Even Gordon Brown 'gets it'

[CARLHAYDEN]

In the United Kingdom, where a man's house is a burglar's playground, even the loonies in labour are sort of listening to the outraged public.

Partial article from The Telegraph:

Sunday 24 January 2010 |

By Patrick Hennessy and Robert Mendick
Published: 9:00PM GMT 23 Jan 2010

The Prime Minister spoke out following the release from prison last week of Munir Hussain, the businessman who was originally sentenced to 30 months for attacking a burglar who tied up his family at knifepoint.

Mr Brown made it clear he backed the decision by the Lord Chief Justice to reduce Hussain's sentence to a suspended term and added: "The law should lean as far as possible on the side of the householder."
 
The Prime Minister's first intervention in the wake of the case, made exclusively to The Sunday Telegraph, will send a strong signal to courts that they must do much more to protect the interests of "law-abiding citizens" who take on intruders.

His comments came as it emerged that one of the criminal gang who held Hussain and his family hostage – who originally escaped jail because he was deemed unfit to plead – could face a new trial.

Prosecutors have ordered a fresh psychiatric report to determine if Walid Salem remains too brain damaged to stand trial for a string of offences including the false imprisonment of Hussain, his wife and their children at their home in High Wycombe, Bucks.

The Sunday Telegraph has launched its Right to Defend Yourself campaign, which aims to change the law on self defence in favour of householders.

Currently they can face prosecution and conviction if they use anything other than "reasonable force".

Campaigners, including many politicians and criminal justice experts, want prosecution to be impossible for anything other than the use of "grossly disproportionate" force.

The Conservatives have pledged to review the law if they win power, with "grossly disproportionate" force one of the benchmarks they are considering.

Mr Brown said that even under the current law – which was last reviewed in 2008, when only minor changes made – more needed to be done to protect householders.

He said: "I strongly support the right of law-abiding people to defend themselves, their families and their properties – and to do so with reasonable force.

"As a country, all our instincts and sympathies rightly lie with law-abiding citizens. Society sides with the victims of crime, so too should the system.