Posted on 06/30/2009 6:26:16 AM PDT by naturalman1975
A knife-wielding burglar got a shock when he attacked a pensioner in his home - a couple of right hooks to the face. Gregory McCalium had not realised that 72-year-old victim Frank Corti was a retired boxer.
This police mugshot of 23-year-old McCalium, taken soon after he was arrested at Mr Corti's home, shows the facial injuries the OAP inflicted as he made a citizen's arrest.
Today, McCalium is beginning a four-and-a-half year prison sentence after a judge told him he 'got what he deserved.'
A court heard how Mr Corti - who served with the Royal Engineers in North Africa from 1956-58 - was at home with his wife Margaret at the time of the incident.
McCalium, a neighbour, smashed his way into the couple's home and lunged at Mr Corti with a blade.
The pensioner dodged the knife and punched the intruder twice in the face, leaving him with a black eye and swollen lip.
After the sentencing, Mr Corti said: 'We are very pleased (with the sentence) because our life was severely disrupted by the incident and we are pleased he won't be troubling us for a few years. He then restrained McCalium until police arrived.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Chalk up one for the Seniors!!!!!! Go, Grandpa go!!!!!!!/Just Asking - seoul62........
Looks more like the face of the Republican party. Our wounds are self-inflicted, of course.
I certainly with Britain’s gun laws and certainly believe law abiding people should be allowed to own firearms, and if necessary use them in their self defence.
I’m just pointing out though that British law does allow a person to use deadly force in their own defence in serious situations - including using a firearm if for some reason you do have one available (firearms are not completely banned in the UK - pretty close but there are certainly still some people who own them).
It’s not the actual laws on self defence that are the major problem.
And, in fact, generally speaking a person can probably claim that they were in fear of their life if somebody has invaded their home. Where people find themselves getting into serious trouble is when they use a high level of force on a person who could no longer be reasonably regarded as a threat because they have been successfully restrained or because they are fleeing the scene - in the famous Tony Martin case, for example, he was found guilty of murder because he shot a man in the back as the man was attempting to flee from his home. If he’d shot the man before he started to flee, it’s unlikely he would have been charged.
That wasn’t my point—He restrained the thug after sentencing???
Probably when the homeowner victim that was assaulted was facing jail timed because he used deadly force with a firearm and killed the intruder in his own home. The judge probably sentenced the homeowner and told him “you got what you deserved.”
LOL - how you gonna explain that to your homies, punk?
That sentence was horribly constructed.
I merely point to something they got right.
The defence of self-defence is one which can be and will be readily understood by any jury. It is a straightforward conception. It involves no abstruse legal thought. Only common sense is needed for its understanding. It is both good law and good sense that a man who is attacked may defend himself. It is both good law and good sense that he may do, but may only do, what is reasonably necessary. But everything will depend upon the particular facts and circumstances. It may in some cases be only sensible and clearly possible to take some simple avoiding action. Some attacks may be serious and dangerous. Others may not be. If there is some relatively minor attack it would not be common sense to permit some action of retaliation which was wholly out of proportion to the necessities of the situation. If an attack is serious so that it puts someone in immediate peril then immediate defensive action may be necessary. If the moment is one of crisis for someone in imminent danger he may have to avert the danger by some instant reaction. If the attack is all over and no sort of peril remains then the employment of force may be by way of revenge or punishment or by way of paying off an old score or may be pure aggression. There may no longer be any link with a necessity of defence. If a jury thought that in a moment of unexpected anguish a person attacked had only done what he honestly and instinctively thought was necessary that would be most potent evidence that only reasonable defensive action had been taken.
That is the legal test applied. Mr Corti's actions were clearly within it.
Yes! That would be the approved use of the phrase.
Yet, I remain surprised!
Check it out. It's a good article, and is accompanied by several ... interesting ... pictures of the perp.
***in England, it’s OK to defend yourself from a burglar, but only if you’re physically superior or trained in self defense.***
Whadda bet that if UK citizens start getting martial arts training to protect themselves their wennie lawmakers will outlaw THAT?
I think 72 year old Mr. Conti did a wonderful job on that extreme makeover of that young idiot. Here is the other picture of that drunken fool.
Right -- for the time being. Expect a law banning fists shortly.
Any beating of a criminal will be upgraded from “assault” to “aggravated assault”.
I had a prosecutor ask me once if I thought a green belt in taekwondo was the equivalent of carrying a weapon. He told me he was after upgrading an assault charge.
I dunno how he will explain it to his “homies”, but knowing young idiots like that, I bet his friends will try to exact revenge on the 72 year old Condi. Sad to say but these idiots never learn.
The problem is that "reasonable" is easily dumbed down. Think of Eric Butler, the 50-something man who used the blade in his ornamental walking stick to stab the guy who was at that time choking him to death. I wonder whether he got a longer prison sentence than his assailants. He probably did.
Attacking a person is just screwing with subjects. Defending yourself insults the state. The latter cannot be allowed. Luckily the subjects of the UK are still in a place where the government couldn't get away with prosecuting this guy. They will be though.
Eric Butler was gaoled not for defending himself but for carrying an illegal weapon. The Judge in fact said he had quite clearly acted within the law in defending himself, but that was separate from the issue of whether or not the weapon was legal. He was not imprisoned - he received a 28 day suspended sentence and a fine.
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