Are we now at liberty to kill anyone entering our homes uninvited?
WHEN I think of heinous crimes – which, for my own sanity, I mostly don’t – I think of burglary as being more evil than manslaughter.
Burglary is premeditated disruption of the lives within a household. Manslaughter is an unplanned killing, often caused by aroused passions – a heated situation that’s spiralled out of control. Both are beyond despicable, but burglary is planned. There is intent. I’ve been burgled twice, once when I lived alone in a one-bedroom flat, prompting me to sleep with a sharp kitchen knife by my bed from that day on. The pride in owning my own home was replaced by a feeling of having been violated by someone I’d never known, nor seen. Or maybe I did know them? Had seen them? Were they still watching my movements? The discomfort, the sense of fear on arriving at my front door after work, lived with me until the day I sold that little flat. My current home, shared with my husband and two teenage boys, was burgled when we were all upstairs asleep. I woke my husband, saying, “I’m sure I can hear someone downstairs,” only to be told, “Go back to sleep!” It was a clinical, planned job. They’d clearly cased the joint, knew what they wanted and made off with the wall-mounted TV, which had been expertly removed. There was also an attempted burglary while we were away on holiday. We arrived home to the scars of an attempt to bash the front door in, foiled, thankfully, by super-strong, sand-blasted glass and sturdy locks. The house hasn’t felt the same since. But we are still alive. Something the family of 37-year-old Henry Vincent cannot say about him.
During an attempted burglary he was stabbed to death with a screwdriver by his intended victim, Richard Osborn-Brooks. Vincent was a crook with no thought for the effects of his actions on his vulnerable prey. He was also, according to a tribute laid outside the scene, a dad who “would do anything for [his] family”.
The revelation of the human side of this serial crook, makes the fact that he was killed, with no criminal charge incurred by his assailant, a little uncomfortable.
Are we all now to assume that we’re at liberty to kill anyone who enters our home uninvited, without being charged for murder or manslaughter?
The law currently states that we are entitled to “fight back” if attacked in our own homes. Which, I guess, is what Mr Osborn-Brooks did. He stabbed Henry Vincent. He killed him. It was his legal right. But how far does “fight back” entitle us to go?
Mr Osborn-Brooks, aged 78 and therefore vulnerable, was disturbed and threatened in his own home.
Vincent had no right to be there. But did he deserve to die? If he’d stood trial for his crime, he’d certainly have been locked up, but he’d still be alive.
Who knows what any of us would do if faced with a burglar in our own homes. But clarification is needed as to what having the right to “fight back” actually means.
Does it give us the right to kill? Surely that’s a gateway to scenes akin to the Wild West on the streets of our neighbourhoods.
We are all entitled to ‘fight back’, but how far does this go?