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What Are Your Rights If Someone Breaks Into Your Home?

What Are Your Rights If Someone Breaks Into Your Home?

Householders are permitted to protect themselves if someone breaks in

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

Hopefully, you'll never find yourself in the situation where you're faced with an intruder in your home, however you might have wondered what you can do legally.

Well, firstly in all cases, you should call the police first. Once help is on the way, in the UK you are permitted to protect yourself using 'reasonable force', which doesn't have a single legal definition, but it should be what you honestly and instinctively believe is reasonable in the circumstances.

PA

LADbible asked Andrew McGill from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which is the body tasked with conducting criminal prosecutions.

He told us: "Anyone can use 'reasonable force' to protect themselves or others from a crime. The law doesn't expect you to make judgement on what that 'reasonable' level of force should be in the heat moment, so long as you only do what you honestly believe is necessary, you would have a strong case for self-defence, even if this results in the death of the intruder.

"This only applies when it comes to protecting yourself or others in the home, not protecting your home or its contents itself."

Jeremy Horder, Professor of Criminal Law at the London School of Economics explained to LADbible more about a self-defence plea.

"A plea of self-defence can be a complete defence to murder," he said.

PA

"Even when the person who acted in self-defence intended to kill. But it is only a defence, in those exact circumstances, if you were confronted with imminent death yourself, or believed that you were, and you had to kill in order to escape that threat. "

So, even if the intruder were to die, it doesn't necessarily mean you would be prosecuted, provided you were using 'reasonable force' or were acting in self-defence.

However, you would find yourself on the wrong side of the law if you were able to incapacitate the intruder but then continued to hurt them using 'excessive and gratuitous force' - as this would no longer be classed as reasonable force.

If you set up a trap for a would-be-burglar rather than call the police, then this could neither be deemed as reasonable force or self-defence, according to askthepolice.

If the intruder makes a break for it and you chase them and decide to perform a citizen's arrest you are still allowed to use reasonable force - although the degree of that force in this situation should be lower. So, a rugby tackle or a single blow would be enough, anything over this and it begins to stray into the grounds of 'punishment', meaning you could be liable for prosecution for assault.

It's also good to know that police will always have a duty to investigate any incident like this - but that, ultimately, it will be down to the CPS and police to objectively look at all the facts before deciding to go ahead with a charge.

Sources: askthepolice; Crown Prosecution Service

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Police, UK News, law, crime, UK