h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But the boys in question did have a history of harrassing Martin which, while not spefically criminal, tends towards anti-social behaviour and the 'grey fringe' of crime.

B

Surely though the criminal character or otherwise of the guy shot dead in the back whilst fleeing, does not have much bearing on whether or not it is ok to shoot someone in the back?

Agreed. But Martin's prior knowledge that the boy was - erm - undesirable has been repeatedly quoted as a mitigating factor.

B

Personally I don't agree with the death penalty for any crime, certainly not for burglary and certainly not without a judge and jury deciding on the sentence.

This doesn't mean I think burglary is ok, and it doesn't mean I don't think this 16yr old was an angel...it just means I think his life was wrongly cut short and the person who cut his life short took the law into his own hands.

For me though that indicates that he is more guilty of a bad crime. If Martin didn't like the guy anyway, then took an opportunity to gun him down then to my mind that makes it MURDER. I cannot know all the facts, but it seems to me Martin wanted the guy dead, and thats what he did, killed him, no remorse.

Hmm, if Jim Davidson entered my propert illegally, would it be ok for me to defend myself by shooting him 5786 times?

See? I told you it was justifiable.

B

Under those circumstances, three years for getting Davidson, the £100,000 from the mirror.....

Lets hope he burgles me soon!

Is it true that *they* had harrassed Martin before, and that he knew who they were? That's news to me, if true. I thought Martin's defence was that it was dark, he was scared and acted in self-defence.

From what I've heard, they were local boys and he knew of them well.

And vice versa, of course.

B

If i climbed over a fence onto a train line and was then struck by a train and killed,would the train driver be responsible for my death or would I?

Anyone who goes to commit burglary stands the risk of someone being in the house or other building and retaliating against them.I dont think it is fair to say that Tony Martin intended to kill the lad he did. If i possessed a gun and someone broke into my house I would do exactly the same as he did.I would not just wait,let them take what they wanted and run the risk of them hurting me.I too had heard that these two lads had terrorised Martin before and if they deliberately set out to frighten him again by robbing him then they should have known the risk they were running. I am glad that Tony Martin is now out of prison.And i see the police have set up a little station on his farm.If they had have been that bothered before,it wouldnt have come to this.
Would it?

That's different.

A train driver can't stop.

Bear in mind, Tony Martins gun was illegal as he had his license revoked for shooting at his brother in laws house.

Martin is undoubtably paranoid and unbalanced (I said before he didn't strike me as a pleasant person) but given that his house was continuously burgled this is at least partly understandable.

Martin was driven to the extremes of booby-trapping his home and ultimately shooting a fleeing burglar because the law had failed him. There was no way the law was going to stop those people burgling his home or they would have done so already. As a result he shot that teenager because that's all that was left to him. If he'd allowed him to "flee" as you suggested he should have, he would have just returned later, as he had done many times before.

As I think I said earlier, people have picked up on the Martin case not because they think shooting a fleeing burglar is "OK" but because the law regularly fails ordinary people and often seems to "side" with the criminals (take the preposterous situation of one of the burglars sueing Martin for loss of earnings). If the law worked, and the burglars were stopped from re-offending then Martin would probably be a fairly balanced man.

Ultimately, the failure of the law to protect the vulnerable from their victimisers is what is the issue here. It's not something that's going to go away. And, like I've said before, if the liberal left insist on burying their heads in the sand about it, then the reactionary right is all that is left to pick up the baton. And you might not like where they take it.

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2001/2245.html&query=

Finally, some facts. This link is the appeal judgement.
Basically, it says that Martin fired 3 shots. One COULD have been while he was descending the stairs, but the other two were definitely fired on the ground floor.

IF Martin fired whilst on his stairs, then followed to the ground floor, reloaded and fired twice more, this indicates pursuit and the desire for revenge. If he was on the ground floor before firing anything, this contradicts his own testimony.

Bear in mind also that this a bloke who shot people for scrumping apples, which is why his shotgun license was revoked.

Zagreb, Martin's a killer, and having reviewed the appeal I think he planned to kill the next burglar in his house. Whilst I symapthise with the idea of protecting everyday folk from criminals, I think you've found a poor champion in this murdering nutter. Left-wing, right-wing, all be damned; Tony Martin is a cold-blooded killer, and deserves no sympathy from any right-minded person.

"Zagreb, Martin's a killer, and having reviewed the appeal I think he planned to kill the next burglar in his house. Whilst I symapthise with the idea of protecting everyday folk from criminals, I think you've found a poor champion in this murdering nutter. Left-wing, right-wing, all be damned; Tony Martin is a cold-blooded killer, and deserves no sympathy from any right-minded person."

Would you say the same of a the victim of a wife-beater who stabs her abusive husband in his sleep? Yes, it's pre-meditated killing but it's not "out the blue", it's a response to victimisation and desperation. Martin was turned into a murderer (although he was eventually convicted of manslaughter) by constant burglaries that he had no way of stopping. Putting it in simplistic and (ironically) reactionary black/white terms doesn't solve anything.

From what I've heard/read, the manslaughter verdict seems fair on the whole, although whether a prison sentence has helped anything I strongly doubt.

The sueing is plain stupid, and for that reason the burglar will almost certainly get nothing.

Trouble is prison is supposed to rehabilitate you; now what do you think Martin will do if someone else burgles his house and his gun is to hand....

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to defend robbers but it is NOT ok to kill them in my opinion

"Would you say the same of a the victim of a wife-beater who stabs her abusive husband in his sleep? Yes, it's pre-meditated killing but it's not "out the blue", it's a response to victimisation and desperation"

the majority of women who kill abusive husbands serve much longer sentences than tony martin did: josephine smith served 5 years for killing her violent husband because she feared for her and her children's lives; sara thorton, again served 5 years for killing an abusive partner, again in fear for her and her child's lives; and most shocking of all, emma humphreys - a 16 year old girl, who stabbed her partner after being raped repeatedly (gang raped on at least one occasion) and who served 10 years at her majesty's pleasure (because she was sentenced as a juvinille)

there is a clear bias at work here; contrast these with the man who got a 2 -year suspended sentence for killling his 'nagging' wife. thankfully justice was eventually done and all these women's convictions for murder were quashed and they were released. sadly emmay humphrey's died a short time after from anorexia.

i think tony martin makes a poor poster boy for the rights of the home-owner to 'protect' their property (this concept feels a little strange, after all, things can be replaced?); he shot a 16 year old child in the back. he has shown absolutely no remorse for his actions, he killed someone, for goodness sake. and he's profitting from that! i too always thought it was illegal for ex prisoner to profit from their crimes. tony martin's 'personality' is obscuring the issues, which i agree need to be addressed. but tony martin has to take (moral)responsibility for what he has done.

I think part of the reason Tony Martins case became such a cause celebre, was because he was part of the Daily Mail ideal reader group,
SE England, Rural, Land Owner, Male, White, Tory.

I wonder if an Arabic aslym seeker shooting dead and intruder in their home would have attracted as much attention (or public outrage when convicted)?