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From: Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: Self defense injustice in the UK
Date: Thu, 29 May 2025 16:55:45 -0400
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On 2025-05-29 12:46 PM, Adam H. Kerman 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.
> 
> With UK's prohibition of being able to act in self defense using a
> weapon, suppose you use your own body to defeat your attacker. In the
> ultimate illogic, did you violate the law as you used what you brought
> with you as a weapon?
> 
Excellent point: you could conceivably kill someone with a martial art 
like a kick where the attacker lands badly and breaks his neck.

>> The
>> contrast with the sentences for the people convicted in the rape gang
>> scandal were extremely disproportionate by comparison.
> 
>> Maybe Reform can preside over a major rewrite of the laws in the UK so
>> that they make sense again. (Reform is substantially ahead of both the
>> Conservatives and Reform in polling on a national basis but the next
>> election is still a few years away so anything could happen between now
>> and then.)
> 
> I have no idea as UK voters do not seem to be inclined to punish their
> politicians for illiberal laws.

I've seen plenty of commentators remark on their frustration with how 
crime is handled in their country and the meagre sentences most people 
get for serious crimes. Meanwhile, people who do mean tweets get longer 
jail terms than serious criminals. Many of these comments are probably 
by people who just repeat the same gossip they hear from others.

However, an essayist I used to read frequently, Theodore Dalrymple (who 
also writes under his real name, Anthony Daniels) was a psychiatrist who 
spent part of his practice (two days a week) in a prison, worked in a 
public hospital the rest of the time, and had often been called upon to 
testify in trials due to his expertise so he spoke from deep personal 
experience and he expressed similar concerns about sentencing. I should 
note that he is a compassionate man and not someone who would happily 
throw everyone who commits the slightest offence in jail.

-- 
Rhino