Posted on 09/18/2011 4:30:30 PM PDT by Daffynition
A wealthy family man was arrested on suspicion of murder yesterday after allegedly stabbing a burglar to death with his own knife.
Businessman Vincent Cooke, 39, was relaxing when he heard a knock at the front door of his detached home.
When he answered he was confronted by two men, at least one armed with a knife, who threatened him and tried to force their way into the £350,000 house in the Cheshire stockbroker belt.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“man was arrested on suspicion of murder yesterday after allegedly stabbing a burglar to death”
The Brits are absolutely deranged.
It’s England. What do you expect? The victim becomes the lawbreaker and the lawbreaker becomes the victim. It’s a wonder that the Brits are civilized anymore. If there were a Fourth World country, England would be it.
We’re a mere few steps behind them..
I find it disgusting that a case of obvious self defense even draws a question in a supposedly civilized country.
No sympathy for the victim.
According to the article, family and friends of the burgler are coming to the crime scene and leaving floral tributes to the slain criminal.
As the British would say, “What cheek.”
Sounds like they had it coming
The homeowners should collect all those flowers and hold a bonfire in the front yard.
What happened to the English Bill of Rights ?
People do have the right to use reasonable force in self defence in the UK. This is not a licence to kill, however - the force used must be reasonable given the threat. Deadly force is justified if a person honestly believes themselves or another person to be at risk of death or serious injury. It is not justified unless they believe that.
I can kill a burglar in my home if I think he's likely to harm me. I can't if he's running away (as one example). Maybe the law shouldn't make these distinctions, but it is important to understand that there is a right to self defence.
Much more than disgusting. Further down in the story:
The right to defend one's property against intruders or burglars came to prominence in 1999 when farmer Tony Martin shot dead 16-year-old Fred Barras at his Norfolk home.
Barras and accomplice Brendon Fearon had disturbed Martin in the middle of the night.
Martin was jailed for life at Norwich Crown Court in April 2000 for murder, but his sentence was reduced by the Appeal Court to five years for manslaughter and he was released in 2003.
Fearon, who was wounded in the leg, was jailed for three years for conspiracy to burgle.
It used to be, in some distant past, that Brits were allowed “proportional response” (but not more) in defense of their lives. So you couldn’t shoot someone attacking you with a knife, for example. Well, this guy uses the perp’s own knife to kill him ... but now it’s considered murder! This is sick.
The Brits deserve what they get. They have allowed the PC-deranged elites of the BBC, the print media, and universities to bully and badger them for a generation. They are now incapable of protecting themselves, their families, or their country.
Obama and the progs want this for us.
Do I detect a wee bit of class warfare? I know that stupidity has its place and even read where there is a flower memorial for the home invader is accumulating in front of the house. This is too much for my old and feeble mind.
It still applies.
But the right of self defence in British law only justifies the use of deadly force in cases where a person has reason to belief they or someone else is in danger of death or serious injury. You don’t automatically have the right if your property is threatened (but you do if you are also in danger and a lot of the time you will be).
Everyone seems to have heard of the Tony Martin case where he was convicted for killing a burglar - but he was convicted because the burglar was running away at the time, and was no longer a threat - and Martin admitted he was no longer a threat.
You don’t hear anywhere near as often about the numerous cases where a person was found to have acted legally in killing an intruder (such as the Tony Evans case), because most of these are only in the newspaper for a couple of days before it’s clear there will be no legal action - they don’t drag on for weeks in the courts gathering publicity.
Note The UK Daily Mail closed the comments section for “legal reasons”.
>>It is the third time in six months that intruders have been stabbed to death by homeowners. The killings come after the Government pledged to bring in legislation which clarified the law on self-defence in England.<<
I wonder if Mr Cooke had pulled the body inside the home, if that would have made a diff.
It irks me that it seems to *matter* to the author, where the man lived, what his economic status was, the fact that he owned property that was valuable [cars]; it’s as if he was *asking* for it; totally ignoring a man’s God-given right to self defense.
Britain’s version of “trailer park”.... (sorry if I offend anyone)
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