Chris Grayling u-turns again, on home defence
11:59 am - December 24th 2009
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It seem to have worked out for the cerebral and shy Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling, treading gingerly into the high profile area of the right to self-defence this week.
Perhaps a tiny amount of over-reach? Indeed Melanie Phillips thought Grayling had gone well over the top in ‘endorsing mob rule‘. David Blackburn of The Spectator thought it was populism at its worst, and The Times was equally unimpressed.
The Shadow Home Secretary may well have been angling for a Daily Mail headline. But Tories’ licence to kill a burglar may have been a little stark even for Grayling.
Rather predictably, all this meant that the Shadow Home Secretary in effect reversed his position within 24 hours.
The Times reported:
Chris Grayling said that prosecuting people only where their defensive actions were judged to be “grossly disproportionate” was a serious option but said that it may not necessarily be adopted when the Conservatives reviewed the law on burglary.He appeared to soften his position after questioners suggested that the term “grossly disproportionate” would condone the use of disproportionate force against burglars. Mr Grayling told The Times: “I am not in any way suggesting that a Conservative government would create a licence to kill. But I am saying that, at the moment, the law does assume that householders who are under threat can look at things in the cold light of day. The world does not work like that and who knows how any of us would react when confronted by a knife-wielding burglar.”
Yet the terms of that climbdown would appear to confirm that the Shadow Home Secretary hasn’t read the law he is talking about, as those pesky Guardianistas had pointed out the previous day, public spiritedly offering him a handy crib.
“what should give him pause for thought, if he only took the time to read it, is the letter of the current law. Section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 codifies the traditional common law, and it squarely gives the benefit of the doubt to people defending themselves and their homes.
Self-defence pleas are presumed to be valid until prosecutors prove otherwise. Force can be lawfully deployed in response to real fears, even if these are not borne out in the end, and even if they arise unreasonably. The boundaries of “reasonable” are defined commonsensically. The law is explicit: those called on to defend themselves “may not be able to weigh to a nicety the exact measure of necessary action”, which is legalise for saying that decent people can lose control in the heat of the moment.
These safeguards are so tough that it is tricky to go beyond them without licensing extra-judicial executions.
Perhaps this was not Chris Graylng’s finest hour. (Let us leave to another day the conundrum as to what his finest hour was).
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A longer version is at Next Left
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Sunder Katwala is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He is the director of British Future, a think-tank addressing identity and integration, migration and opportunity. He was formerly secretary-general of the Fabian Society.
· Other posts by Sunder Katwala
Story Filed Under: Blog ,Civil liberties ,Conservative Party ,Crime ,Westminster
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Reader comments
So Greyling is pulling back from endorsing mob rule.
Meanwhile, it’s not only the Right who indulge in Tony Martin style vigilante fantasies:
‘I cannot guarantee that if I came back to my house and saw that being done to my family, I wouldn’t pull out a gun and mow that mofo down straight-away. As my mate said: ‘If you don’t want your ass kicked then don’t break into my house‘.’
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/6986
Too many Michael Winner movies?
Hey, I’m on Chris Grayling’s side on this. Though the point about him not knowing the existing law looks undoubtedly correct.
I doubt any review would significantly depart from the current law wrt self defence.
People shouldn’t be chasing villains and beating them until they are brain damaged.
Sunny,
How can you be on Grayling’s side when it is not even clear what side that is? Is the current law adequate? It seems to be, so Grayling was just grandstanding and was revealed as not understanding the current (quite simple) law.
which is legalise for saying that decent people can lose control in the heat of the moment
Surely if that was the case, then Mr Hussain would have been given a nominal sentence at most, not over half the maximum possible tariff for an assault of that severity.
Does he have an active appeal against the sentence? If not, then the law clearly needs to be changed in such a way that judges actually do interpret it that way.
@6, the law recognises that phoning your brother up, getting him to come over, and *then* administering a punishment beating != “losing control in the heat of the moment”
“phoning your brother up *after you’ve subdued the assailant*”, that is. Had Hussain called his brother for help subduing the scrote and they’d brain-damaged him whilst either restraining or chasing him away, that would’ve been fine.
Of course, he probably intended to do this all along, and probably did know what the law said – it’s not really an embarrassing climbdown at all.
The fact is that the result of this for potential right wing voters is:
1) They now believe (if they didn’t already) that the current law allows burglars to sue them for minor injuries caused by householders defending themselves (the fact it doesn’t was only pointed out in the Guardian).
2) They believe Chris Grayling has promised to fix this (his climbdown has not been widely reported) and Labour will continue to give the criminal “so-called human rights”…
Perfect.
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