Tony Martin will not be released from jail. He will remain inside for the crime of defending his property for the full five year period of his sentance (he was initially sentanced to life).
The people who make up the parole board which has just decided that he poses an unacceptable threat to people who may in the future break into his home are wonderful examples of what Sean Gabb describes as The Enemy Class.
I strongly suspect their treatment of Tony Martin, found guilty of shooting dead a serial burglar in August 1999, has more to do with the fact he refuses to apologise or acknowledge any wrong doing in his act of defending his property from predators. That a group of parole board members whose salaries are paid by the state predating taxpayers should think that way is perhaps not such a surprise.
As I said before, the lunatics have taken over the asylum. As the political process in Britain has decayed to the point that there appears to be no political cost to the established power elite for the de facto criminalisation of self-defence (never mind that the state can gun you down in the street with scarcely a murmur), and de jure criminalisation of defending your own property, be it from the state or criminals (and the difference between them narrows daily), I wonder if people may simply start going out of their way to avoid involving the state in the aftermath of any act of self-defence.
As people seem to be unclear who to blame for the state deciding it is easier to prosecute law abiding homeowners than to go after housebreakers, and thus most seem unclear who are the correct people in need of having bricks thrown through their windows given that voting seems to make no difference, I expect sales of shovels, bin-bags, deep freezers, hacksaws and baseball bats to start increasing in high crime areas. There may even be a business opportunity for specialised discreet garbage disposal companies to assist this possible future trend.
The core of that problem is rooted in the contempt for private property found amongst the statists who make up the majority of the political class in Britain. Never forget that defending yourself is the ultimate expression of self-ownership and that is something the British state cannot tolerate, particularly the overt socialist parts: these people support ‘democratic’, which is to say political, control of the means of production and that includes your body. Just ask Tony Martin… the state is not your friend.
It is interesting to note that swords are still perfectly legal to own and keep at home (if not carry openly on the streets). The “practical wakizashi” from hanwei for example, is both cheap and ideal for, ahem, “scaring” buglars.
Stuff like this makes me glad I live in the States. I can go to wal-mart, buy a sawed off, spray a burglar’s brains all over the kitchen cabinets, and get off scot-free.
Sorry if that sounds like I’m rubbing it in…
This is an outrageous decision. What it tells us is that, just as Mr. de Havilland says, the lunatics have, indeed, taken over the asylum. The question it raises is how the hell do we dethrone them?
The people who sat on this parole board (notably, one reads, Pushpinder Saini) have set themselves against the popular will in this country (thus proving they are as undemocratic as we have come to expect of the liberal-Left). They believe they know best and have shown that they have nothing but contempt for what ordinary people think and want. Likewise the judges who sat in this review.
So – just how do we go about getting Mr. Saini and his cronies the sack? And how do we then go about making sure he and his kind never again worm their ways into such unelected power?
If the answer is “you can’t” then I fear for the social order in this country because, sooner or later, the public will have had enough.
I shall continue to invest in piano wire futures…
I’m shocked. When I read this post I assumed it was satire this is so far beyond my imagination.
RyMaN600: then take these articles from across the water as a warning… there are plenty of people in the USA who want to do exactly the same to you, such as Chuck Schumer and Joe Lieberman.
Sorry Cal, alas, this is deadly serious
It is interesting to note that swords are still perfectly legal to own and keep at home (if not carry openly on the streets).
Unless you use them. It’s my understanding of the current law that any force you use against an intruder has to be proportional to the threat he poses to you. In other words, if he doesn’t have a sword, you better not shish him.
What can we do for Tony Martin whose isolated house was constantly attacked by serial gypsy (yes, I think the politically correct equasion makes an entrance; he is white – the guilty race in our own country) criminals and whose calls for help over the months the police ignored because it was too far to drive? What can we do to save this late middle aged man from having five entire years of his life ground away in prison when he never deserved to be there for one day? He is brave not to say he is sorry for shooting an intruder, blindly, in the dark, because he feared for his life. [The forensic evidence backed him up 100 per cent.] How did this become an issue in British law?
He is an unbending victim of New Labour insanity. He thought, in the panic of the moment of aggressive young men creeping up the staircase of his home in the dark, as any right-minded person would, that he had a right to protect his property and his life after months of aggression ignored by the police. What can we do?
This is scary. And I thought Britain was the most free country of the EU.
What about free speech? A year ago, one Czech publisher was sentenced to jail for publishing a book (Mein Kampf) – for allegedly “supporting nazism”. His jail sentence was later changed to EUR 100.000 fine and 5 year probation.
Sometimes I wish I lived in the US.
“I shall continue to invest in piano wire futures…
LOL!
In other words, if he doesn’t have a sword, you better not shish him.
This being where the bin bag, shovel, mop, etc come in handy.
Perry:
This is truly horrible but not news. In 1977 when I got married I moved to NYC from a farm in Michigan. As I was moving my things into my new wifes apartment in an iffy NYC area a policeman spots my gun cases. He walks over to me and says,
“You know you should keep those fishing rod cases in the closet of your apartment.”
Now I knew that my guns were completely illegal in NYC (a very nice 20ga Ithaca pump, a very old 12ga single shot, and a very nice O3A3 30-06 Springfield rifle). Then he said,
“Never shot them in the hall-always drag them into the apartment and mop the blood in the hall before you call us.” Now the money quote,
“It’s always better to judged by 12 (jurors) than carried by 6 (pallbearers).”
My liberty, my property, my body, my family defended by my guns.
It sure sounds like you people need to clean house, starting at the top. In the mean time make mopping up a mess very discrete…how about starting up a new fertilizer company? *LOL
We are seeing the results of the 1960s/70s student radicals (mostly socialists) entering the top end of the legal profession. It may take another generation before these folk are out of the way.
In a saner climate, one would expect the Tories to boldly press for self defence to be regarded as a legitimate course of action. But in its current useless state, they cannot even do that.
Does anyone want to have one of my extensive collection of swords on permanent loan?
Swishy swishy…
Johnathan Pearce writes:
“We are seeing the results of the 1960s/70s student radicals (mostly socialists) entering the top end of the legal profession. It may take another generation before these folk are out of the way.”
Absolutely – and in most other professions, too. But what troubles me is that I see no signs of them being replaced with brighter specimens.
Particularly in the legal profession, where the very notion of election seems to be regarded as one step removed from high treason, I can see no obvious mechanism where they can be prevented from perpetuating their hegemonic grip.
Much the same can be said of the BBC (Rod Liddle’s reported comments from this week’s Spectator were interesting in this respect) and, of course, education.
The question remains. What the hell can we do about these people, who have seized influence and power which they wield with almost no accountability?
As much as Britain is an ally to the US, after hearing about all of this nonsense, and not just Tony Martin, it sounds like you guys honestly need a civil war. Ah, but thats the problem with being disarmed by the state, they make it so they are no longer accountable to any counterforce, so more or less the only thing you could hope for is a military coup. As to someone elses comment, yes, if Britain is still the freest nation in the EU, what are other places in Europe like?…its starting to make me wonder whether the whole of Europe is going to fall into a hole that would make Joseph Stalin blush. I know this is a lot of doomsaying for one trial decision, but it seems correct that the notion of private property is being systematically attacked throughout the EU, I wonder how long until the next cold war…or even world war.
As much as Britain is an ally to the US, after hearing about all of this nonsense, and not just Tony Martin, it sounds like you guys honestly need a civil war. Ah, but thats the problem with being disarmed by the state, they make it so they are no longer accountable to any counterforce, so more or less the only thing you could hope for is a military coup. As to someone elses comment, yes, if Britain is still the freest nation in the EU, what are other places in Europe like?…its starting to make me wonder whether the whole of Europe is going to fall into a hole that would make Joseph Stalin blush. I know this is a lot of doomsaying for one trial decision, but it seems correct that the notion of private property is being systematically attacked throughout the EU, I wonder how long until the next cold war…or even world war.
G. Cooper:
Why do you believe electing judges would solve the problem? We have elected judges here in New York, and what happens is that the Democraps and Republicants 90%+ of the time cross-endorse judges. So we get the fig leaf of democracy with decisions still being made by party bosses.
FWIW, I was a “victim” of electoral fraud in 2000 because of this. I always cast write-in votes for judges, since they’re usually running unopposed and I don’t believe in the cross-endorsements. When I went into the voting booth in 2000 (note for the Brits: We have all our elections, from local dogcatcher up to President, on the same day and on one giant ballot), I opened the little window above the ballot to cast my write-in vote — and was stunned to see my write-in vote from 1998 staring me in the face!
I called the County Board of Elections, but never heard back from them.
Load up on poison dart guns and hope British cops don’t have the resources to do blood analysis on every dead perp (“I don’t know what happened officer, he broke into my house then immediately had a heart attack”).
Ugh. Regardless of anyone’s personal stance on the Iraq war, the following tripe taken from the Wall Street Journal (about Bush’s “Triumph of the Will” landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln) illustrates something nicely:
Mainly that only the govt is allowed to ‘protect’ her and her sons. No husband (she may or may not be divorced) is allowed to be a man, that is a role only the State can play.
Pushpinder (In)saini seems to be some sort of barrister appearing for the Parole Board in the Martin case. Needless to say, when not crushing the rights of a prisoner who should never have been sentenced to prison in the first case, and who refuses to apologise for protecting his life with a gun, Mr (In)saini is huge on “human rights” and asylum seekers. Can’t do enough for them. Busy, busy, busy. On the Working Committe for the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, co-author of a book on human rights (Cherie, say hi to Pushpinder!), seems to have done work for the Euthanasia Society (the page wasn’t available), specialises in civil liberties – busy, busy, busy. Needless to say, for individuals with this grudge mindset, the rights of a clan of totally lawless, oft-imprisoned gypsies in remote, unpoliced Norfolk will always take precedence over the rights of a frightened old man being victimised by them in the dead of night. What a British Parole Board is doing retaining someone with such an obvious grudge mentality bears some investigating.
When a confidential report was finally passed to Martin’s attorneys, Pushpinder (In)saini opined, “There was nothing sinister in keeping it from the public eye.” Oh?
Why did the Parole Board bring in a heavyweight “human rights” activist to keep Tony Martin behind bars for the full five years of his sentence? Why not just a normal, clear-headed barrister? Also, why does the British Parole Board need a barrister for parole hearings? Isn’t that what the Board itself is supposed to be doing? Isn’t that their job? Why are they retaining expensive barristers from prominent chambers?
I repeat: what was the Parole Board doing retaining a heavyweight “human rights” lawyer to plead their case to keep Tony Martin in prison? What was their agenda? Who were they pleading the case before? This is all most odd.
Ms. Belle strikes again. There are many questions loudly not being asked about the behaviour of the Parole Board in the Tony Martin case.
So where is this ‘Right-wing press’ we keep hearing so much about from Potty Polly and her pals?
Today’s Telegraph carried a rather limp-wristed leader about the issue, but why didn’t Charles Moore allocate a reporter the time on the web which Ms. Belle spent, digging into the background?
With the proper resources, a good campaign could be mounted to expose these dangerous imbeciles to the shrivelling gaze of public scrutiny.
Sadly, it appears, the Press has little appetite for any real journalistic work these days.
Ted Schuerzinger writes:
“Why do you believe electing judges would solve the problem?”
I don’t know that I do, actually. But I’m sure you’d agree with me that just because the US system of electing judges doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that it cannot be *made* to work?
It simply strikes me as preferable to a system in which cronyism and patronage are unstoppable (cf Blair, Booth, Falconer, Irvine et al)
Hmm, choose between cronies or lowest-common-denomintor populism and rigged races. Is there a third option please? (Well yes, there is, but you have to be an anarchist first.)
Chaps, chaps, chaps! Let’s not slip off down side streets and lose the focus. Tony Martin, as we go tappety, tappety, tappety on our keyboards in the comfort of our homes and offices, is an elderly man whose life is being leached away in prison because he had the nerve to pull the trigger when gypsies who had a history of breaking into his house, robbing him and threatening his life, crept in, in the dead of night, and ascended his staircase. He defended himself and should never have been imprisoned at all. Why has the miscarriage of justice not been rectified by now?
His original obscene sentence of life imprisonment was commuted to five years, which tells us that the thinking that went into sentencing him is acknowledged already flawed. He is not a danger to society and never has been.
Here is a case for a “human rights” lawyer. Unfortunately, in a Kafka-esque twist, the “human rights” lawyer was on the side of the Parole Board. Why did they retain this lawyer? Why was this lawyer pleading that Tony Martin would be “a danger to burglars” if released and why was this plea given credence instead of a hearty, dismissive laugh? Before whom were these pleas held, if the Parole Board is not itself the hearing body? Had the Parole Board retained counsel to plead to itself? If so, this needs to be ventilated.
G Cooper is correct. There are many questions “loudly not being asked” about the strange refusal to release an old man, whose crime was to defend his life, as a last resort, given that the police had never been interested in his emergency calls, and who had never been a danger to society. Why is a sophisticated “human rights/asylum seeker” barrister being retained by the Patrole Board hearing his case? Why is that lawyer pleading for the Patrole Board? Who is he pleading before? The Patrole Board?
As I understand the situation, Ms. Belle, Tony Martin’s lawyers had taken the rejection of his parole request before the High Court – which was why the egregious Mr. Saini was hired – someone had to plead the Board’s case. The decision to reject Martin’s appeal was taken by Mr. Justic Kaye, who concluded that (I quote from the Telegraph): “…there was sufficient material from probation officers to justify the board’s conclusion that Martin had demonstrated no remorse for his crime.”
The choice of Pushpinder Saini is, as you say, a fascinating one – and it is hard to imagine that he comes cheap. Equally, how did Mr. Justice Kay wind up hearing this case? These things, one imagines, rarely happen by accident.
The Telegraph goes on to say that Mr. Martin’s lawyers are considering asking the Appeal Court to intervene, despite Mr. Justice Kay’s refusal to grant leave to appeal.
It would nice to believe that, should this happen, there will be sufficient public representations to make their Lordships think very carefully about whose law they believe they are upholding. Islington’s or that of the rest of the United Kingdom.
G Cooper – Thank you. Why was the Parole Board motivated to retain a “human rights” lawyer to plead against Mr Martin? Can we safely assume that the Barras family were not paying their own legal costs? What cost were the taxpaying British electorate, who want Mr Martin out of prison, paying to fancy attorneys to argue that he continue to be remanded? Who was speaking for Mr Martin against these powerful Blackstone Chambers in London? How did Mr (In)saini worm into the deal? Who was this “human rights” lawyer representing, given that it was Mr Martin’s human rights that have continually been abused? Mr Martin needs a high-powered lawyer. Paging Alan Derskowitz (sp): pick up your mail. The shreds of British democracy need you. Mr Alan Derskowitz, to the white courtesy phone please …
Mr. Martin has my absolute and complete sympathy.
As does every other law-abiding citizen in England in these blighted times you endure.
This is a wonderful website. It bolsters my morale daily to read people like David, Perry, and Liberty Belle. A word of hope for you people on this issue of Mr. Martin: Yes, it is a horrible outrage that a man denied protection by the law be punished for acting to defend himself. I suspect, however, that the backlash about such an egregiously incorrect political action may well redound to your advantage. On this side of the pond, the best thing ever to happen to the National Rifle Association was the election of that lying criminal Bill Clinton. His accession to power was for me, as for many another American, the act that pushed me into becoming a Life Member of the N.R.A. I am now a single-issue voter. If a candidate from either party is anything less than a fervent supporter of the Second Amendment, that candidate is automatically discarded by me as a potential choice. I look upon people who would limit or deny my Second Amendment rights just as the JDL looks upon the Nazis. And yes, I now also accept that “cold, dead fingers” rhetoric because, as Churchill said, it is better to die than to live as a slave and, without the right to self-defense, that is what one is. The examples of Britain and Australia have been salient ones. American gun owners have seen what has happened in those places. As a result, the leftists won’t get our guns over here without one hellaciously bloody fight. The thought occurs to me to wonder when, apropos of those deluded IRA supporters on this side of the pond, you ordinary British citizens are going to start asking Americans to ship you AR-15s to liberate your country?
G Cooper Snapshot in sack cloth and ashes. Apologies for having galloped through your last post on this thread without, unaccountably, taking in the entire point of your post. It may have had something to do with three kir royales at a housewarming. (One should always quit after two.) I am sorry.
It didn’t sink in that the Parole Board had retained (in)Saini to plead in an actual court case and I apologise. Now I’m back on the straight and narrow, why is it interesting that the case was being heard by Mr Justice Kaye? Is he famous? (I don’t live in Britain.)
So “human rights” grudge barrister Saini was thus pleading for the human rights of possible future imaginery burglars who might be motivated to invade Mr Martin’s home after he is finally back in residence at his trashed out, boarded up remote farmhouse. How sweet of Mr Justic Kaye to take such a caring attitude to these possible future burglars who might freely choose to endanger themselves thus. And how sweet of the Parole Board to spend taxpayers’ money in high-priced efforts to ensure that future burglars will not be assaulted with a gun or harmed in any way while illegally on Mr Martin’s premises.
It smells of rotting fish. Hundreds of IRA killers – genuine, committed murderers in a political cause – are released onto the streets by Tony Blair, and one quiet old man, driven to defend his own property because the police, having failed to respond to emergency calls with their presence, in effect giving the intruders a free pass, kept in custody when eligible for parole. By the might of persuasive argument from a heavyweight London barrister. There was an agenda here, and the Parole Board and whoever was giving them orders, were set on ensuring the outcome. Hence the presence of high-ticket Pushpinder Saini of the noted Blackstone Chambers in London. Why are they spending all these pounds fighting to keep an old man who had never harmed anyone in his life in prison? I wonder how much Saini’s clerk billed for this jousting against natural justice and the popular will of the taxpayer? His fee must be a matter of public record. Surely?
This would have to be Givenchy sack cloth and ashes, surely, Ms. Belle?
Sadly, you raise so many valid questions and I cannot even begin to see how we can answer them. How much, indeed, was Saini paid? What *is* 30 pieces of silver worth in Euros? How much does a parole board member earn? How are they chosen and by whom? On what basis and with what accountability? Under what circumstances, and by whom can they be sacked?
These are questions which a decent newspaper could answer. If la Toynbee thinks we suffer from a “Right-wing” press, the kind of investigative publication *I* would like to see would have her in cardiac arrest within hours of the first issue hitting the streets. Not least because it would be digging deep into her background…
As for why I mused about the appointment of Mr. Justic Kaye, it is because I have this unaccountable sense that prominent cases usually seem to get the judges the legal establishment wants them to have.
As you say:
“There was an agenda here, and the Parole Board and whoever was giving them orders, were set on ensuring the outcome.”
Exactly. Presumably, all this accords with Derry Irvine’s agenda which, one assumes, is in accord with that of his former pupil, young master Blair.
G Cooper – Givenchy! – well, knock-offs, maybe.
This thread will be removed today and I’m clinging on by my fingertips. Tony Martin’s counsel was Bitu Bhalla of One Essex Court Chambers in London. This is two heavyweight counsels from prominent chambers at a cost to the taxpayer of how much, to keep one harmless, unjustly convicted man in prison on the flimsiest of pretences? Yet it was worth it to someone in the government to use this case as an illustration of what happens to people who use firearms to defend themselves as a last resort. Only the police and the military can be armed in Britain. Everyone else should roll over and die because for sure, the police aren’t going to get around to turning up to hand you a ‘victim support’ card before rigor mortis sets in. The outcome of this parole hearing was predetermined, and the pricey mouthpieces were brought in to give the decision legitimacy and make it safe.