Markus

ok, maybe more a question for 5ive-o, but hey, I'll post it here.

Always wondered what 'Reasonable Force' is deinfed as.

For example, if a thug attacks me with a baseball bat, one assumes if I nab the bat from him and give him one single blat with it, would that be reasonable force? or would just using my meathooks be the only allowed defence?

I know that if thug attacks me with bat and I proceede to slam his head through the nearest shop window then that is a little beyond reasonable force.

scoobyvirgin

"He tripped and fell officer, honest"

Markus

hmm, kinda hard to say that when the knife is in his back and he's lying on his front.

chaos.

Just drag him to the woods and dig an 8 foot hole and dump him in there. Problem sorted.

OR, you could report it to the police and get bangged up for 20 years. Got to be worth a shot eh?

scoobyvirgin

LG John

I personally think that is someone attacks you with a potentially lethal weapon (knife, baseball bet, etc) you can reasonably be expected to take action to render them inopperative which means I'd have no second thoughts about putting on an arm lock and taking them to the ground (hard) or applying a choke to put them out or plain old knocking them out - kick/punch/etc. One bad head with a bat and its curtains so put him down and make sure he stays down for your own sake. If you start jumping about on his head when he's down then no, that isn't reasonable force

hades

I've always run on the idea that reasonable force is the minimum required to protect yourself. Therefore, knocking him down/out is fine. Continuing to hit/kick batter him once he's down isn't. Stabbing someone in the back is unlikely to be OK, as they're unlikely to pose a threat with their back to you, but turning the knife they were wielding back on them could be - as long as they only have one stab wound, not 48 of them!

Of course, the definition of reasonable force for a given case will alter according to the spin your lawyer uses, comments made in "independent" witness statements etc.

ajm

Its got to be completely subjective. If you are physically able to restrain someone and hold them there until help arrives then thats one thing. If you are unable to do this and the only weapon in reach is a kitchen knife then how do you incapacitate your attacker without badly injuring them? A little cut isn't going to do it, it may be that the only way to stop the attack there and then is to give them a wound that is bad enough to stop them in that instant, yet it may prove to be fatal later on.

Snakes have venom many times more powerful than required to kill because they need to incapacitate the prey quickly.

Using strength is easy because you only need to match and slightly exceed your agressors and you can measure their strength as you take them on. Using a bat may be your only means of defending yourself, yet how do you measure exactly enough power to put into the swing to stop them if you only have a chance for one swing?

David Lock

"Go on make my day" - that sounds pretty reasonable to me

Vette_76

works better if you add "Punk" on the end!!

Leslie

Whatever you need to do to stop him attacking you, but no more than that. Difficult to resist "one for his ****" though!

Les

ajm

One could argue that, in order to know absolutely, you would need to let them attack you. How else can you be sure how much force they are willing to use on you?

The terrible thing is that in this day and age if the police find you with a smoking gun in your hands they expect to see you mortally wounded because saying "I thought he was going to kill me" isn't enough. Its almost like you have to let them try to kill you first, because otherwise you are merely speculating about their intent!

Markus

chaos - my old place back in blighty does have woodland behind it, so, like the desert outside veags, there are some pre-dug holes out there

Bubba po

There cannot really be a definition that would fit all cases. If you cause the assailant actual bodily harm and he complains, then a court would have to weigh up the evidence and determine if you used reasonable force or not.

I suspect that you would not be able to use deadly force unless you were being attacked with a deadly weapon yourself.

Brendan Hughes

Just quote Sean Connery in the Untouchables: "Typical wop; brings a knife to a gunfight."

ajm

The problem is that you should have a right to protect yourself no matter how badly the assailant means to harm you. You may have to kill them to stop them from harming you, even if their intent is not to kill!

NACRO

How much intent or force would an attacker have to use before you would feel justified in shooting them with a weapon from your gun collection ajm?

Felix.

If its your honest opinion that your life/health/safety (or that of one of your interests) is threatened you can use force to halt that threat. Once that threat is halted you can not continue to use force.

If you are going to hit someone in this case, hit them once as hard as you possibly can. This will give two results. The offender will either drop to the floor (threat halted) or it will have no effect. If it had no effect, consider running away as you have hit him with your best shot and nothing happened

Any complaints from him will show that you were in controll and were not lashing out at him like a mad man, but used a single strike in self defence.

ajm

Nacro, I'm sure that if your attack was persistent and aggressive enough you could convince me that lethal force was necessary.

Freak

"thats not a knife..........THATS a knife"


Judging by the state of the (in)justice system at the mo, if he breaks a nail, you are looking at 7-10 with good behaviour.

So as little as possible force in order to stop the f*cker attacking you.

scunnered

iTrader: (1)

I can answer this one because I have experienced it first hand.

I was the victim of an attempted murder in 1983. There is quite a long story attached to this but I won't bore you with all the details. I will say that I was charged with attempted murder as was my attackers. The Judge (Lord Cameron of Lochbroom) said at the summing up of the trial that it doesn't matter that my main attacker was was fighting for his life and I was discharged from hospital after only a few days. He went on to describe to the jury, the "rules of minimum force"
The crucial main point of which is, there would have to be no visible means of escape.
In the eyes of the law, this is considered to be the most important factor. For example, if you are capable of avoiding a confrontation by running away but you choose to fight and subsequently kill or injure your attacker then you are guilty of an offence. If however you were cornered in a dead end alley, then you have the right to defend yourself. Reasonable force then comes into play. You can't then stab or shoot somebody if it's obvious they're just going to give you a punch on the nose. So minimum force is required to either restrain the attacker or to distract him in some way so as to effect an escape.
Self defence is a very dificult type of case to try in court.
So Marcus, in your original question, if you nab the baseball bat from your attacker and then hit him with it, that is not reasonable force and subseqently you would likely be charged.

Leslie

ajm,

Well you may feel the need to disable him after he has threatened you,especially if he has a weapon in his hand, or you may have to defend yourself if he makes a move towards you. You are trying to make it into a "black and white" affair, this has nothing to do with ethnic matters by the way-just the situation. If you feel that you are about to be attacked by someone then I say that you have the right to disable him to stop that attack. The amount of force you need to use depends on how persistent the attacker is surely. Doesn't seem like rocket science to me. Not possible to put a precise definition on something when you are dealing with people.

Les

Brendan Hughes

Thanks scunnered, never knew that (means of escape).