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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 88: 88: Clause 75, page 53, line 39, after ““D”” insert ““reasonably”” The noble Earl said: My Lords, now that the audience has been reduced to about two, I can start this afternoon’s proceedings. In the defence of someone who reacts with force to an intruder into their house, the Bill proposes that the belief by the man who is reacting that he is under threat can be perceived as completely unreasonable. My amendment makes sure that the genuinely held belief of a threat is a reasonable belief. This matter was brought up in the Joint Committee on Human Rights where the example was given that if there is an intruder in someone’s house and he is, let us say, black, and the householder believes that all blacks are dangerous, that is, by itself, an unreasonable belief. But we felt that, under the Bill as drafted, if the householder genuinely believed that, he would be entitled to shoot the chap dead, cut him up with a Japanese sword, or whatever it is you do to people who come into your houses. This amendment tries to make sure that the belief that the assailant is a threat must be reasonably held. I beg to move.