Opinion On The Burglary In London

[coldstream-1971]

Hi there does anybody have sympathy with the guy that was killed whilst breaking into the pensioners house in Hither-Green?

[mccfluff]

personally, i don't have any sympathy but I can understand that his family/friends are grieving and upset. The way they are expressing their grief is wrong imo.

[campbellking]

Don't have sympathy for him, but do feel sorry for his children. You can't choose your parents, and they loved him.

[webbo3]

no.

[paul1763]

NO there's one less piece of scum on the street, a lot less burglaries will be commited with him gone also i'm pretty sure if the pensioner politely asked him to leave he would have been beaten to a pulp so no sympathy whatsoever, in fact i think the pensioner should be given a medal.

[bobc1941]

NO Now the scum are going to inflame the situation by
arranging for a horse drawn drive past pensioner's house.

[waterboatman]

He got what he deserved.

[Jaidyn]

Errrrrrrrrrrr? ..........No

[playersdigger]

Of course I do and was shocked from the start when the police arrested HIM. Then the charade of the "tribute" to the person who broke into the house. We don't have enough rights to defend ourselves in this country.

[Old_Geezer]

Did you read the question ? The killed guy wasn't arrested.

[vetuste_ennemi]

There's a parliamentary speech in the under-rated film "Lady Caroline Lamb" - put in the mouth of Lamb (later Lord Melbourne) by the marvellous Robert Bolt. Lamb is arguing against excessive punishments (e.g. deportation) for trivial crimes.

Lamb (played by the beautiful Jon Finch) argues that local juries will have some sympathy for the crime, and much distaste for its likely punishment, thus making them reluctant to convict.

The analogy is not perfect if we accept the facts as described in Peter's link, but you can understand why juries may return perverse verdicts.

[Jackdaw33]

When it was a capital crime to steal anything of the value of five shillings or more, juries would often estimate the value to be 4/11 to avoid the death penalty.

[vetuste_ennemi]

So English Common Law and the jury system worked "well" - like sometimes halfway justly - even in the days of rotten boroughs.

I wonder how well they will continue to operate as our interesting cultural evolution unfolds.

[Jackdaw33]

Although a judge can direct a jury to return of Not Guilty, he cannot direct them to return a verdict of Guilty.

[-SharonA-]

No!! He was a violent robbing thug!

[vetuste_ennemi]

Your interesting observation, Jackdaw, was that juries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had a broadly shared view on the appropriate sanctions for crime.

I am curious about twenty-first century juries.

[Jackdaw33]

..and a π key to boot.

[Theland]

If the courts handed out proper punishments, maybe the burglar would have been dissuaded from his life of crime, and still be alive today.

[Old_Geezer]

Unlikely. Folk think they'll never get caught; especially if they've got away with it a few times.