The latest news in the Tony Martin/Brendan Fearon saga is in today’s Sun. There are pictures of Tony Martin dining out with the lady who works for his publisher (“Valentina Artsrunik”!), as they prepare Martin’s forthcoming book for publication. Excellent. Martin deserves a bit of the high life.
But more intriguing to me was the sidebar story on the right. Journalists must spend an awful lot of time ringing borderline celebs for juicy quotes only to be given either waffle or nothing. But this time, if that’s how it happened, they struck gold:
COMIC Paul O’Grady last night warned would-be burglars: “Break into my house and I’ll shoot you.”
The 48-year-old – telly’s Lily Savage – threatened to do a Tony Martin after talking to pal Cilla Black about the £1million burglary at her house.
The comic lives in a plush £1million riverside flat overlooking London’s Tower Bridge. He said: “I’ve just bought myself a gun. After what happened to Cilla, I’m not taking any chances.
“If I’m lying in bed and any gob-sh**e burglars are in my house, thinking I’m not going to do anything, then they’ll be in for a shock. I’ll shoot them in the kneecaps and feed them to my pigs.
“I’m with Tony Martin on this one. If you’re in my house and you shouldn’t be, then I’ll shoot you, simple as that.”
I particularly enjoyed this last bit:
A spokesman for O’Grady said last night: “What he was saying was done tongue-in-cheek.”
After all, you wouldn’t want your client becoming too popular with the general public, now would you?
How about a compromise. If Paul O’Grady is burgled, he can shoot the gob-sh**e burglars in the kneecaps. But then afterwards a spokesman for O’Grady can say that he only shot the gob-sh**e burglars tongue-in-cheek.
And when the O’Grady pigs eat the gob-sh**e burglars, they will likewise only be joking.
The clarification from his PA may be because, should the UK’s incredibly lazy and inefficient police force (in my experience, and admittedly because they’re strangled with red tape by the govt) read his comments he’s likely to face prosecution. In any case, if he does own a gun he’ll certainly have his license withdrawn because of these comments. Can’t allow law abiding citizens to have guns you know, not with all those Turkish drug runners, etc machine gunning each other. Someone might get hurt.
I read many references in Samizdata to Tony Martin and the 5 year sentence he got for shooting and wounding Brendan Fearon, but never was it mentioned that the sentence was also for killing the other intruder which was 16 years old. The TIME magazine article also mentioned that the burglars were fleeing when they were shot, though I don’t know on what that claim is based, as no TIME correspondent (or anyone else) seems to have been present.
Jacob
We are all aware that Tony Martin was convicted of manslaughter, rather than just of hurting someone. We have, I’m sure, constantly linked to news coverage which made that perfectly clear. Fearon got himself back into the news, centre stage, by suing Martin.
In my opinion it makes a huge difference that when Martin finally shot at this robbers, they had already attacked him so many times before.
Had this been the first time, firing potentially lethal shots at the intruders would maybe have been excessive. I’m not sure. As it was, and as I said in my earlier posting, shooting them when he did was a reasonable defence against the inevitable next attack if they had got away yet again unchallenged.
Pity any burglar who survived and had to do his time as the as the nerk shot by Lily Savage.
Jacob, yes, the burglar shot dead was 16 years old – a 16-year-old professional criminal with 28 court appearances… Good riddance.
I’d never heard of Paul O’Grady, though his stage name Lily S sounds familiar (is he a drag act?) but Emo is correct about the likely reaction of O’Gradys police force to these threats: in mainland UK we are not allowed to apply for a Firearm (or Shotgun) Certificate for the purposes of self defence, and if the issuing force thinks that is what you have in mind, they will refuse your application and give you a tough time. Even if O’Grady were to use a gun in the circumstances he anticipates and be found not culpable he’d almost certainly have his Certificate revoked. A few years back, someone tried to hold up an Essex gun dealer: an employee came from the back of the shop with a handgun and shot the perpetrator dead, it was subsequently found to be “justifiable homicide” – but Essex Police proceeded to prosecute the dealer for having had the loaded weapon ready for action, rather than under secure lock & key, where it would of course have been no use!
Crims like those scum in “so solid crew” get 9 months for illegal posession of a handgun, but you can bet that when someone forgets to renew their firearm certificate on time they’ll get the full 5 years allowed for by law…
/in favour of the kind of self-defence rights that they now have in 35 US states……
Mike, we Americans have those rights in all 50 states.
In 35 states, any law-abiding citizen can obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun based on objective criteria rather than police whim.
But even in NYC, Bernie Goetz got away with shooting attackers on the subway with an unlicensed handgun; the jury found his shooting justified, but convicted him on the unlicensed gun charge.
As for criminals in your house–don’t count on a criminal charge in any state, although there are of course exceptions.
As for the fact that the dead criminal in the Martin case was 16–who gives a flying &^*%? Can anyone plausibly argue that a 16-year-old cannot seriously hurt or kill an innocent person by virtue of his minority? Can anyone give me a way to distinguish minors from adults when they break in at night?
Self-defense is justified regardless of the age or mental state of the attacker–it doesn’t matter if he’s mentally ill, on drugs, or unable to vote. What matters is that he’s attacking the slayer.
Shooting a man in the back is a different matter–aren’t criminal trial transcripts public domain in England? It would be easy to check to ballistic testimony and clear up that question.
Tony H,
Yes, ‘Lily Savage’ is the theatrical, drag persona of Paul O’Grady.
Mike,
“Crims like those scum in “so solid crew” get 9 months for illegal posession of a handgun, but you can bet that when someone forgets to renew their firearm certificate on time they’ll get the full 5 years allowed for by law…”
You bigoted idiot. At least one of the members of So Solid was carrying the gun for precisely the same reason as everyone here is advocating; self defense. He and his girlfriend been threatened by quite a few individuals on the estate where he lived, where there was a significant level of gun crime (unlike where most of the ‘law abiding’ people you so love live), so why the hell pick on him. Pure ignorance & following the Sun’s hysterical reasoning “oo.. pop music, young black men, guns, estates…. BAD!”. Well done.
A-t,
Whilst I fully advocate legal concealed carry, if the govt were serious about “cutting down on gun crime”, they’d have given the 2 of them a serious sentance for committing a serious criminal act. It’s not cos they’re black or whatever, it’s cos they committed a crime which carries a 5yr max. Now, since I think that licenced concealed carry should be legal, in an ideal world he should have been allowed to carry, but it’s not, and he’s not. Therefore he’s a criminal, and the courts must uphold the law.
I’m sick & tired of the govt deliberately obfuscating between armed criminals and licenced rifle & shotgun owners (ref. 1988, 1996/7) in order to take more, non-crime causing guns out of civilian hands whilst leaving the number of crime-causing guns on the street unchanged, and I think that the “so solid crew” case is typical of this. People in the public eye such as these have more of a duty to uphold the laws of the land since they’re trying to be role models for youngsters (of whatever colour), and if youngsters see that it’s OK cos you only get 9 months, then they will do it, and then we’ll have a real problem on our hands.
So, whilst I may have phrased it a little harshly, I think my point’s still moot…
In both cases, the individuals felt that the police were providing them with inadequate protection, & broke the law in order to protect themselves. If anything, the So Solid boys had more justification, as they had actually been physically threatened, and knew that some of those who threatened them were armed, so the self-defense argument was a no-brainer, unlike in Tony Martin’s case, where despite any paranoia, he was probably not in any great physical danger, and effectively imposed the death penalty for petty theft.
As to the role model thing, yeah… sure I see your point, but to impose harsher jail sentences just because people are celebrities? Justice for all… hmmm.
A-t,
Yes, justice for all – it’s just that I know that if I’d done the same thing, I’d get 5yrs…
ok… i’m puzzled now; do you feel the So Solid guys got off more lightly than that *because* they were in the public spotlight? Or is it some other difference between yourself & them which you feel gives them an unfair advantage?
A_t,
I think that the so solid crew people got the same term that most people committing that crime would get.
But, the difference is that I am an Firearm Certificate holder, and so if I broke the law in the same way, I would be subject to harsher punishment – I would get the full 5 years (“to send a message”), and confiscation of my licence & legal firearms. Given that I can get 6 months for failing to inform the Firearms Department of a change of address, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to expect the full penalty if I were convicted of illegal posession…
Oh – great quote from an FAC holding friend when talking about paintballing:
“I couldn’t go – I’ve been target shooting for 40 years and I can’t point a gun at a real person. And yet I’m considered a criminal and a pervert by my own government”