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Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill

My hon. Friend answers his own question. There is no clarification; it makes things far worse. Before that round of interventions, I was construing the term ““person”” in clause 1(2), which introduces new subsection (1A). The next question I pose is: what if the householder—I will use the broad meaning of the word ““householder””—attacks someone by mistake? What if it turns out that the person they attack is not a burglar but a neighbour returning a lawnmower late at night, or a genuine gasman—not the artificer who has come to nick the money out of the teapot—who has come to read the meter? At the moment, if there is a mistake of fact, the reasonableness, or otherwise, of the mistake is a factor to be taken into account when determining whether the mistake was or may have been a genuine one. Thus, where a defendant was neither under threat nor actual attack but honestly believed that he was, the jury should be directed to consider whether the degree of force used was commensurate with the degree of risk that he believed to be created by the attack. What that means, if that basic principle of law will still apply, is that the gasman or the neighbour returning a lawnmower could be half beaten to death, but it would be all right for the assailant homeowner to say, ““I made a big mistake, I’m very sorry and mortified, but that’s life and I’m not being prosecuted.”” That would not be much consolation to the gasman or neighbour lying in a pool of blood. The Bill effectively encourages that level of violence. At the moment, if a mistake like that were made, the gasman or neighbour might get a punch in the mouth or be pushed over, receiving lesser injuries than might be likely if the Bill were enacted when the householder could use excessive force.