Crime Solicitors

By Rubin Italia

In the last few days there have been a series of damage to property, burglary over a number of major cities in the UK, most notably in London. The Metropolitan Police number approximately 3000 of those only a small number are qualified and trained in tactical support, namely riots.

The police responded to unprecedented attacks across London and were stretched on all fronts. This meant that large parts of the capital were either without police or too few to confront those that were committing offences.

This combination of factors has lead to individuals trying to safeguard themselves and their property as well as in some cases their family. However is this legal? and could people be prosecuted?

The self defence provisions of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 are intended to make clear to the public, prosecutors and the police that those who use reasonable force to protect themselves or others should not be prosecuted.

If they use no more force than absolutely necessary, people should have confidence that the law will support them, so long as:
• they acted instinctively

• they feared for their safety (or that of others) and acted based on their perception of the threat faced and the scale of that threat

• they acted to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained, and

• the level of force used was not excessive or disproportionate in the circumstances as they viewed them


The difficulty in applying a set of principles to a very emotive scene of you or your property being hurt or destroyed is that these principles often have little meaning in the moment. People in these situations become creatures of instinct and are motivated by fear, anger and survival rather than rational thought processes.

The concerns in these situations are that people may go too far, the force may not be proportionate and those trying to defend themselves may unwittingly find themselves being prosecuted. What would you do if you saw your livelihood and family home burned to the ground and caught the perpetrator?

We have seen groups in Enfield take to the streets as well the Kurdish community in Hackney come together. There were also groups of Sikhs gathering at the gudwaras in Southall. However there have also been deaths, it must be stressed not at the hands of any vigilante group trying to defend themselves but the line from a few days of unrest to civil disobedience, where citizens are fighting each other is a smaller one than sometimes we appreciate. We have all seen how one incident, namely the shooting can be used as the fuel for seemingly unrelated attacks.

There are no real easy answers but it is heartening to see people coming together in times of difficulty but that should not overrule the rule of law, as mob rule is a very worrying state of affairs.

By Rubin Italia