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Please read and sign?
this is worth signing.
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49 Replies
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i’ve just read the paper reports etc, to be sure it wasn’t a hoax. seems real enough to me. i’m of the opinion that he should be rewarded for running the little turd over, whether he intended to or not.
nothing to lose but 10 seconds of your life if you sign it!
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I can honestly see both sides of the story, HIS and the LAW…not the miscreant who is going to be a waste of dole money. HE got what he deserved & got off lightly.
(There are several versions throughout the papers with varying degrees of aggression & liability on both sides of the conflict.)
Wishing to confront & scare your local graffiti muppet results in an escalation & a knife being pulled…at that point it’s time to go back indoors, tell the missus to take the kids upstairs & call plod who will most likely send an ARU for the hell of it if ‘brandishing a weapon’ was mentioned. But getting into (or back into) your van…and driving AT him (OK, we’ve all been tempted…) and aiming your ton and a bit of metal at someone is not ‘reasonable force’ especially if you mount the pavement on purpose, if your life was not in immediate danger up to that point. He lost his temper and assaulted with a weapon to his severe injury…if he’s gone in to the back of the van and pulled out a hammer & bashed his brains in would we feel the same injustice?
Me, I’d maybe have done the same in the circumstances…and I have turned a few sets of knickers brown over the years when the local teens play chicken with the car / just stand there and I appear to not be going to stop.
I’ll sit on the fence on the one…deplore the justice system & the society that breeds these thugs…cannot agree with the rage induced attack…but think the thug got what he deserved whether fully deliberate or as a result of ‘losing control’.
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David in all honesty….and I don’t mean to be argumentative but if you would have done the same and are able to justify why you would have done it then surely the law is an ass in the case…..and signing a petition (a lawful and non violent protest) is the least you can do. When it can’t be taken into account. that a normally lawful and family man has been driven to this extreme by mindless, drug induced anarchy, then the law is not working and ‘justice’ is a sham. We sit and say that the law is and the law is that and wash our hands of any responsibility while the fact is that the law is a tool of our ‘democracy’ and we have the power to change it and have done many time over the years………. it is an instrument that always needs fine tuning to cope with a changing society. This is what this petition seeks to achieve and the return of a man ‘who lost his temper’ to his family. We can’t sit on the fence on this one.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out. -
Ive signed it… too much of this crap going on. same sort of thing as the two guys that broke into the farmers house and got shot… farmer gets done. 😕 :lol1:
i agree that there are two sides to it Dave… but if you are approached by a guy with a knife and metal bar threatening you and your family, instinct is to defend at any cost… then… punish him for having the audacity to to put them in danger in the first place. This guy has to live there, if he does nothing they will repeatedly do it time and time again… if not to him, then his wife or kids when they are alone.
this is fact, but only last week Audrey and my two little girls were driving home in the dark on a back road just a few miles from my house. two drunk guys were on the road, one stood in the middle "swaying" and pointing in the window at her. as she slowed down the other started to make his way to her door. she couldn’t do much but almost stop, she was panicing and managed to bumped onto the pavement and round the one in the middle of the road. (pranging my cars alloys ) 😕 anyway… i learned this later that night and wasn’t pleased. i said if anything like that ever happens then by all means slow down, but don’t stop, don’t try turning or swerving as she could end up down a ditch… just keep rolling at a moderate speed and they will move. if they don’t, tuff! -
Well I’ve just signed it. There are too many thugs on our streets and the law affords too little protection to those that need it while protecting the rights of those individuals that go out to cause trouble.
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Signed it straight away.
Dave I think you missing the point.
Man attacks another man for no reason. Man being attacked either runs or fights. He tried to leave then accidentally knocks the attacker down.
No 2 sides Dave. The [****] got what he deserved accident or no accident he shouldn’t have tried to be the hard man in front of a defenseless man and his children. If I’d have been this poor bloke I’d have reversed over the scum bucket. -
Had a flyer come through the door at the shop the other day from the Police. 1 paragraph telling us what they are doing to combat crime and thugs. The rest of the flyer was filled with future action being taken against drivers who park illegally.
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Sorry,
having read all the links, I cant come to sign the petition,
there are to many variations of the same story,
and although the headline points to a mis-carriage of justice, I cant be sure there was.
Only a transcript of the court hearing would be valid in determining if the sentence was justified, not the press account.Its all very easy to judge from afar, without hearing all the facts.
The self defense law is quite clear, it does not allow for revenge, or more force than is necessary to protect you and/or yours.
No matter what the scumbag did, it is not up to the individual to determine the punishment,
No I am not a do gooder, but like to think I would consider both sides of the story, with proper evidence, before passing judgment.The law allows for appeal against sentence, and I am sure this will be going through, so in effect, a petition is pointless anyway, it will not, and cannot influence due process
Sad world aint it…
Peter
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the fact he is carrying a knife is premeditated. if it wasn’t this bloke it would probably be some poor guy coming home from a nightclub that gets it.
if he carries a knife leaving his house, he deserves all he gets.
the flip side could be, maybe he did have a score to settle with the bloke, maybe he had his own motives… but whats wrong with his fists? -
Peter…from reading about this and other cases it is clear the law is inadequate to deal with cases like this……….signing the petition will help to get it changed……………..public opinion is a powerful thing if organized.
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quote Robert Lambie:the fact he is carrying a knife is premeditated. if it wasn’t this bloke it would probably be some poor guy coming home from a nightclub that gets it.
if he carries a knife leaving his house, he deserves all he gets.
the flip side could be, maybe he did have a score to settle with the bloke, maybe he had his own motives… but whats wrong with his fists?No dis Rob, I carry a knife, swiss army thing, use it for fitting signs etc. same as a chef may carry a knife,
dosnt mean to say I deserves running over, and sadly its a fact that school kids carry knives, does a 14 year old deserve to be run over or suffer serious injury for carrying a knife?what I mean is, if a 13 or 14 year old pulled a knife on me, and I killed the kid, would a jury say I had done the right thing? (doubt it)
It all depends on the circumstances and without knowing the full story, I go back to what I said. It is very difficult to judge from afar.
without saying to much, been there, done that,
not all is what is at it appears
Peter -
i know where you are coming from peter, but this is not a kid. this is an adult guy waving a knife and a metal bar in a threatening manner, smashing a car up as someone is trying to get back into it. kids and wife screaming etc no consideration from the attacker.
Swiss army knife, chefs knife, our even vinyl scalpels etc all very Innocent until we threaten someone or an innocent family in the street with them. they become weapons then regardless to who is holding it.
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Having slept on this, perhaps this is not the right place to debate the rights and wrongs of signing the petition, or the punishment handed down. So perhaps all the posts above should be either be deleted or moved to a separate thread, and this one locked, so as to let the petition stand on its own merits.
Peter
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I cant help but compare this to the lad who took on the terrorists at Glasgow airport (sorry can’t remember his name)……..He’s now a national hero for his actions
I don’t really see the difference in this case……..or is it just that for it to be classed as terrorism it has got to be on a large scale rather than a personal one?
I know if it was me, I would have been a lot more terrified with a one on one drug fueled armed attacker whilst my kids were present compared to the airport scenario
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that’s a fair point Glen, John Smeaton was his name and yes he received a pat on the back.
It’s the same argument when you retaliate to protect your property from a housebreaker……. 😕I feel the law protects the accused and not the victim.
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a bit like the law protects the employee and never the employer! 😕
well… not the same thing, but you know what i mean? 😕 :lol1: -
ive just signed it too….sick fed up of ‘junkies’ i would have reversed back over him and made sure id done the job right 😕
nik
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Signed without hesitation. Theres a difference between carrying a Swiss Army Knife and a 14" blade.
Too much of this going on in the UK these days.
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quote Karl Williams:Signed it straight away.
Dave I think you missing the point. …………. He tried to leave then accidentally knocks the attacker down…
That’s what I’m ‘protesting’ at – I do not in all honesty believe you can ‘accidently’ run someone down…he drove AT him, whether to scare him or not. The guy lost his temper and in a rage went for his attacker instead of leaving.
I understand WHY he did it, but ‘taking the law into our own hands’ – whether or not the law is an ass at times is why we pretend to live in a moralistic country.
Take the farmer a few years ago that was hassled by youths…and shot them when they broke in. YES, they got what they deserved in a sense of ‘justice’…buy he shot at them with intent – not discharging into the air….as ‘our guy’ drove AT his attacker with intent.
Think we’ll just have to agree to disagree…I think the real losers in this case are his family.
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Dave is right about one thing. The family are the real losers here. I`d hate to imagine my lad had witnessed such a thing.
I signed without hesitation.
Cheers
Gary
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I think the guy is a hero. That’s one less cretin alive on earth to contaminate the gene pool. It’s a real shame he has to go to jail for this unfortunate accident that was not of his making!!
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I’ve just been reading through the reports
the victim had suffered a broken leg and collar bone and a punctured lung, and had been permanently disfigured
It seems I misunderstood – the attacker wasn’t killed after all – just badly injured. This makes it even more of a miss carriage of justice. Jailed for 8 years? There’s many an intentional murderer get softer sentences than this.
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i signed it when marcella posted it and read it carefully.. i did think about morales of defence, but if I approached the attacking guy and protected this family and ‘accidently’ killed him then I would be in jail. I remember the Martin case when the farmer shot the intruder.
One thing I hate about this country is how poor its getting, I fed up with the laws etc… Also fed up with antisocial behavour that is with kids today.
As stated on the news today with Steve Wright case, bring back the death sentance.. oh hang on, this guy possibly now death row.. .grrr what a farce.
Although, constrained or not, spur of the moment is something that cannot be controlled easily, I still don’t how this is justified in court but certainly can jump to wrong conclusions. If this was 100 years ago the guy be a hero!
Rant over.
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Obviously the "Authorities" are keen to send out clear signals that vigilante action will not be tolerated. However, this sort of defensive behavior wouldn’t be necessary if the authorities would police our streets properly and clamp down severely on antisocial behavior. By signing these petitions we can send back a clear signal to the authorities that we no longer wish to tolerate our lawless society.
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Too right Phill… although I think the UK is knackered with any government in charge.. my faith disappeared.
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I signed it when i read it, why because my wife was attacked 8 months whilst sitting in her car on our own drive all because she asked a young want a be to please not park across the drive because she could not get our car out. His response was to throw a house brick at the side window just by her head thank god the window didn’t break so he picked up another larger clump of bricks and through it through the rear window where it came to rest in the baby chair luckily none of the children were in the car but they all did witness it from inside the house. He made sure he wasn’t about when i got there & didn’t show up until after he had been charged by the Police (i was warned not to find him) that took nearly 3 months even though he regularly stayed at his grand parents just around the corner which was reported to the Police, their reply was that they could not go knocking on the door because it wasn’t his registered address. My answer to them was well i’ll go knock and deal with it & i’m sure you’ll come running soon enough, to which i was warned i would be prosecuted if i did (not that i would because scaring old people isn’t my cup of tea). He was eventually caught whilst driving doped up after nearly running another car of the road. He was taken to court for attacking my wife, he ended up getting 12 months suspended sentence and ordered to pay 50% of the repair costs. To this day he’s only paid £40.00 of the £700.00 and the court have to give him 60 days before they will chase him. However he is now driving around in a new car as if he had never been convicted of anything.
So to the ones who think they cannot comment because, he may have done it deliberately or differing versions of reports in the paper etc. Will you feel the same if its your family who is attacked or will your families forgive if they are burying you one day because someone carrying a knife or bar decided to pull them on you.
Kev
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Dave,
Put yourself in this position. You are in your car with your kids and your wife. Youths are smacking the car with baseball bats, making obscene gestures at you wife and the kids are hearing and seeing things they shouldn’t. The situation gets worse. They smash your window and grab your wife but she manages to get free. You realise they have surrounded
the car and have knifes. If i’d have been put in this situation yes I would run them over and make sure the tw@ts regret being born. Protecting my family comes first and yes I would kill for them. -
Well said Karl!
Surely anyone would do anything necessary to protect their own in a situation like that? Surely.
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What a story Kevin… quite possibly a correct outcome in the end for you all but you must felt powerless… I suspect the images of event is still playing on your wife’s mind which cannot be erased.
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Well I for one would serve a prison sentence for protecting my child, no hesitation!
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The fact is they get away with it. Take rape. The guy gets x amount of years or walks free. The woman….a life sentence and she did nothing but scream please don’t hurt me!. There should be no place for scum.
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quote Marcella:Well I for one would serve a prison sentence for protecting my child, no hesitation!
Marcella, we all would, but protecting and dishing out punishment, are two different things. Most people who act in self defense of themselves and family, rarely go to court, its only when the self defense is considered extreme.
And just to point out to some, its not the fault of the police that these things get out of hand, they are restricted by government guidelines and budgets,
just be thank full that our police don’t beat the crap out of innocent people
(well not often anyway) like they do in some less developed countries…Peter
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quote Peter Normington:just be thank full that our police don’t beat the crap out of innocent people
(well not often anyway) like they do in some less developed countries…im just annoyed at the whole POLICE thingy….my sister got jumped by fifteen males & females while going to the shops….and sitting over the road was two police in their car watching the whole thing (?) sorry swaying off topic 😕
nik
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quote Peter Normington:just be thank full that our police don’t beat the crap out of innocent people like they do in some less developed countries.
But then there is two sides to every story peter, how do you know the Innocent person wasn’t actually waving a knife in the policeman’s face and the policemen were only acting in self defense? 😉
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quote Peter Normington:Most people who act in self defense of themselves and family, rarely go to court, its only when the self defense is considered extreme.Well, ok, but who decides what is extreme?
As a relatively unfit middle aged (I can’t tell you how much it hurt to type that) man confronting one or more fit young males the only chance of me coming out of it unscathed would be to make sure that when I strike they don’t get up again, whatever the consequences to them.
I think that would be reasonable force, but I have absolutely no doubt that the police, CPS and a jury would be likely to consider my action to be excessive, and I would fully expect to do time.
We’re living in a rotten country and nothing other than a complete shake-up of the system will make it any better. We’re governed by morons in a corrupt system. 🙁
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We’re living in a rotten country and nothing other than a complete shake-up of the system will make it any better. We’re governed by morons in a corrupt system.
:2thumbs: Damn right.
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quote John Childs:We’re living in a rotten country and nothing other than a complete shake-up of the system will make it any better. We’re governed by morons in a corrupt system. 🙁Sorry, I disagree. There may be a lot of problems here and may not be the best country in the world but as one of the top countries in the world that statement has to be a very personal opinion. I’m not sure if you have ever lived in any other countries to compare but I come from a 3rd world country (and actually one of the better 3rd world countries) and sometimes I feel some Brits don’t know how good they actually have it here.
That’s all 😉
Warren
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Warren, I am not suggesting for one moment that Great Britain is the worst country in the world, far from it, and I do appreciate that you come from somewhere far worse.
I would comment though, that those of us who have lived here for a lot longer than yourself have seen a tremendous deterioration. This is not the country of my youth and it pains me to see the way it has been, and is still being, run down.
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quote John Childs:I would comment though, that those of us who have lived here for a lot longer than yourself have seen a tremendous deterioration. This is not the country of my youth and it pains me to see the way it has been, and is still being, run down.
And the reason John?……I think it is because far too many of us ‘sit on the fence’. It is nonsense to suggest that the law is unchangeable…….public opinion and lobbying has and does change legislation. Slavish allegiance to party is another reason………if public opinion is strong enough…..watch them protect their seats and do something! I agree with Peter N that signing a petition like this probably wont get this man released but it is part of the process of achieving change.
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You may be right Harry, but I wish I was as sure as yourself. Like yourself, I think democracy works, it’s just that the brand of democracy we have isn’t good enough.
For instance – the Chief Constables of our police forces, no matter how much of a hash they make of the job are practically unsackable. We will not get the policing we want until we elect Chief Constables so that they have to answer to the electorate personally every four years, or whatever period, and suffer the consequences of their failures themselves.
The same applies to judges. If they had to answer to the people every few years we would very quickly see a decline in silly sentencing.
Electing public officials works but, because it puts power into the hands of the public, rather than the politicians, will never happen here. 🙁
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John, Chief constables and judges do not convict people, its up to the jury (crown court offenses where More than 3 months is an option)
Our peers decide guilt or innocence, the judge only passes sentence.
perhaps we should adopt what some American states do, the jury decides if the defendant is guilty, and also the punishment.
Peter
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quote Harry Cleary:quote John Childs:I would comment though, that those of us who have lived here for a lot longer than yourself have seen a tremendous deterioration. This is not the country of my youth and it pains me to see the way it has been, and is still being, run down.And the reason John?……I think it is because far too many of us ‘sit on the fence’. It is nonsense to suggest that the law is unchangeable…….public opinion and lobbying has and does change legislation. Slavish allegiance to party is another reason………if public opinion is strong enough…..watch them protect their seats and do something! I agree with Peter N that signing a petition like this probably wont get this man released but it is part of the process of achieving change.
Gonna throw the cat amongst the pigeons here, BUT……. didn’t we maybe screw up by abolishing the belt ? (diving for cover)
I know both sides have good arguments on this subject, but whenever I received the belt I 100% deserved it and it did make me see the error of my ways (I never got caught twice for the same offense :wink:)
So what would I say if one of my kids came home saying they had received the belt, it would probably be "What did you doing wrong"
Only yesterday my daughter was talking about a class mate throwing books around the classroom, then swearing & giving the teacher the finger when she tried to stop him, the boy is only 9 :o.
Now, I’m no way saying he should be receiving the belt because unfortunately for him he comes from very young parents who walk about with the now typical "ah don’t give a f**k attitude" 🙁I can just imagine them in the heads office "Whit the f*k did ya da ta upset ma wee Liam" 🙄
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quote :Gonna throw the cat amongst the pigeons here, BUT……. didn’t we maybe screw up by abolishing the belt ? (diving for cover)
yes i agree too neil…worst thing the system got rid of….respect went right out the window 😕
nik
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Rose tinted glasses are fine,
to those who think things have changed, no they haven’t. and unfortunately, never will
violence and crime have been around since the birth of mankind.History tells us nothing has changed
Peter
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quote Peter Normington:John, Chief constables and judges do not convict people, its up to the jury (crown court offenses where More than 3 months is an option)
Our peers decide guilt or innocence, the judge only passes sentence.
That’s true Peter.
But the Chief Constables decide which area of crime to put the resources of their forces into and having to justify their own existence may well make them keener to channel their efforts into areas of real public concern rather than a lot of politically correct nonsense. In the interests of keeping their job they might decide that tackling yob culture is more productive than prosecuting some young girl for tossing an apple core out of her car window.
The same thing with judges. Maybe they would start handing down sentences more in line with the wishes of the people than can sometimes do at present.
I’m not quite sure why you raised the point of juries. They have always voted in the way they feel right and have no need for reform. Indeed, they are a safeguard for all of us against frivolous prosecution.
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quote Peter Normington:violence and crime have been around since the birth of mankind.
Of course they have, and nothing will stop it, but some meaningful sentences would protect the public by at least keep the perpetrators from re-offending so often or so soon.
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I raised the point of juries John simply because like you say, they are the "safeguard", but not however, infallible. Barristers (read actors) can often convince juries that wrong is right,
so I really don’t know what the answer is, we have a system that is as good as it can be, but we must accept that the penalty for a good system, is that sometimes the very small and most publicised minority get rough justice,
but that is the whole point of having an appeal system.
Peter -
it seems to be a world wide problem created in no small part by not making people responsible for their actions. If you have no boundary applied to your actions then why would you need to adjust them. In my humble opinion when you engage in an illegal act you surely give up the rights bestowed on all by community rules. Here we have prisoners injured whilst escaping from prison who the sue the state for damages.
This is pure Bull –it
Mike -
quote Peter Normington:we have a system that is as good as it can be
I think we will have to agree to disagree on that one Peter. 😀
I don’t know what the answer is either, in fact I don’t think that there is a complete one because we don’t live in a perfect world. However, I am convinced that things could be so much better than they are.
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