“BEGGIN’ yer pardon, m’ Lud, I didn’t mean to use excessive force to defend me’self when two men broke into me ‘umble abode and started stabbing me.”
No, that’s not a line from a Monty Python movie, but could well be a plea in mitigation should any of us take the life of an attacker who invades our home in the dead of night.
If he (one hates to be sexist, but they are invariably ‘he’) starts stabbing you, perhaps a judge will be more understanding if you blow his (the attacker’s, not the judge’s) balls off and he dies from loss of blood or manhood.
However, if the ‘poor’ chap is merely using his Swiss army knife to threaten you ‘innocently’, so that you are persuaded to step back while he helps himself to your possessions, then it would be wise to keep your .357 Magnum firmly holstered. Don’t try to be ‘Dirty Harriet’.
Well, that’s if one of the police posse who arrived at the scene after two men broke into the Uvongo home of a well-known teacher last Friday night is right. They stabbed her with pig-sticker-type objects. Luckily, her screams alerted neighbours and the assailants fled with only a cellphone and a tablet (hopefully they choke on the tablet).
Friends and colleagues rushed to the scene and one of them angrily told a policeman that her home had also been broken into often and she threatened that next time she would shoot to kill.
“Then you will also end up in jail,” he said.
Legal advice is that the law is pretty clear. If the prosecutor can prove ‘mens rea’ – legal intent to kill – then you might well be in the dwang (ask Oscar). In the Uvongo case, the poor teacher probably would have been well within her rights to defend herself with deadly force.
But, illogical as it might seem for many, one can’t go blasting away at anyone if there is no obvious threat to one’s life… even if the guy or guys are illegally on your property or even in your home.
Many will argue that rational thought is rather difficult in the heat of the moment, especially in a country where crime stats are quite terrifying. ‘Fight or flight’ will be one’s natural instinct.
Seeing that we have to live behind locked doors and barred windows, ‘flight’ is usually a problem.
So the law should understand ‘fight’ is often one’s only alternative… and the first blow counts.
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