's composition, arguing that the murder trial should have been afforded a more independent and objective forum. A member of the Law Reform Commission concurred that there was strong case to have such trials take place in Dublin.[2] Ward was a 43-year-old traveller with 12 previous criminal convictions, and had twice been committed to hospital for psychiatric treatment.[2]

During the first trial, the court heard that Nally had become increasingly agitated and worried that his property would be targeted by local thieves as a number of farms in the area had recently been burgled. His own home had been broken into in 2003 and a chainsaw stolen from one of his sheds in February 2004. Friends and neighbours noted Nally had become preoccupied with looking after his farm and terrified that the robbers would return.[1][2]

Nally pleaded not guilty to murder and manslaughter charges. He was acquitted of murder, but convicted of manslaughter. The judge, Mr Justice Paul Carney, refused to allow the jury to consider a full defence argument of self-defence.[3]

Sentencing Nally to six years for the manslaughter conviction, Mr Justice Paul Carney said: "This is undoubtedly the most socially divisive case I have had to try. It is also the most difficult one in which I have had to impose sentence."[1]

[edit] Appeal

Nally was refused leave to appeal by the Central Criminal Court against his conviction and six-year jail sentence.

The case was then appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal. Nally's lawyers had argued at his appeal that the trial judge had erred in law by not allowing the jury to consider a defence of full self-defence and by not allowing it to find Nally not guilty. He had directed that the jury had to find Nally guilty of murder or guilty of manslaughter, and ruled that an acquittal verdict based on the evidence would be perverse.

In October 2006, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed Padraig Nally's conviction for manslaughter and ordered a retrial. The Court said that the jury should not have been denied the opportunity to return a verdict of not guilty, even if such a verdict may have flown in the face of the evidence.

[edit] Retrial

Padraig Nally's retrial took place in December 2006. Similar evidence was submitted to the court, including evidence of Ward's character and previous convictions and both Nally's and Ward's mental states on the day in question. The jury of eight men and four women acquitted Nally of manslaughter and he walked free.

In 2009, The Republic of Ireland government announced its plan to introduce a new law of self defence in 2010 upon recommendation by the Law Reform Commission which would allow a householder to kill in certain circumstances, if defending themselves, their family or their home. This has become known colloquially as Nally's law since the case prompted the Commission to review law.[4]

[balli hi]

I recieved a phone call from my distraught sister in law , a short while ago , she informed me that she had been burgled again last night , thats the second time in 18 months , basically the method of entry was as the same as last time , like many of us my sister in law has a pvc double glazed front door with a cylinder night latch with handles above a dead lock , the burglar gains entry by slipping a wire rod with a loop on the end ( possibly a reshaped coat hanger ) through the letter box and then up , locates the loop over the night-latch handle and pulls down , now if for what ever reason you have not double locked the night-latch from the inside or failed to lock the dead-lock below , thats it the burglar is in , he simply pulls down on the handle and pushes the door open , so guys , if you have a door of this type please don't get caught out , make sure you always at least lock the deadlock before going to bed .

the first time this happened to my sister in law , the reason she nor her husband did not lock the front door from the inside was so that their son could get in when he returned home late at night , he has his own keys of course and would simply put the key in the nightlatch turn the key and let himself in , then lock up properly once he was in , the problem was that on occasions he would not return home and would spend the night at a friends house instead , on one such particular occasion they were burgled , there were no physical signs of break in , and it was the police that informed my inlaws of how it was done as they see it all the time with this particular type of door and locking mechanism's , i did point out to my inlaws that although they could'nt flip the latch down on the cylinder night latch in order to lock it from the inside , because their son would then not be able to unlock it with a key and get in , they could have still locked the deadlock below the nightlatch and their son would then still be able to get in by unlocking it but the burglar would not , anyway it happened and the burglar fleeced them of various valubles from downstairs , including my brother inlaws sat-nav which he had brought in from the car and placed it in the kitchen along with his car keys , the burglar not only took both , but more importantly the keys to the house that were hanging up in the kitchen , luckily though the car for whatever reason was not taken , but the upshot was that all the locks had to be changed on the house as well as the car , on that occasion my inlaws were warned by their insurers that they would honour their agreement and pay out but if they were burgled again by the same means , in that they failed to properly secure their property i,e lock all the locks , then their insurance would be null and void , so , its happened again , and previous lessons have not been learned , on this occasion my sister in law explained that they were all in , but she was tired due to last minute christmas shopping and sitting up half the night wrapping presents , and her husband had returned home from the pub drunk , she had gone to bed leaving him asleep on the sofa , he eventually woke up and then also went up to bed , both had forgot to double lock the front door , and once again they are burgled , since the first occasion they no longer leave their front door keys or car keys downstairs , however my sis in-law tells me that she has never done this before but because she was tired she forgot and left not only her door keys in her coat pocket but also her car keys and mobile phone which was hanging up on the newell post at the foot of the stairs , the burglar not only stole her coat but also her husbands and the childrens amongst other valuables , also a fair amount of the christmas presents that she had spent the evening wrapping , the thing is they are now having to sort out getting all the locks changed once again , most of their christmas presents have been stolen and their insurance is null & void , but most worrying of all for me is that they were all in bed asleep , what if the burglar had decided to come upstairs and my brother in law had woke up or worse still one of the children , who knows what might of happened ???? , would my brother in law now be facing the wrath of the law as it is in its present state ?? , it don't bare thinking about .

So please , if you have a front door with similar locks as my inlaws , don't be a sucker like them and get caught out ( twice ) , at least make sure that the bottom lock is locked if you have someone arriving home late , don't make it easy for those scum bags that think nothing of braking into someones home and robbing them of their hard earned possessions .

[Sagitar]

So please , if you have a front door with similar locks as my inlaws , don't be a sucker like them and get caught out ( twice ) , at least make sure that the bottom lock is locked if you have someone arriving home late , don't make it easy for those scum bags that think nothing of braking into someones home and robbing them of their hard earned possessions .

Good advice - thanks very much.

I have real difficulty persuading my wife to deadlock the front door when she goes out "just for a few minutes".

[balli hi]

At last victory , common sense has prevailed , Munir Hussain is today a free man the father of three was released from prison after 3 top judges took mercey on him and reduced his sentance

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/153071...ho-beat-burglar

see also todays report , i have to say this is a cracking piece of journalism , fantastically well put by Ross Clark , and i fully concur with his closing sentence " As for Walid Salem, his injuries are unfortunate. But if you are going to break into peoples homes and threaten them at knifepoint you should accept the risk of being seriously injured as an occupational hazard. To turn him into the victim is an outrage against civilised values. "

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/153368...-was-prosecuted