Home Defense Illegal in England

[GregM]

This is from the Saturday edition of the Telegraph:

Myleene Klass warned by police after scaring off intruders with knife
Myleene Klass, the broadcaster and model, brandished a knife at youths who broke into her garden – but has been warned by police that she may have acted illegally.

By Roya Nikkhah
Published: 8:00PM GMT 09 Jan 2010

Miss Klass, a model for Marks & Spencer and a former singer with the pop group Hear'Say, was in her kitchen in the early hours of Friday when she saw two teenagers behaving suspiciously in her garden.
The youths approached the kitchen window, before attempting to break into her garden shed, prompting Miss Klass to wave a kitchen knife to scare them away.
Miss Klass, 31, who was alone in her house in Potters Bar, Herts, with her two-year-old daughter, Ava, called the police. When they arrived at her house they informed her that she should not have used a knife to scare off the youths because carrying an "offensive weapon" – even in her own home – was illegal.
Jonathan Shalit, Miss Klass's agent, said that she had been "shaken and utterly terrified" by the incident and was stepping up security at the house she shares with her fiancé, Graham Quinn, who was away on business at the time.
He said: "Myleene was aghast when she was told that the law did not allow her to defend herself in her own home. All she did was scream loudly and wave the knife to try and frighten them off.
"She is not looking to be a vigilante, and has the utmost respect for the law, but when the police explained to her that even if you're at home alone and you have an intruder, you are not allowed to protect yourself, she was bemused.
"Her questions going forward are: what are my rights, and what are you actually allowed to do to defend yourself in your own house?"
The Sunday Telegraph's Right to Defend Yourself campaign is seeking a change in the law to provide greater rights and immunity from prosecution for householders in dealing with intruders.
Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said: "This incident just shows why things are still very confused on this issue and why we need a change in the law."
A spokesman for Hertfordshire Police said: "We got a call at 12.45am on Saturday to reports of the owner of the property hearing noises outside their address.
"Officers were in attendance and checked the property.
"There was no one around although they could see footprints in the snow. No property had been taken and there were no intruders. It was treated as a trespass incident.
"Words of advice were given in relation to ensuring suspicious behaviour is reported immediately."

[jgalt]

Translation: How to turn a great nation into a third-world nation...

[cobb]

Translation: How to turn a great nation into a third-world nation...

No, the true translation is: What the citizens of the USA have to look forward to....

[gunflint]

Not this citizen.

[David]

I was visiting some friends in the U.K. in September, and I wanted to bring one of them, who is a re-enactor, a WWII M3 fighting knife. I sent an e-mail to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and asked what procedure I should follow to do this, not wanting to end up in a sticky wicket, so to speak. I got a message back within a day from an extremely helpful officer who laid it all out for me, and even suggested that I print out his message and carry it with me to show to any police if I were stopped with the knife before handing it over.

The law was kind of complicated and a bit subject to interpretation. You can own knives, but you can't carry them, and "transport" and "carry" have only a few vague differences. The officer basically said it was kind of a crap shoot, as the police could decide that having a knife in your luggage in the back of the car was "carrying" instead of "transporting." Even though I knew I wouldn't get in any trouble, I decided to bring him a musette bag and a few smaller things instead because I didn't even want to have to go through a tense explanation if stopped.

Something else kind of interesting I witnessed in Belfast. This guy was getting thrown out of a club late at night, and he decided to throw a swing at the bouncer. He hit him pretty good, and the bouncer staggered back. The other bouncers jumped on the guy, and held him until police arrived, which was less than a minute. The guy decided to fight the cops, too, and they all jumped on him and got him down on the ground, and were all getting punches and kicks in. One officer, holding an MP5, was standing back a bit. He was itching to get in on the action though, so he stepped up to the pile, which was well in hand and his help was not needed, transferred his MP5 to his left hand and held it up in the air, then reached in with his right hand and punched the guy a few times. It's a good thing I wasn't drunk and thinking, "Hey, free MP5!" because I could have snatched it easily. He was practically holding it out to me, and all his attention was on the licking he was giving the guy on the ground.

Pretty unbelievable night. That trip, which was all over Europe, and another recent one I took to Central America, was an education on the ways police operate internationally, and the very wide variety of guns they all use.

[ijosef]

Those kids were probably trespassing for more than one reason...

[mrokern]

Those kids were probably trespassing for more than one reason...

Homina homina homina...