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Provoked? WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
Judge BLAMES newlywed couple for provoking gang attack by confronting yobs with a hammer - before men beat them with fence posts and left them with horrific injuries
Teresa McIver and her husband Neil were left for dead after brutal gang attack
However, charges against the attackers have been dropped and Neil blamed
Crown court judge has said the incident would never have happened if McIvor had not gone out to confront the gang armed with a hammer
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: Neil McIver was left with a gaping head wound and his wife Theresa, 50, with head injuries, broken ribs and a punctured lung after they were savagely beaten by a gang of around 12 men in Grimsby in May last year. However, charges against their attackers have been dropped and McIver has instead been blamed for confronting the gang with a hammer after a verbal dispute. The violence flared when the gang ripped out fence posts and hurled them at the couple. But a crown court judge has said the incident would never have happened if McIvor had not gone out to confront the gang armed with a hammer.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8922389/Newlywed-couple-left-horrific-injuries-gang-blamed-judge-provoking-attack.html
Teresa McIver and her husband Neil were left for dead after brutal gang attack
However, charges against the attackers have been dropped and Neil blamed
Crown court judge has said the incident would never have happened if McIvor had not gone out to confront the gang armed with a hammer
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: Neil McIver was left with a gaping head wound and his wife Theresa, 50, with head injuries, broken ribs and a punctured lung after they were savagely beaten by a gang of around 12 men in Grimsby in May last year. However, charges against their attackers have been dropped and McIver has instead been blamed for confronting the gang with a hammer after a verbal dispute. The violence flared when the gang ripped out fence posts and hurled them at the couple. But a crown court judge has said the incident would never have happened if McIvor had not gone out to confront the gang armed with a hammer.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8922389/Newlywed-couple-left-horrific-injuries-gang-blamed-judge-provoking-attack.html
Comments
What were they supposed to do just let them get on with it?
In English law you do have the right to use reasonable force against a person or persons if you feel you are under imminent threat of injury or harm from another person or persons. One of the key criteria for using this as a defence in a trial, should a charge of assault be bought against you, is that you can demonstrate that the initial attack by your assailant was unprovoked. I.e it was an attack started by the other party with no immediate prior act of malice or intent to cause harm by yourself against the person you acted on in self defence.
Let's say for example that you where walking down the street and found yourself confronted by a person who attempted to mug you with a knife. Being savvy you managed to get the first blow in that incapacitated your assailent. That would be deamed reasonable force as you could argue that you where in imminent danger of harm. If you then proceded to attack that person (to teach them a lesson for the sake of argument) then the defence of reasonable force would no longer hold and you would be charged with assault as the person no longer posed a threat.
In a second example, let's imagine a scenario where you had had a long running dispute with a person or persons that you had instigated. Despite the fact that you where the more injured party the other side could reasonably argue in that case that it was themselves who felt intimidated and that their only course of action was to act on your perceived aggression towards them.
In the above example the whole question of reasonable force becomes a lot murkier.
I do feel however that in the case of the couple in this piece, no way could a group of 12 people argue that defence. The couple concerned, no matter the rights or wrongs of who said what first or who acted first, could and should expect that they had a reasonable right to redress for the injuries they sustained during the confrontation in a court of law as it's plainly obvious that an excessive use of force was used.
Because he went out with a hammer, however we feel about his actions right or wrong, legally he demonstrated an intent to cause harm.
An important but salient fact.
So anyone who has a baseball bat by the side of the bed to fend off any would be burglar should be aware that the defence of reasonable force would fail because in law they showed intent to cause harm.
If on the other hand you happened to have a glass cabinet with say a "Red Socks" baseball bat and ball in it, then you could reasonably argue that it was a piece of sporting memorabelia that just hapened to be at hand. Still slightly dodgy but it would be more difficult to prove intent in law.
What a load of shite.