Hurrah! You can fight back against burglars in England (as long as you act ‘instinctively’).

So proclaims Minister of Justice Ken Clarke:

In an historic move, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke yesterday announced a major strengthening of the rights of victims standing up to intruders in their property.

It means anyone who reacts ‘instinctively’ to defend their home and possessions will be protected if they use reasonable force. The current law says they can act only if they feared for their life or those of their family. It also places duty on victims to retreat from an attacker if they are acting in self-defence. This will also be scrapped. 

At the same time, the Home Office is set to change guidance for police on whether to arrest someone who has attacked an intruder in their home. It could mean arrests are not necessary when householders and businessmen say they have acted in self-defence.

Mr Clarke said: While fleeing is usually the safest option if you feel threatened, people are not obliged to retreat when defending themselves or their homes

The funny thing about newspaper stories like this one is that is often not easy to find out what exactly has been ‘announced’.

In this case, the ‘story’ is (I assume) based on Ministry of Justice briefing of new policy initiatives summarised on the MoJ website:

Mr Clarke said: ‘People should feel safe in their communities and especially in their own homes and these measures, along with the rest of our radical package of reforms, will ensure they are protected.’

The measures include:

  • Making squatting in residential buildings a criminal offence
  • Strengthening people’s rights to use force to defend themselves from intruders in their own homes

The site then points you the House of Commons website to see the proposed amendments to the law. But it is a hell of a faff trying to find the amendments relating to burglary/intruders.

Anyway, I have tried – and failed!

But I have found the proposals to make squatting a criminal offence – quite a shift in the law, as it happens. It’s here, but you have to scroll down to 3615.

I have telephoned the MoJ Press Office to see if anyone can point me to the exact changes proposed in the law relating to burglary. I was told that the law currently said that when confronted by a burglar a homeowner was under a duty to retreat. I asked where that came from – what was the source of that assertion? Some sort of case-law norm? 

They promised to get back to me. I await their call.

Talking of squatters, there’s this historic text which as it happens has a lot to say about self-defence and indeed mentions Bahrain in that context (Note: not for the faint-hearted)

 

Update  after some confusion the MoJ point me to Notices of Amendments: 25 October 2011: 3616

It turns out that the proposed changes are pretty puny.

“Defence of property” becomes a legitimate purpose of self-defence (it wasn’t previously?!). And a tweak is applied to one possible (and ridiculous) legal interpretation of s76 of the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act which itself codified common law principles of self-defence and how reasonableness is applied::

 

“In deciding the question mentioned in subsection (3), a possibility that D could have retreated is to be considered (so far as relevant) as a factor to be taken into account rather than as giving rise to a duty to retreat”

 

So, listen you moronic judges and barristers overdosing on Human Rights legislation! There is no ‘duty’ to run away to help someone prove the reasonableness of any self-defence if he/she is attacked, OK?

 

Will the Ministry also issue guidance to courts and police on homeowners defending themselves or their property, with a strong steer not to prosecute anyone for defending themselves unless the violence used is unbelievably ‘disproportionate’. Who knows? The MoJ website doesn’t tell us.