You can't hit me - I'm a burgler!

Jack Straw is to seek a review of the law which allows you to use "reasonable force" in self-defence. This is a tricky area. At the moment there is little doubt that most people think it has swung too far towards penalising those who "have a go", but the danger is that at the other end of the scale are cases like one which happened in the US some years ago where a couple of men who got lost in the suburbs of a city in the early hours of the morning saw lights still on at a house, and one of them went and knocked the door to seek directions. The house owner - as he later told a court, assuming that anyone knocking his door at that hour must be up to no good - took a gun, opened the door and shot the man dead. The jury agreed with him and he was acquitted of murder. So rather than tinker with the "reasonable force" law, I think it would be more constructive to consider the other side of the coin. I think it is proper to suggest that anyone engaged in an unlawful activity, by that very fact, loses any legal rights they may have in relation to that activity. So if you break into my house, steal from my shop, set upon me in the street, or whatever, I can use whatever force is necessary to restore the status quo - that is, to eject you, retrieve what you have stolen, stop you from assaulting me, and so on. My actions would be judged more by the result achieved than by the amount of force used.