Jail for brothers who beat burglar

This story is all over the place, but I think the Guardian does a fair job of reporting it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/14/jail-brothers-burglar-cricket-bat

This is the story of how a family was put through a terrifying ordeal; tied up, threatened, burgled and abused. The story takes a turn when the teenage son managed to escape and alert his father's brother. What followed was that the burglars fled, one was caught and he was beaten up, badly, by the two brothers. The result was that a man whose house was broken into, whose family was terrorised and who, by good luck, managed to escape and wreak retribution, now faces a 30-month jail sentence.

According to Asian Image:

Munir Hussain feels he let down his wife Shaheen Begum and sons Awais, 21, Samad, 15, and 18-year-old daughter Arooj, by failing to defend them against Salem and his gang. His wife had suffered a stroke prior to the incident, and had since had a mini stroke.

I think the above puts it in context a bit. This was a real family whose house was broken into and who were clearly traumatised.

Now, I am not going to comment on the rights and wrongs of this at any length. Anybody who has read this blog for more than a year (yes there are some) knows what my reaction is likely to be.

What astonishes me is the Judge's barefaced cheek. Yes cheek, and stupidity. He rather grandly said,

"However, if persons were permitted to … inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting justice take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are the hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse."

This is utter bollocks. Had this been the USA, we know that the householder would never have been convicted.  And quite right too. The USA may be many things, but at least the law is on the side of the innocent.

3 comments:

Jim Baxter said...

I dunno. The law in the US is very sympathetic to homeowners who inflict violence, including fatal violence, on intruders in defence of their homes and property - rightly so. I wish our law was too. But retribution is different. The judge is right here.

Wrinkled Weasel said...

Retribution - very normal in the Muslim world. Also, it is not difficult to imagine how hyper the victims were after seeing those they love threatened and abused in their own home.

I am not sure I would have reacted differently.

The law has failed Munir Hussein, the perp got off, and he is a very serious and violent criminal. We elect Judges to mete justice. There have been so many obvious perversions of this justice that I don't blame people for taking the law into their own hands. You have to have faith in the system, or the system doesn't work.

I don't feel sorry for a scumbag who should have been in jail, not going around breaking into peoples' homes.

Jim Baxter said...

I don't feel sorry for a scumbag who should have been in jail, not going around breaking into peoples' homes.

No WW, nor do I. And I was always on Tony Martin's side. But once they leave your property that's it. It has to be up to the law then, or, well, what the judge said.

Glad you like the new Jimi Hendrix, Julian Bream, Eric Clapton, any and every virtuoso he wants to be. Kind of thing that has you walking on air. Never easy at my age and weight.