The jury is the last bastion of common sense and pragmatism in our damaged justice system. This case should never have come to trial. Sure, the police were right to investigate the circumstances, but once investigated, it should have been nothing to see here and let the accused go. After all, he was the victim here, not the scrote who was trying to steal his car.
When Carl Sinclair saw a drug addict try to steal his car as his wife and three children slept in his Doncaster home, he grabbed a lump hammer, rushed outside in his boxers and punched the burglar to the floor.
Police soon arrived but instead of praising his heroics they arrested him for assault.
I know why they pursued it (quite apart from it being an easy collar – for the cynics at the back – Ed). It was because he took the time to arm himself. But any rational eye perusing the circumstances would consider that he had no way of knowing whether the thief was similarly armed, so needed to consider his own safety. If the police were any good at doing what we pay them for, maybe he wouldn’t have felt the necessity.
When my motorcycle was stolen last May, they didn’t even bother to conduct an investigation. A colleague told me that an acquaintance of his tried to stop thieves stealing his motorcycle in the same area a some while back and was murdered for his efforts, so maybe I got off lucky, merely finding an empty space the following morning. So, yes, grabbing a weapon made absolute sense.
The CPS should have come to the conclusion that prosecution was not in the public interest. But they went ahead anyway. Then we get to the jury who, naturally, placed themselves in Sinclair’s shoes and asked themselves “what would I do?” If I had been on that jury, I would have acquitted him as well, because I know I would have done exactly the same and so would you, like as not.
No wonder the state doesn’t much like jury trials. Long may they remain.
It is a sad irony that the attitude of Police to regular plebs either arming themselves or beating up burglars is to charge them, whilst at the same time patronisingly advising that they should either not defend themselvees or just put a gentle hand on the thieves and use a “citizens arrest”.
These same Police, of course, being the same ones who now routinely dress thier staff up in all sorts of paramamilitary garb, replete with stab vests, batons, pepper spray and (increasingly) tasers for those moments when it is *they* who have to make that gentle “citizens arrest”
And who are too afraid of the pikeys to even set foot on their campsites……………..
The state is not your friend and, as agents of the state, the police are also not your friends. In truth, the police are just an organisation of self-serving scumbags who feel not the slightest compunction to serve those who pay their salaries. The law should adopt the principle that, if someone attacks you, your family or your property, you are entitled to assume that your lives are threatened and any action you take to defend yourself is reasonable, up to and including killing the worthless scrote.
I used to teach self-defence (real stuff, not the pretend SD taught by many MA schools) and my advice to students was always the same. If you are going to take on a burglar/thief/whatever in your own home or on your own property then you should always try to kill them. The logic being that then you have nobody to argue against your side of the story and therefore you stand a better chance of getting away with it….the irony is that most people are charged because of what they say rather than what they do. The standard line for after a SD situation is that you held the honest belief that you were in danger of being attacked/killed. Once that is on record as long as you don’t trip yourself up in later interviews you should be ok. The advice can be summed up with the phrase, “Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
Best advice to anyone talking to the police is to only ever use two words: “no comment.” The police are never, ever trying to establish innocence, only guilt, let them prove it without your help.
DocBud & Tony Halford
+1
I concluded way back in 1982 – when I began lawfully riding MCs on public highways – that the police were not interested in upholding law for all, but had an agenda and used their power to legitamise personal dislikes & jealousy.
I had an ex-brother-in-law (dead now, thankfully) who joined the police force when he left school (mid ’60s), and he loved it.
He was a sadistic, racist bully, and being in the police allowed him to indulge all his traits to his heart’s content.
They are indeed ‘agents of the state’, and I remain extremely wary of them.
But that chap Sinclair lost his job. That’s not fair. I hope he sues.