any intruder will be rendered unconcious by the easiest possible method.Finer legal points can be argued later!Better than having a crippled/dead spouse and thug with 6 months community service.

Report abuse

Couldnt agree more with the letter writer. The whole incident he mentioned show the police in a very poor light. When the introduction of the tazer was brought about it was said to be as a last resort??. It seems when something like this occurs and is caught on camera no charges are ever brought against the person who is being zapped , punched what ever, why is that??.
The police and any person doing anything wrong for that matter surley should be aware in this age of camera phones, cctv, they will be filmed and made accountable for their actions. I remenber being burgled many years ago and being told by the police officer if they come back and you catch them you will be prosecuted if you use excessive force. Well from what i saw and have heard a police officer was hit the person ressisted arrest by 4 police officers and the result of that was zapped a few times and upper body (neck) punched. This is why i am afraid i would never condone arming the whole of the police service keep it as armed responce teams only epecially if they are trigger happy with a tazer.

Report abuse

Reasonable force may well be a difficult and non exact concept however I feel that I would rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
People should know that they have the right to defend themselves and also have the intelligence to say the correct things to the police when the level of force is questioned. Unfortunately people are very stupid and want to exagerate their emotions and actions. Revenge is not reasonable force and justification for them breaking in cannot be to hurt or kill. If in doubt do not speak until you have spoken to a lawyer.

Report abuse

Well said David. For myself, I just say this, if someone breaks into my place whilst I am about, one of us is going to be very, very, severely injured, irrespective of the circumstances, broken window, forced door, down the chimney or whatever, and if it is not me that is injured, then I won’t be opening my mouth to the Police until a Solicitor is sitting next to me in the interview room.
If you want my legal advise, beat the living daylights out of him until he can’t run or stand, call the Police, tell them you found him in your house then clam up and demand a solicitor.

Report abuse

Craig I think makes the point for the letter writer, we are however expected to use the minimum force and do not have the training or the armoury available to the police. The police it seems are allowed to use punishing force.

I do not think the police and the courts would look kindly on a homeowner who said he broke into my house and threatened me, so I decided to send him to hospital, it was his choice.

I do not think the police would look kindly on someone who actually retained any sort of armoury for the purpose of their own protection thus the concept of the right of self protection has been undermined.

Report abuse

To be honest paranoid has some argument however he is talking an (abuse of power) and i belive the photograhing of police is ilegal if their is a security issue and the pictures are used for terrorism etc that is when you will get your prison sentence and quite right too.
Where the abuse is ,is if the pictures are removed to cover up a wrong doing, and i cant immagine a court would not want to see the pictures in question should an individual be brought to trial for taking pictures of a police officer outside a nightclub involved in a brawl after all it is on cctv also.

Report abuse

Andrew; I believe you will find the wording is -if the images could be useful for terrorists and I believe criminals etc. In that context any image could be useful in identifying a police officer if it fell into the wrong hands. You do not need to be a terrorist or criminal for the prohibition to be effective because the police will use this law as justification for an arrest. You would be arrested held for a few days, the images destroyed and then the charges would be dropped.

You would be punished by the system for taking a photograph of a policemen even though it might only be 4 days in prison. And if you were really unlucky you might well be arrested by an officer who thinks you need a visit to the local hospital.

Given that the courts will always take the word of a police officer over that of a member of the public because they assume the officer has no reason to lie, the intrusive modern media, has to a certain extent limited police freedom of action, where before the public had no evidence, they can now often produce film of an event.

When we already have several instances of policemen not wearing collar tags to prevent identification and numerous cases – before the introduction of this law – where the police have gained a bad name by harassing photographers; even professional press photographers, have been detained. There is clearly something wrong with a police service that is so camera shy, I think the public should be very concerned about these developments, which go hand in hand with the erosion of the idea of policing by consent and the Peelian principals for the police we erroneously believe to be still in place.

Report abuse