Burglary victim to go to jail

[Faithless]

Burglary victim had gun

South London Press

THE victim of a vicious armed burglary is facing jail after confessing he kept a gun at his home "for protection".

Steven Chapman, 47, told police from his hospital bed the .32 pistol was put through his letter box with a note reading, "This may help". Chapman, of Tessa Sanderson Place, in Clapham, admitted possessing the weapon and ammunition.

Jason Cross, prosecuting, told Inner London Crown Court how Chapman called police following a gang attack at his home on May 30 last year. "He had been assaulted viciously in a burglary by a number of men carrying weapons including firearms,' said Mr Cross.

Police questioned him in hospital, when they told him they intended to search his home. Mr Cross said on Friday in court: "He told them about the weapon and he appears to have said it was put through his letter box and it was for protection.

"It could also be that it was put through his letter box in order to set him up." Chapman, admitted possessing a .32 self-loading pistol and possession of ammunition.

He is due to be sentenced on February 11.

cited from

 

[Darkmind]

 

[Sindawe]

I suspect that Mr. Chapman should have shot the CRIMINALS who stood at the side of his hospital bed and questioned him.

 

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

This unfortunate fellow needs to be offered political asylum here in the US since he is in effect a political prisoner jailed for exercising the most basic of human rights.

Perhaps we here at THR could adopt this as a cause, in the same way the leftists adopted Lori Berinstein (the MIT student languishing in a Peruvian jail for taking up with communist terrorists) as a cause.

 

[HighVelocity]

Why exactly would the police want to search the victims home in the first place?

 

[Igloodude]

Why exactly would the police want to search the victims home in the first place?

That was my first thought, too. Searching for DNA evidence or fingerprints for the suspects (or similar crime-scene investigation) really should not involve searching a home for contraband...

 

[agricola]

You are right to be asking those questions, I mean I am sure this victim is in no way a drug dealer, the raid on his house was in no way linked to that drug business, and the gun came into his possession only when the gun fairy came around one night and left it in his letterbox and not through any criminal means - I mean, I live nearby that location and the nocturnal visits of the gun fairy are the stuff of legend....

Seriously, some people need to stop clutching madly at straws. Does noone remember the Kevin Lindsay case?

 

[Igloodude]

I actually haven't heard of the Kevin Lindsay case - can you point me to a summary of it?

And it would be nice if the article included such items as "police searched the victim's house after they found in the course of their investigation that he was running a crackhouse and was burglarized by disgruntled customers."

 

[mainmech48]

Looks like Usurping Government Perquisites is looked upon as a more heinous act in the UK than an armed home invasion.

The tip-off that they were dealing with a Serious Offender must've been that he was still able to walk when they're used to interviewing victims of similar crimes in the hospital (or their neighbors because they're in the Morgue). That gave them Probable Cause to search his home, wot?

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Merry Aulde England must've been annexed into the Bizarro World?

 

[agricola]

igloodude,

but that would spoil the story - i mean, the SLP have presented just the mitigation to a guilty plea

also, apologies but I got the name wrong - its Carl Lindsay, and the links below should illustrate what happened to him:

http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/guns/UK/gullible.html
http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/lancashire/archive/2004/03/25/NEWS8ZM.html

 

[Standing Wolf]

Why exactly would the police want to search the victims home in the first place?

Who's going to stop them?

 

[JPL]

"Seriously, some people need to stop clutching madly at straws."

You mean such as the ones your leaping at?

Have you any proof that the man is a drug dealer?

Or is this simply another "Britain is a flawless utopian society based on strict rule of law where all rights are honored, crime doesn't exist, and the Queen is actually pretty cute" type of scenario?

 

[Cosmoline]

Agricola. If the man is a drug dealer, they should charge him with that crime. It's no good to seek justification for a clearly unspeakable, draconian and unjust prosecution because you THINK the defendant MIGHT have done something truly criminal.

 

[beerslurpy]

Hey, I hate to rain on your nitpicking parade agricola, but drug dealers are entitled to self defense as much as barristers, MPs and any other dishonest profession. Your ad hominems against the victim do nothing to negate the fact he is being pursued by the police for posessing a handgun in the privacy of his own home to effect the very reasonable act of self defense.

I dont buy the drug dealer rationaliztion either. Note that although the police are going to fully search his place (for whatever reason), he only mentions a small easily concealable firearm as contraband they would likely find. If he were a drug dealer, wouldnt the police easily discover kilos of cocaine or marijuana, scales plus massive contamination of his living area with narcotics residue?

As for the martin case and the samurai sword case (12 inches? small wakazashi or knife maybe), both of these involved people killing intruders while still in the home. Some apologists have claimed that they were punished because "their force wasnt proportional" or "they hit them in the back." Why should this make a difference? If someone breaks into your home, they take their chances. Do a google search for "castle doctrine." There is no criminal right to a fair fight. Anything that kills them is proportional.

And I dont buy the other apologist line of "self defense is still legal in the UK" because quite frankly the right is so narrowly defined as to be rendered useless. You cant use "disproportionate force" nor can you own or improvise any weapons in your defense. Which limits self defense to large burly men who know how to win a fistfight. Arent these the individuals we are most likely to be defending ourselves against?

Oh yeah, in Florida (and many other states as well), criminals who escape a robbery where one of their accomplices is killed are charged with murder, not the victim. I like how everyone was shocked that the robbers in the stabbing case got 14 years while the stabber got 8.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Okay, so the guy was a burglary victim. So what? He was also a criminal in his own right, violating weapons laws in England. He apparently isn't all that bright, admitting to the Bobbies that he kept a gun.

You gotta love the story. He was in possession of a gun that mysteriously came through his mail slot.

It happens in our own country. Somebody is somehow the victim of a crime, invite the police into the home, and the police have to arrest the victim because they have some form of contraband. Often it is something like drugs, but sometimes weapons as in cases in New York City once in a while.

 

[agricola]

JPL / Beerslurpy,

The assumption that he is a drug dealer is based on the extant facts - the nature of the "burglary", the fact that he kept a gun at home, the fact that the Police (and by the way there is nothing to say that they did not get a warrant to search the premises) wanted to search his home. As for "there was nothing there", then thats hardly surprising when they took it now is it?

Also beerslurpy your bit about self-defence is wrong, as most people will have realised.

Cosmoline,

As said above, probably the evidence that would have shown that disappeared when he got robbed. However you can either believe that he is involved in criminality, or believe in the existance of the gun fairy.

 

[tyme]

Also beerslurpy your bit about self-defence is wrong, as most people will have realised.

Most people don't hang out on THR. Could you please explain why a drug dealer doesn't have a right to defend himself with a gun, since I at least am not smart enough to figure it out on my own?

 

[thorn726]

Most people don't hang out on THR. Could you please explain why a drug dealer doesn't have a right to defend himself with a gun, since I at least am not smart enough to figure it out on my own?

ok= there are laws pertaining to the use of guns in commision of felonies, and then increased penalties for convicted felons commitng crimes with guns.

so in theory , if a person is commiting a felony , and using a gun to protect said actions.....

so it would be an arguement in court.

Robbers break in to mansion to rob valuables, resident shoots intruders.
resident happens to be a drug dealer. MAYBE he gets away with it.

drug dealer is living in a house. robbers break in for purpose of stealing drugs, get shot.
dealer probably gets busted .

MORE importanT- dealer gets busted. cops find guns. guns are BY default being used to protect DRugs.
a lot of CA medicinal people are not too happy about this attitude, but it seems to be the norm.

the argument that compounds the situation is then that by being a drug dealer, person is known throughout the criminal community as a good target ,
so they are inviting crime, encouraging other criminals to be jealous and rob them, etc.
they are the perfect target for criminals.

It would be interesting to see what happened with a person defending their illegal drugs against intruders with a legal firearm.
anyone have any links to such an article???

hmmmmm. it's usually illegal autos and stuff being used by drug dealers that get the attention.

but i guess that brings me right back to my original point, if you are commiting a felony (drug sales/possesion for sales) , you are technically a felon in possesion although you havent been convicted Yet.
an argument for courts that people can't afford to make, and it all becomes part of a plea bargain, person is then a felon, no more weapons in the future

 

[agricola]

tyme,

beerslurpy wrote:

And I dont buy the other apologist line of "self defense is still legal in the UK" because quite frankly the right is so narrowly defined as to be rendered useless. You cant use "disproportionate force" nor can you own or improvise any weapons in your defense. Which limits self defense to large burly men who know how to win a fistfight. Arent these the individuals we are most likely to be defending ourselves against?

As has been repeatedly shown, its questionable whether "disproportionate force" forms part of the law (aside from "i slap you, you shoot me"), and he seems to be under the impression that you cannot own weapons for your own defence, which is wrong. He is also wrong about the Martin case (Martin lied about what happened) and (I presume he is talking about Lindsay) wrong about the samurai sword killing, as the dead man was outside and running away when it happened.

 

[2nd Amendment]

*yawn*

Another Agri-thread. Might I suggest you and some of the other Statists(not name-calling, merely an accurate label) simply save your posts from any given thread, then cut & paste them to future threads? Would save you the effort of typing them and everyone else the effort of reading them just to achieve the same conclusion: State good, Individual bad...no matter what.

 

[agricola]

2nd Amendment,

Perhaps thats an idea - because the amount of times people are shown to be wrong would justify that. However we arent talking statism here, we are talking issues of fact.

 

[Cosmoline]

As said above, probably the evidence that would have shown that disappeared when he got robbed

Well, then tough cookies. If there's no evidence, that's the end of it. I don't go around defaming people because I THINK they were probably drug dealers. And certainly the police should not be using these unjust and hideous gun laws because they aren't able to find evidence of the real crime.

But hey, in the UK having evidence doesn't really matter anymore. That's the advantage of living in a state where so much is deemed illegal. If they can't get you for one thing, they'll get you for something else. That's what a police state is all about.

 

[JPL]

So, your assumpition is more valid and closer to the truth simply because it's... your assumpition, then, but totally lacking in valid facts upon which to base it.

In reality, you're grasping at straws, too, simply because you can't stand the thought that Britain might not be the random-crime-free bucolic utopia that you seem to believe it to be.

Hey, can you look in your crystal assumption and tell me when it's going to snow here again?

 

[JPL]

"we are talking issues of fact."

Really?

You mean such as your assumpition that Chapman is involved in the drug trade?

Your assumption that the burglary was a result of the drug trade in which Chapman allegedly was involved?

Tell me, what facts are you dealing in here?

 

[Indy7373]

Let me get your reasoning straight Agricola. Because he had a gun and the police wanted to search his house, added to the fact that he was robbed, makes him a drug dealer?

Yes, it all begins to make since now. I own a fast car, that is also red. Therefore I must be planning on street racing or robbing a bank and using the car for escape. This logic hails from catch-22.