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Salem, who forced Hussain's wife and three children to lie on the floor, was given a two-year supervision order. (Salem) has 54 previous convictions.

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What is the law on defending your home?

If you use force which is 'not excessive' against burglars then the law is on your side.

Last year's Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill contained clauses to protect people from prosecution if they act instinctively and out of fear for their safety.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw said:

'Law-abiding citizens should not be put off tackling criminals by fear of excessive investigation.

'For a passer-by witnessing a street crime or a householder faced with a burglar, we are reassuring them that if they use force which is not excessive or disproportionate, the law really is behind them.'

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Mr Hussain made a break for freedom by throwing a coffee table at his attackers. He and Tokeer chased the gang and brought Salem to the ground in a front garden.

Reading Crown Court heard how Mr Hussain and his brother then beat Salem while he lay on the ground, using a cricket bat, a pole and a hockey stick - leaving him with a fractured skull and brain damage following the 'sustained' attack.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

I'm going to bring up race here, because Wulf didn't.

Anyone notice the name of this guy? Speculations on how this guy became a millionaire aside, could THAT be the real reason that he's being jailed?

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Jailing him, Judge John Reddihough said some members of the public would think that 56-year-old Salem 'deserved what happened to him' and that Mr Hussain 'should not have been prosecuted'.
But had he spared Mr Hussain jail, the judge said, the 'rule of law' would collapse.
He said: 'If persons were permitted to take the law into their own hands and inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting the criminal justice system take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse.'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235782/Millionaire-Munir-Hussain-fou
ght-knife-wielding-burglar-jailed-intruder-let-off.html

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Originally posted by SignyM:

But the better action would be to hold Salem for the police.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
No, I don't think that the robber "deserved" brain damage and this doesn't actually sound like self defense to me, but this is a crazy sentence. "Grievous bodily harm with intent?" This was an act of passion, clearly, don't give me "pre-calculated" bullshit.

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If you don't know what you are and aren't allowed to do in self-defense, you could theoretically be charged for any action taken to interfere with an attack on your person, family, or livelyhood or for interfering with a crime in progress.

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He wanted to cause serious injury, and did, therefore GBH with intent.

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Hardly a relevant conclusion from the source material.

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Roger that.

But the robber's name was Salem, which is also Arabic, since that's the neighborhood they both live in.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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He wanted to cause serious injury, and did, therefore GBH with intent.

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Granted, the injuries weren't an accident, but I just don't see the "with intent" part.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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Hardly a relevant conclusion from the source material.

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Then apparently you were more informed by the provided information than I was, or possibly more familiar with the laws, because I didn't see much information at all in the source about what constitutes legal self-defense and crime intervention. Perhaps British citizens are more informed about their legal rights and legal definitions of self-defense through other media, but I certainly didn't see it HERE, and I was merely stating, a lack of a clear definition could be a dangerous legal precedent.

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Hussain, 53, made an escape after throwing a coffee table and enlisted his brother Tokeer, 35, in chasing the offenders down the street in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, bringing one of them to the ground.

What followed was described in Reading Crown Court as self-defence that went too far. Walid Salem, one of the intruders, suffered a permanent brain injury after he was struck with a cricket bat so hard that it broke into three pieces. Neighbours saw several men beating Salem with weapons, including a metal pole.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
I never said it WAS self-defense, if you look up above. I said I disagreed about "with intent."

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
And no, that was not at all what I was saying about adrenaline. The point is context. Yes, if you're yelling at someone in an argument, you secrete a bit of adrenalin in preparation for a fight that may or may not happen.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
That is far different from finding intruders in your own home, being threatened, accosted, tied up, and most importantly, having your FAMILY threatened.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Can people? That's the question here. And I think this is blurry.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
I think it's very difficult to say just how rational Hassein was at the time. He THREW A COFFEE TABLE AT THESE PEOPLE. I don't know how heavy the coffee table was, but that sounds to me like it was on the "berserk" side of the adrenalin spectrum.

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Your much better more official newspaper, I notice, also doesn't clearly delineate what self-defense is. My complaint stands.

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If, having knocked an intruder unconscious, you then battered him as a punishment, you’d be acting with gratuitous force and could be prosecuted.

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Being really really angry and really wanting to hurt someone is generally taken as motive not defence.

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Wow, so you're trying to dismiss the times while clinging to pronouncements by the daily fascist? Yeah good luck with that.

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I can't begin to even see the thought process behind thinking points of law aren't clarified if they're not strung out in bullet points in the tabloids.

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Perhaps British citizens are more informed about their legal rights and legal definitions of self-defense through other media, but I certainly didn't see it HERE, and I was merely stating, a lack of a clear definition could be a dangerous legal precedent.

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If, having knocked an intruder unconscious, you then battered him as a punishment, you’d be acting with gratuitous force and could be prosecuted.

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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Being really really angry and really wanting to hurt someone is generally taken as motive not defence.

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Good point.

Still, having been very jittery one day after being broken into the day before, I nearly shot someone... and since I was using a 12-gauge shotgun, it might have been fatal. The gunshot would have been intentional, but my judgment was lacking. Shit happens. I would have given the benefit of doubt.

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In 1988, Ted Newberry, a 76-year-old from Ilkeston, Derbyshire, lay in wait on his allotment shed for an expected intruder, then shot a 12-bore gun at a Mark Revill when he tried to enter. Revill was badly injured and Mr Newberry was prosecuted on charges of wounding, but was acquitted by a jury.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
You made my argument for me, exactly what I was driving at. Temporary insanity.

Maybe you think it's a bullshit defense, but it has legal precedence, and in this case I think it applies. People do many things they don't intend to and later regret when they calm down. Even damaging things.

Should there be a consequence? Oh yes. You just damaged someone or someone's property. But to say you INTENDED to do so? First in this case I don't think we can prove it. And secondly, I don't think it's accurate to say there's intent. There's just anger, and it shuts out any other voice of reason.

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I don't think we can prove Hassein's motive, if he had one, was to punish the intruder.

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