---

Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill

My hon. Friend is right in saying that juries have a lot of common sense, but many of the cases that I am describing never even got that far. They had to be investigated by the police, but the individuals concerned were either not charged or, if they were, had their cases dropped. Most cases did not go to a jury. In the case of Mr. Davenport, two masked men with a hammer went to his home at midnight to attack him. He said that he was frightened for his life and stabbed and killed one of them. He was acquitted by a jury under reasonable force, but I think that the prosecution was properly brought in the circumstances of the case. In October 2002, Mr. Barry-Lee Hastings killed a burglar. The burglar was stabbed 12 times in the back and Mr. Hastings was convicted of manslaughter. On the face of it, he was not acting in self-defence and what he did would probably be considered grossly disproportionate, so he would have had no help from the Bill. In June 2003, Mr. O’Connor, an elderly blind man, stabbed and killed an intruder breaking into his home. He was not charged, under reasonable force.