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Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill

When we consider recent case law we can see that the reasonable force defence is not satisfactory. The case of Tony Martin captured public imagination. Most of us would prefer, if we were being burgled, to phone the police and receive, as we would expect, a prompt response. However, as we have just heard in points of order, we are faced with a restructuring of the police force and in areas such as North Yorkshire and Norfolk we shall undoubtedly lose our rural police forces, as officers will be asked to serve in urban areas on anti-terrorist or security duties and will have even less time to attend to burglaries. People such as Tony Martin will thus regrettably be faced with the prospect of having to take the law into their own hands.