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Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill

Even most bookshops would not have those books unless they were law bookshops, and there are not many of those about. Of course, whether the shop staff had actually read the books is another question altogether. The law of trespass gives rise to serious problems, especially in cases where people gain entry by deception. We have all heard about burglary by artifice—the dodgy gas or electricity man whose object is not to read the meter but to rob the teapot. In those circumstances, even if the dodgy gas man was invited in because the householder did not think that he was a trespasser, in law he would be. To pick up the second point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe when he switched his analogy, the householder would, under the Bill, be entitled to use disproportionate force to defend themselves but would probably be unaware of that fact. The Bill would create misapprehension about what people could do.