I watch too many movies. One form I quite like is the thriller. Here is a fairly common scene in a thriller. Bad guy has woman and daughter tied up in their house, whilst pursuing the next phase of his nefarious plan. Woman gets free; bashes bad guy on head with blunt statue conveniently on mantelpiece next to him; then whilst he is stunned, she frees her daughter and starts to flee. But before they have made good their escape, the bad guy has recovered and pursues them with murderous intent.
Now, I don't know about you, but when I see this sort of oft-repeated movie scene, I want to yell at the screen to condemn the woman for a fool. Because once she has committed to the path of violence in defence against a violent assailant, if she has the advantage she must take him out of the game. If she bashes him on the head and knocks him out, then she ought to bash him again, and then bash his legs 'til they are broken and he cannot chase her, and bash his arms 'til he represents no physical threat at all. Once violence has been resorted to, its exercise must be decisive - otherwise the woman invites her own death. The fact that he is down, momentarily, does not make her breaking of his legs any less self defence.
Now I do not know any more of the details of the case of Munir Hussein and Walid Salem than I read in the press. And I am always suspicious of those that declare, without having sat through the trial, that OJ Simpson (say) was "obviously" guilty. Furthermore, from what I knew of the case I was sympathetic to the conviction of Norfolk Farmer Tony Martin for the murder of a burglar whom he shot in the back - it isn't that I favour a return to the pre-1967 situation in the UK in which, putting matters crudely, if a burglar died at the hands of a householder, that was the burglar's problem.
But I do think there is an issue of principle worth commenting upon. Let's assume, for the purposes of our discussion, that the Times represents matters accurately - acknowledging the caveat above with the implication that I am discussing the Mr Hussein of the Times' story, and perhaps not the Mr Hussein of real life. The Times summarizes the case as follows:
"Three masked men break into your home. They tie up your family and threaten to kill you and your children. They force you to crawl from room to room, as they rob you and ransack your house. You escape and find yourself in possession of a cricket bat. What would you do?
Munir Hussain, a businessman from High Wycombe, chased the burglars down the street with his brother, Tokeer. They caught the intruders and beat them. One, Walid Salem, was hit by a cricket bat with such ferocity that it broke in three pieces, and he was left with brain damage.
Justice was meted out. Then the law intervened. Hussain and his brother were sentenced to 30 and 39 months respectively for grievous bodily harm with intent. Salem escaped jail with a two-year supervision order. Salem, a career criminal, left hospital after two weeks, and was subsequently arrested for an alleged credit card fraud.
The law decided that it is one thing to strike when you are being struck; it is quite another to chase your attacker down the street and beat him senseless."
Now, it's this last point that I'm not convinced about - at least not given the context of the rest of the case. Mr Hussein had faced armed criminals who had used deadly weapons - knives. He decided to employ force to oppose them. Having done that, he had to defeat them utterly. Otherwise the lives of his family were at serious risk. They would be at immediate risk if the burglars were not driven out - there must have been a good chance they would all die, so as to leave no witnesses, if Mr Hussein and his brother had been defeated in combat with the burglars. And if they escaped and were not immediately arrested by the police, one could anticipate them returning to murder Mr Hussein's family at a later date.
I say again: having resorted to the use of the cricket bat, Mr Hussein had to defeat his opponents utterly, or else the lives of his family were under deadly threat. Now, that might have consisted of capturing the burglars and having them arrested by the police, convicted by a court and imprisoned for many years. But the burglar fled - could Mr Hussein have just let him go? I think not. For conviction rates for burglary are poor. The chances that the burglar would remain at liberty to terrorise Mr Hussein and his family in revenge for his fight-back must have been high. The chase and capture must thus be regarded as an integral part of the act of violent self-defence.
Insofar as there is a question - and about this I know nothing and the press reports I have read do not tell us - it must concern the degree of violence enacted upon Mr Salem after he was defeated by Mr Hussein and his brother. The logic of the argument above is that they would be justified only in being sufficiently violent to capture Mr Salem and render him incapable of fighting back. If, for example, they struck him sufficiently many times after he was already unconscious, or if they struck him repeatedly after he had already cast down his knife and held up his hands in surrender, then we might regard their violence against him as vengeful rather than defensive. And vengeance is for vigilantes, not self-defenders.
So perhaps Mr Hussein should have been convicted - I don't pretend to know. But if so, the reasons must have been subtle. For self-defence must be permitted to go beyond acts that address threats that are in progress, and also encompass decisive violence to defeat, utterly, an opponent who is momentarily at a disadvantage but has to be taken out of the game.
