Just Figured That Out, Did You?

The London Sunday Telegraph is still pushing for legislation to allow homeowners the use of unrestricted force against home invaders, though as I noted last week, the campaign seems to be losing steam. This week's entry is as follows:

'The system seems to bend over to help the criminal at the expense of the victim'
By Karyn Miller
(Filed: 28/11/2004)

(And that isn't a victim of a burglary speaking...it's one of the former chief constables who are backing the Telegraph's campaign)

Former chief constables have backed The Telegraph's campaign to give people more rights to protect their homes and families from violent intruders.

The retired police chiefs, who have more than 200 years of service between them, believe that the balance of the law has swung in favour of burglars at the expense of law-abiding householders.

They pledged support for this newspaper's call for legislation giving householders the unqualified right to use force - including deadly force if necessary - against burglars, without facing criminal charges from the police or being sued for compensation. Similar legislation introduced in Oklahoma in 1988 - known as the Make My Day Law - has halved burglaries.

Among those former police chiefs expressing support last week was William Wilson, 61, who was chief constable for Central Scotland at the time of the 1996 Dunblane school shootings, which led to a ban on members of the public owning handguns.

And what a world of good that did.

Mr Wilson, who was chief constable between 1990 and 2000, said: "You can list me as a supporter of your campaign. Anything that can reduce housebreaking has got to be backed I can identify a trend for the law being tougher on the householders than it used to be."

Gee, ya THINK? Yet according to Tim Lambert, it's only the "gullible gunners" who believe this.

Sir Geoffrey Dear, 66, who was the chief constable of the West Midlands between 1985 and 1990, agreed that the current law, allowing "reasonable force" to be used against intruders, could no longer be relied upon. "The Crown Prosecution Service has to a certain extent, in this last quarter century, been looking at reasonable force in far too narrow a way," he said. "They haven't tried to put themselves sensibly and properly into the place of the householder.

"If you chance upon somebody in the dark you have no idea what he has in his hand: nothing, a knife, a screwdriver or even a gun. It all happens in a flash. I don't think you have time to weigh up what is proportionate and what isn't. I say that if you hit him and cause him grave damage, then tough. Your campaign has every chance of success."

Not too familiar with the legislative process, eh? Getting the government to yeild back any of the legitimate use of force will be very difficult.

Peter Joslin, 71, the chief constable for Warwickshire from 1983 until his retirement in 1998, said: "I was regarded as a liberal thinker in my time, but the system seems now to bend over to help the criminal at the expense of the victim. What happens today is frightening. The criminal's rights should not supersede the rights of the individual to protect their property.

But what you're saying is, it does. This is that "chilling effect" I finally got Tim to (grudgingly) admit to.

"If there was an intruder in my home I would go to fairly extreme lengths to defend myself, because it is no good waiting for him to strike you first before you defend yourself. The police advice to lock yourself away in a room and dial 999 is all very well, but life's not like that."

Another former senior policeman backing the campaign was John Stalker, 65, the deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester between 1984 and 1987.

He said: "I believe that a house is something to be defended at all costs by the people who buy it and live in it, because they are entitled to believe that it is a place of safety, sacrosanct from outsiders."

Yes, the Englishman's home was once his castle - but no longer.

George Esson, 62, the chief constable for Dumfries and Galloway between 1989 and 1994, said: "I'm not surprised at the level of support for your campaign. If somebody came into my property in the middle of the night, I would feel it was my inalienable right to defend it." The former officers' backing came in the same week that the campaign was boosted by an informal poll of listeners to Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 programme. His show on Wednesday featured a debate about the campaign between Dominic Lawson, the editor of The Telegraph, and Lord Phillips of Sudbury, a solicitor and Liberal Democrat peer who opposes any change in the law.

More than 5,900 listeners voted afterwards, with more than 97 per cent backing a change in the law and less than two per cent opposing it.Readers can listen to a replay of the show by visiting the BBC's website. It can be accessed at www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/vine.

I'll have to give that a listen, if I ever get any spare time.