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From: Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: Self defense injustice in the UK
Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 09:56:38 -0400
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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