Re: Self defense injustice in the UK

On 2025-05-30 7:01 AM, BTR1701 wrote:

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

2025-05-29 1:43 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>

Woman accepts ride home from man she recently began dating. However,
he's drunk, drives in the opposite direction, stops the vehicle, and
begins sexually assaulting her. She pulls out a knife she carries for
self defense and kills him with one thrust.

>

She turns herself into police.

>

This is the UK. Do I even have to tell you what happens to her next?

>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TYoStIDRJE

>

That was truly obscene. Both sets of lawyers agreed that it was
unquestionably self-defence yet she got 17 years in the slammer.

>

I don't even think this is recent law. She committed a crime by using
the knife she had brought with her anticipating she might need to defend
herself. She'd been sexually assaulted previously.

>
I found it. It's not new law.
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_keep_and_bear_arms#United_Kingdom
>
Since 1953, it has been a criminal offence in the United Kingdom
to carry a knife (except for non-locking folding knives with a
cutting edge of 3 inches (7.62 centimetres) or less) or any
"offensive weapon" in a public place without lawful authority
(e.g. police or security forces) or reasonable excuse (e.g.,
tools that are needed for work, or bows and arrows used for
sporting purposes). The cutting edge of a knife is separate from
the blade length. The only manner in which an individual may
carry arms is on private property or any property to which the
public does not have a lawful right of access (e.g., a person's
own home, private land, the area in a shop where the public have
no access, etc.), as the law only creates the offence when it
occurs in public.[41][42] Furthermore, Criminal Justice Act 1988
Section 141 specifically lists all offensive weapons that cannot
technically be owned, even on private property, by way of making
it illegal to sell, trade, hire, etc. an offensive weapon to
another person.
>
Furthermore, the law does not allow an offensive weapon or an
ordinary item intended to be used or adapted for use as an
offensive weapon to be carried in public before the threat of
violence arises. This would only be acceptable in the eyes of
the law if the person armed themselves immediately preceding or
during an attack (in a public place). This is known as a "weapon
of opportunity" or "instantaneous arming".

 Since she was in the guy's car, she should have just told the police the
knife was in the center console or somewhere else in the car and she
grabbed it when he initiated the attack. He's certainly in no position to
contradict her. Let them convict his dead body for bringing the weapon in
his car.
 I also note from the news coverage that she was sentenced to life in prison
for this 'crime', which in Britain apparently equates to 17 years for an
18-year-old. Is the life expectancy for the average British woman only 35
years or am I missing something? I'm not arguing she should have gotten
more time--quite the opposite-- but if you sentence someone to life in
prison for what you consider to be a heinous crime, why does that sentence
let them out in their mid-30s?

It's not much different in Canada.
Here, the longest sentence you can get is also called "life" but it's actually 25 years before you're eligible for parole. This sentence is reserved for 1st degree murder and High Treason. By the way, if you kill multiple people, it's still just 25 years before you can apply for your parole because sentences are always served concurrently. (The last time the Conservatives were in power, they changed the law so that judges could make the sentences consecutive with the offender only eligible for parole after the last of the sentences is complete. After that change to the law, a guy who killed three cops and injured two, Justin Bourque, got a sentence of 75 years consecutive before he was eligible for parole. A few years later, Alexandre Bissonette killed 6 people in a mosque (and injured 5 more) and was sentenced to six consecutive 25 year sentences under the same law. But Bissonette appealed and the appeal went all the way to the Supreme Court which ruled unanimously that consecutive sentences without the possibility of parole until they were all over was cruel and unusual punishment. Justin Bourque's sentence was left at 75 years in jail BUT he became eligible for parole at 25 years, not 75. Alexandre Bissonette, after his successful appeal, was ultimately sentenced to ? years in jail (the Wikipedia article doesn't say) but he will be eligible for parole at 25 years.
So "life" isn't really life in this country at all. Europe is much the same. Anders Breivik, the guy who killed 77 people at a gathering of young socialists and another 8 in downtown Oslo, was sentenced to the maximum sentence possible in Norway, 21 years. He'll still be plenty young enough to be trouble when he's released, as will Bissonette and Bourque in this country. Breivik is already eligible for parole (at just 10 years) but apparently hasn't applied, preferring to be seen as some kind of political prisoner/martyr.
But it wouldn't be fair to ignore what the Brits called a "whole life order" which allows them to put someone in prison until they die, regardless of how long that is. They *can* apply that sentence and have done so in a handful of notorious cases. They did it relatively recently with nurse Lucy Letby, convicted of killing several babies in a neo-natal ward of a hospital. We have something similar, which is a "Dangerous Offender Designation". It has been used against some serial killers. But it's hard to satisfy all the criteria so that it can be applied and it isn't used much.
Then there are countries with really bizarre legal systems. I read about one case in Wikipedia where a woman in Thailand was sentenced to over 140,000 years after defrauding many people in a pyramid scheme. However, another law limited the prison term to 20 years maximum for fraud. She actually served only 8 years before getting parole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamoy_Thipyaso
--
Rhino