The Martin case was not about the right to self-defence, which was never in question. The question before the court was whether the actions of Martin on that day, in particular his shooting in the back of an unarmed man who was running away from Martin’s property, could reasonably be seen as self-defence. The judge in his summing up made it clear that the case was finely balanced. The jury clearly found it so, since they only returned a narrow majority verdict after long deliberation. The Court of Appeal also found it so, when it subsequently overturned that verdict and substituted a guilty verdict on a lesser charge. Whatever the rights and wrongs, this was a complex and unusual case for a variety of reasons, not the crude caricature which subsequent mythologising has made it. And Martin himself, unfortunately, was a rather unconvincing martyr.
Than you for the details about the case.