Farmer accidently shoots burglars....

[royce22]

Any news on the fox?

 

[robin wood]

Any news on the fox?

Back to BR. I don't think we ever got an answer to the question of whether in the original case you felt the alleged burglars were innocent or not. By the standards you applied to the farmer (not charged=not guilty) then they clearly were.

I suspect there is an element of double standards going on and that some view anyone entering onto another landowners property as foregoing many of their legal rights. This is an unusually English attitude and one I think is not good. Thankfully it is not the case in law.

I speak as someone deeply embedded in the farming community myself.

 

[No Idea]

If I am wandering around on someone elses property, regardless of whether its his farm, his factory, his warehouse or inside his house, I would expect to be treated with suspicion and challenged as to what I am doing there, at a minimum, if my motives were not abundantly clear. If the landowner was not satisfied with my reason for being there, I would expect to be asked to leave, and then helped if I did not comply. Immediately.

If I were to be there to steal, damage or for some other unsavoury reason, I would expect to suffer the consequences, especially if I were to be caught red handed.

Btw, im not a landowner, or someone who deliberately tresspasses on other peoples land, and Im definitely not interested damaging or taking their stuff.

I believe in doing unto others as I would have them do unto me.

 

[No Idea]

British law has always forbidden trespass on to other peoples land.

So far as I am aware, the only exceptions are;

Where public has been granted access, such as on a public footpath, and then you do not actually have the right to stop - and this includes simply standing still on that land.
Where the landowner has granted permission to you to enter that land.
Where a bill of parliament has given you a right to enter that land - Ie to the Police to save lives, Firemen, Gas, Excise officers, etc..
I believe you may also tresspass if you need to paint your adjoining property, or to save life.
As far as I am aware, thats about it. Please correct me if I am wrong in this.

Tresspass is by custom a civil crime that is dealt with in the civil courts. This includes tresspass against the person - or common assault and battery. Assault in law is to threaten someone, and battery is to actually hit them.

Parliament has passed laws to the effect that many of the possible scenarios for tresspass became criminal acts. These include burglary, robbery( this covers any burglary where the perpetrator arrives with tools for the job), criminal damage, etc...

The laws regulating how a landowner treats er... visitors comes from various incidents where landowners started setting man traps - usually where kids and peasants would need to walk across their land to get to school/ work and cripple or kill them.
These regs to protect tresspassers were increased usually as a result of public outcry over landowners allowing children to be maimed and killed on their land.

2 of the main cases that expanded this were;
where a welsh mine was aware that the local kids were catching hold of the chains that pulled slag buckets up to the top of a mountain and riding them. One of the kids panicked, didnt let go and lost his hands as the chain went round the wheel at the top. The courts decided the mine owners had a duty of care to stop the kids doing it as they knew they were.

Where British Rail failed to maintain a fence between their main line and an infants school. BR staff knew the kids were playing chicken with the trains but ignored it. They tried to rely on the fact that there was a small sign on the broken fence forbidding tresspass on the line. None of the kids were old enough to read it.

These laws were extended to homes when home owners who were sick of the police failure to protect them started connecting their door handles to the mains electric to make sure criminals stopped burgling them. The problem here wasnt so much the criminals getting fried, but the possibility of any persons with the right to break in - such as the fire service, etc, might get killed.

None of these things have ended the landowners right to eject tresspassers - or to use reasonable force, or to sue them in the civil courts.

 

[robin wood]

If I am wandering around on someone elses property, regardless of whether its his farm, his factory, his warehouse or inside his house, I would expect to be treated with suspicion and challenged as to what I am doing there, at a minimum, if my motives were not abundantly clear. If the landowner was not satisfied with my reason for being there, I would expect to be asked to leave, and then helped if I did not comply. Immediately.

This is exactly what I would expect and so long as the "help" only involved minimum necessary force then it would be entirely legal. It is interesting that I only expect to be treated with suspicion in England. When I have wild camped or wandered on others land whilst traveling and hitchhiking in the US, Sweden, France, Switzerland etc I have more often than not been greeted with interest rather than suspicion which after a quick explanation generally turns into warmth and friendliness. As the noted countryside historian Oliver Rackham points out it is a peculiarity of England that land ownership seems to convey the right to be rude and aggressive toward well meaning and harmless trespassers.

If I were to be there to steal, damage or for some other unsavoury reason, I would expect to suffer the consequences, especially if I were to be caught red handed.

And what would you expect those consequences to be a dealt out by whom?

 

[No Idea]

In England you have a law given and quite possibly a church given right not to be tresspassed against.

This includes tresspass against your person, your chattels and your land.

A tresspasser is a lawbreaker.

I struggle with the term

"Well meaning and harmless tresspassers"

They are still lawbreakers. Maybe the landowner would decide to allow them to tresspass against him, but it is simply his choice. He is not under any obligation to be nice.

 

[No Idea]

I have been warned by farmers openly carrying shotguns while walking on public footpaths not to stray.

Is this not normal throughout Great Britain?

 

[robin wood]

British law has always forbidden trespass on to other peoples land.
None of these things have ended the landowners right to eject tresspassers - or to use reasonable force, or to sue them in the civil courts.

I know the English law on trespass not sure if it is the same in Scotland etc. How long is "always"? It is not so long ago that a very large proportion of land was common, open field systems etc.

What folk particularly landowners do not realise is that when prosecuting for trespass they can only pursue for damages caused. If there is no damage there is nothing to answer. If I am on their land and they would rather I wasn't they can ask me to leave and if I do so again there is nothing to answer. This all sounds eminently reasonable to me and in much of the rest of the world is undertaken with friendliness just as we would treat strangers we met anywhere else. English landowners find it very annoying and think their rights should go further and that simply being on their land you are committing heinous crime.

 

[British Red]

I'm going to bow out of this one. I think that it is clear that some people expect crime victims to sit back and be passive victims. This attitude is I think a contributing factor in destructive and avaricious people believeing they can, and should, get away with their selfish acts.

It truly saddens me that there is a presumption here that a victim is a Vigilante or a Judge and Jury - a conclusion leaped to instantly when a question is asked about what should a landowner do if witnessing a crime.

What would I do Robin? I'd confront. As you like a quote, I think Burke has it right.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing

I am tired of people being more worried about the perpetrators of crime than the victims and jumping to the conclusion that any victim who does anything but sit passively there and allow themselves to be burned out and burgled is worse than the criminal. That is a truly warped perspective in my view.

 

[locum76]

Generally speaking - shooting folk, for whatever reason, seems a bit silly.

 

[Opal]

I'm going to bow out of this one. I think that it is clear that some people expect crime victims to sit back and be passive victims. This attitude is I think a contributing factor in destructive and avaricious people believeing they can, and should, get away with their selfish acts.

It truly saddens me that there is a presumption here that a victim is a Vigilante or a Judge and Jury - a conclusion leaped to instantly when a question is asked about what should a landowner do if witnessing a crime.

What would I do Robin? I'd confront. As you like a quote, I think Burke has it right.

I am tired of people being more worried about the perpetrators of crime than the victims and jumping to the conclusion that any victim who does anything but sit passively there and allow themselves to be burned out and burgled is worse than the criminal. That is a truly warped perspective in my view.

Last sentences,my sentiments too, BR.

 

[robin wood]

I'm going to bow out of this one. I think that it is clear that some people expect crime victims to sit back and be passive victims. This attitude is I think a contributing factor in destructive and avaricious people believeing they can, and should, get away with their selfish acts.

It truly saddens me that there is a presumption here that a victim is a Vigilante or a Judge and Jury - a conclusion leaped to instantly when a question is asked about what should a landowner do if witnessing a crime.

What would I do Robin? I'd confront. As you like a quote, I think Burke has it right.

I am tired of people being more worried about the perpetrators of crime than the victims and jumping to the conclusion that any victim who does anything but sit passively there and allow themselves to be burned out and burgled is worse than the criminal. That is a truly warped perspective in my view.

I think you are misrepresenting me here. I have repeatedly said that the correct response is to actively use all legal means to bring perpetrators of crimes to justice, that is not being a passive victim it is using the full force of the legal system of the longest standing democracy in the world.
You have not answered whether you are proposing going beyond legal means, which some comments seem to imply, whether you feel the current permitted legal means have the wrong balance between victim rights and civil liberties. I am quite happy to engage in discussion about whether the current legal position is right or wrong but lets start by knowing whether you are suggesting it is inadequate.

I like your Burke quote which is why I engage in debate when I feel that there is a danger of folk encouraging others to go beyond a reasonable and legal response.

 

[No Idea]

...What folk particularly landowners do not realise is that when prosecuting for trespass they can only pursue for damages caused. If there is no damage there is nothing to answer. If I am on their land and they would rather I wasn't they can ask me to leave and if I do so again there is nothing to answer. This all sounds eminently reasonable to me and in much of the rest of the world is undertaken with friendliness just as we would treat strangers we met anywhere else. English landowners find it very annoying and think their rights should go further and that simply being on their land you are committing heinous crime.

Er....

Perhaps we are starting from vastly differing viewpoints.

Deer have this habit of wandering across farmland.
Certain individuals will tresspass onto the land to find their routes.
They then return in the middle of the night in Subarus and Landrovers with huge lights and long dogs, drive through your gates and fences, chew up your crops, scare the life out of your dairy cattle and stampede herds out onto roads.

They will hack apart deer wherever they find them and leave the bits they dont want. They will also do the same with sheep...

I know of three local cases in the last couple of years where groups of vehicles doing this were found to have been driven the 150 miles down from London for this "Sport". Of course, the police were still unable to get convictions.

The farmers are also up against the thieves. If they see firewood you have in stacks, they just return and take it. Diesel fuel, farm workshops, even your home... all targets.

They know the police wont help farmers. The police are too far away. They know the farmers have shotguns and come prepared.

Farmers are dealing with some seriously dangerous people on a day to day basis, and any confrontation really is potentially life threatening.

Im not talking about your 50 to 70 year old gentleman in his tweed jacket and deerstalker hat, chrome rimmed glasses with his binos hung round his neck and maybe an overnight pack on his back, oh, and nicely dubbined walking boots, or the coach loads of little old ladies with the zimmer frames....They just get lost and leave all the gates open.

 

[locum76]

Farmers are dealing with some seriously dangerous people on a day to day basis, and any confrontation really is potentially life threatening.

That's a bit melodramatic, have you ever been to Muirhouse, Hackney or Mosside?

Farmers should not be allowed to point guns at people to protect themselves and tresspassers - end of.

 

[v-ness]

In Scotland we have the right to roam. However this comes with a list of do's and donts. All pretty reasonable like dont damage anything, keep dogs onleads etc.
It seems to work pretty well for the most part, there is always some folk that are up to no good which is a shame because they can easy ruin for everyone else.

I think the intruiging thing here is that the last farmer to shoot a burglar got a prison sentence. I know no 2 cases are the same, but its interesting nevertheless.

Cheers
Ness

 

[Toddy]

and no, treating visitors with suspicion and armed response is not the common behaviour of the British Isles.
It's not even the common behaviour of the country dweller, despite attempts to portray a them and us scenario.

Most crime and assault is urban.
Most crime and assault is perpetrated by someone known to the person or household so assaulted.

In the grand scheme of things we're a rather law abiding nation really. Media hype and screaming banner headlines apart, that is

M

 

[No Idea]

I dont think the law is inadequate. Far from it.

I do think that the farmers have no access to it.

Unless they can catch thse people, or convince the police to do so they cant get them to court.

There is an area that is 30 miles across, and 15 miles North to South and roughly diamond shaped where there are two patrol cars out between 1.30 am and 6am each day. Should the police have a male and a female to transport from one side to the other, then there are no cars in that area to answer any calls inc 999s during that period. The area covers half a dozen villages and a lot of farmland.

 

[British Red]

I don't want to continue with this as I fear it will descend into a slanging match, however I need to address the points raised.

Actually Robin, I don't recall you saying

actively use all legal means to bring perpetrators of crimes to justice

.

I do recall you saying

English landowners find it very annoying and think their rights should go further and that simply being on their land you are committing heinous crime.

Now I think that shows prejudice. I don't believe that you have asked every English landowner what they think and yet you believe they all think alike. You lump them into a single group and portray their attitudes as distasteful.

So lets address the rest

You have not answered whether you are proposing going beyond legal means

No-one should be a "judge, jury and executioner", or a Vigilante

Asked and answered

You have not answered whether you are proposing going beyond legal means, which some comments seem to imply

No, I not only implied nothing of the kind but was at pains to point out that people should not do this (see quote above).

I asked what a landowner should do, there was a "jumped to" conclusion that that any landowner in that situation would be a "judge and jury". Why did you think that Robin?

Is it because you think that

English landowners find it very annoying and think their rights should go further and that simply being on their land you are committing heinous crime.

If so might I suggest that you read back over this thread and calmly assess who has been guilty of making snap judgements and showing prejudice against a group of people?

As to what I believe the law should be? I believe that any person should be allowed and encouraged to prevent a criminal from committing a crime if they are able to do so. I also believe that the burden of evidence should be that any reasonable measures may be taken and that it is up to the criminal to show those measures were unreasonable. The prevailing attitude has been for a while that homeowners or landowners must do nothing - or use "minimal force" as opposed to "reasonable force" - and the fear becomes what does minimal mean. This has become such an issue that both main political parties have issued statements of reassurance on the subject.

A recent proposal was that the wording be changed that people should not use "grossly disproportionate force". That seems sensible to me.

In summary, you will find that your mis-inferences are not my statements or implications.

 

[No Idea]

Melodramatic...

I wish I was.

Ive spent some time in Hackney, but not the other two. Hackney was quite civillised.

Do you have google earth loaded on your machine?

 

[robin wood]

I don't want to continue with this as I fear it will descend into a slanging match.

fair enough it's nice out too.

Now I think that shows prejudice. I don't believe that you have asked every English landowner what they think and yet you believe they all think alike. You lump them into a single group and portray their attitudes as distasteful.

I stand by what I said though the judgment as to whether it was distasteful was yours. I have not talked to every English landowner but I feel my opinion is balanced and based on considerable experience of English landowners and those abroad "What knows he of England who only England knows? - Rudyard Kipling" It is also shared by Oliver Rackham.

If we are interested in prejudice versus judgment based on experience I wonder what brought you to imply that the suspected burglars in the original case were "criminal bottom feeders" post 18?

I asked what a landowner should do, there was a "jumped to" conclusion that that any landowner in that situation would be a "judge and jury". Why did you think that Robin?

This is quoting me out of context and misrepresenting the meaning what I said was.

I think the law is pretty clear on what constitutes unreasonable force in such circumstances and shooting with a shotgun, making a snap decision as judge and jury I would suggest was unreasonable.

The prevailing attitude has been for a while that homeowners or landowners must do nothing.

Not sure where you feel this prevailing attitude is but thankfully it is not the case in law.

A recent proposal was that the wording be changed that people should not use "grossly disproportionate force". That seems sensible to me.

Well I for one am glad that one never made it into law. "Of course officer I only used disproportionate force not grossly disproportionate force."
I think the current law of reasonable force is the right one.