Homeowner fights off knife-wielding burglars, gets 30 months; burglar spared jail

[Angilion]

He did go to far but owing to the circumstances you can't expect the victim to react as law would dictate; surely this should be taken in to account when situations like these end up in court? I feel thirty months is harsh.

I can expect the victim/attacker to react as law would dictate, because the law allows for circumstances.

This is, and was in this case, taken into account when situations like these end up in court.

The sentencing for GBH with intent is up to life and this was an extreme case. So 30 months is extremely lenient, the very opposite of harsh.

 

[arc@css]

Hope it never happens to me then, they'd throw away the key, lol.

 

[Se7ven]

i'd probably have done the same if someone threatened my wife and kids with a knife

 

[Vonhelmet]

Hope it never happens to me then, they'd throw away the key, lol.

Lol, criminal violence is indeed hilarious.

Or were you just typing lol out of some braindead habit? Either way...

 

[Bubo]

Walid Salem and Munir Hussain, enough said.

Do explain some more.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think he's relating their asian sounding names to a predeliction towards a cavalier attiude towards meeting out violence to those who have offended them. Similar to honour killings and the like, where a cultural system is seen to take precendence over the prevailing laws of the land. Personally, I fully support muslim murder squads going round executing burglers, its the kiliing your own daughter for looking at a random bloke aspect that we could maybe do without, but thats just me

 

[edscdk]

I think I would probably give chase.

Perhaps a poll would be good?

What you say you will do and what you do in that situation would probably not be the same....

I cannot see how they only managed to brain dammage him, they must have been very restrained... or the cricket bat was a kids on, the iron bar was 3inch long and they were all built like women...

 

[sunama]

Hope it never happens to me then, they'd throw away the key, lol.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[sunama]

I cannot see how they only managed to brain dammage him, they must have been very restrained... or the cricket bat was a kids on, the iron bar was 3inch long and they were all built like women...

I think it was down to the fact that they were enraged. They weren't thinking coherently. If you are thinking coherently, you can kill someone with an iron bar in less than 60 secs. However, when you are enraged and just want to bang the body of the man who you are venting your anger at.

 

[wordy]

I'm not saying that it was ok, I was saying that he took things too far. In the heat of the moment though, with adrenaline pumping... who can say how far we'd go. Does he deserve a jail sentence? I can certain see the argument for one, however if he is getting a prison term, than so should the burglar. Or are we selectively applying justice?

Agree 100%

 

[ntg]

There are two questions that keep getting mixed up in this issue:

a) Whether the actions of Mr Saleem were legal
b) Whether they were moral.

People equate legal=right, illegal=wrong. It doesn't work that way. What is legal is not necessarily right or moral. If you have doubts simply think that laws change between countries dramatically and laws that existed many years ago are considered wrong today and have been scrapped. Every era has its own morals that get shaped in various ways from different actors and factors.

Therefore, under the British law system what Mr Saleem did was illegal, thus he has to be imprisoned according to the legal guidelines for his action.

However, the social moral compass seems to side with him. Many people consider what he did 'righteous' and justified considering that his family and property were under threat and he was in no calm state of mind. Let us not forget that humans are to a large % animals and have such insticts as well. Whether you concur on the morality of the action is a completely personal issue (I would assume a Sharia supporter to consider it moral, while an extreme left-wing liberal to consider it immoral for example).

So stop debating whether he did 'right' in relation to whether he should be locked up or not. They are different animals and can't be necessarily mixed in some cases, such as this.

cheers

 

[Bar]

A lot of people keep coming back to the point of "his family and property were under threat" (or words to that effect).

When someone has left your property and is legging it down the street your family and property are no longer under threat.

When you have someone on the ground being beaten by cricket bats and metal poles, your family and property are no longer under threat.

What time period should we allow for adrenaline and instinct to longer be viewed as an acceptable defence?

Legally you are allowed to use self defence proportionate to the situation. If a man is shooting in the street, it would be perfectly legal to run him down in a car. However if it was a mugger who had just stolen your bag it would not be.

The law gives bias in the favour of the victim to take into account the heat of the moment. However as many have said this went way beyond what could be called proportionate.

On the moral side, if he had grabbed something heavy in his house and hit the guy over the head killing him, I would say that he was in the right. He took an immediate self defence action which was reasonable. However this was no longer defending his property and family - in fact by leaving them behind in the house - he did in fact expose them to potential further harm.

I agree to a very small extent people acting on emotions and using that as a defence, however humans are more evolved than animals and should have a greater sense of right and wrong.

If the judge had gone lenient it would have opened a very grey area involving time passed. How much time should you give someone to allow for immediate self defence? Is it 5 minutes? 5 hours? 5 day? Would it be fair to severly beat someone with metal poles a week after they had threatened your family?

 

[Rich_L]

I like the fact that this guy was apparently so incoherent with rage (if you believed some of the posts on here) that he managed to 'enlist' his brother, who wasn't part of the initial incident, enlist two other people, also who were not part of the initial incident, subsequently chase the guy down as a group, and incoherently the group found themselves various weapons, and then each member of the group, all 4 of them, were so incoherent with rage (3 of which apparently 'caught' the 'rage' from the original guy, it seems) that they ignored the pleas of bystander to stop because they were going to kill the individual, and then carried on regardless like a pack of animals.

I think that is stretching the definition of 'incoherent' somewhat.

 

[[TW]Fox]

He did go to far but owing to the circumstances you can't expect the victim to react as law would dictate; surely this should be taken in to account when situations like these end up in court?

What? Of course it was taken into account, he got 30 months for a crime which can carry a LIFE SENTANCE!!

 

[Werewolf]

What? Of course it was taken into account, he got 30 months for a crime which can carry a LIFE SENTANCE!!

Something that would normally have the papers screaming "Judge gives Joke sentence for serious crime"...

 

[Fonz-Valo]

He beat the living **** out of someone who threatened his wife and kids. Fair play I say.

My thoughts exactly!

 

[[TW]Fox]

It's just a shame the criminal wasn't a banker, eh Scorza.

 

[Vonhelmet]

There are two questions that keep getting mixed up in this issue:

a) Whether the actions of Mr Saleem were legal
b) Whether they were moral.

People equate legal=right, illegal=wrong. It doesn't work that way. What is legal is not necessarily right or moral. If you have doubts simply think that laws change between countries dramatically and laws that existed many years ago are considered wrong today and have been scrapped. Every era has its own morals that get shaped in various ways from different actors and factors.

Therefore, under the British law system what Mr Saleem did was illegal, thus he has to be imprisoned according to the legal guidelines for his action.

However, the social moral compass seems to side with him. Many people consider what he did 'righteous' and justified considering that his family and property were under threat and he was in no calm state of mind. Let us not forget that humans are to a large % animals and have such insticts as well. Whether you concur on the morality of the action is a completely personal issue (I would assume a Sharia supporter to consider it moral, while an extreme left-wing liberal to consider it immoral for example).

So stop debating whether he did 'right' in relation to whether he should be locked up or not. They are different animals and can't be necessarily mixed in some cases, such as this.

cheers

The moral compass of people with poor morals agrees with him.

Also, I'm not sure what Shari'a has to do with it.

 

[Vesta_Man]

Should have been banged up for longer tbh, went way too far!

Also all the people giving it the 'blah blah, if someone threatens my family I'll tear them a new *******' need to grow a brain

By doing that your actually placing yourself and more importantly your family in far MORE danger!
Revenge is a massive motivator for people so you had better hope that the low life thug that you have killed / vegetated is an only child with frail old parents!!
Otherwise you might have big bad bruv / dad coming after you and your family ready to slit your throats!!

 

[sunama]

By doing that your actually placing yourself and more importantly your family in far MORE danger!

I totally agree with this. And if I were thinking coherently and calmly, I would never even think about chasing a guy outside the house. Once he has left, I would make sure my family are ok and then call the Police. However, in a fit of rage, a human-beings most primal instinct can take over (red mist), where you behave almost caveman like and your thought process is no longer logical.

If I found a guy standing over my wife/kids, having tied them up, I would go for that guy, regardless of whether he is armed or not. As far as I'm concerned, one of us is not going to get up. Do bear in mind that this isn't the movies, where we both end up performing expert martial arts moves - this will be basic wrestling, where he will do his best to either kill me or run away, while my main aim will be to destroy him. Basic emotions will play a HUGE part in my behaviour.

Also note, that this isnt bravado, as I would 100% agree that the right way to deal with this would be scare the guy away, untie wife and kids and then call the Police, but when you are being guided almost purely by emotion, you don't think logically anymore.

 

[Linwig]

Otherwise you might have big bad bruv / dad coming after you and your family ready to slit your throats!!

Chances are you are not going to be worried about hypothetical consequences like that in the heat of the moment though. And if you are pre-emptive you will track down and kill all your attackers family first.