Breaking and entering

[Angelbones12]

If someone breaks and enters your house and you catch them in the act and hit with an object damaging him, can he sue you for personal injury if you were using reasonable force

[another-view]

Hitting him with an object damaging him hardly sounds like "reasonable force".

I personaly think you should be able to batter the scum within an inch of their lives but maybe that's just me.

[Gormless]

I'm not a lawyer, but I hope the answer is in your question - "reasonable force".

I agree with the first poster. Assume you are woken at 2am by noises downstairs - utterly terrifying. I would have every sympathy if you went down with the poker you keep by the bed (as I do) and bashed any scum intruder's brains out.

[Barmaid]

You can still cause injury with reasonable force since the test is reasonable force in the circumstances. you have to take into account that the householder will have to judge what is necessary in that split second - the greater the fear and more dangerous the situation, the greater force can be used. Clearly shooting an unarmed man in the back and leaving him to bleed to death is not reasonable force, but a single blow with say the fire poker on an advancing armed assailant may well be. It is fact sensitive.

Reasonable force though is part of the defence of self defence which can be used to defend various assault charges - that is criminal law. Being sued for personal injury would fall under the civil law and it would be necessary for the Claimant to prove that you owed the him a duty of care, you have fallen below that standard with the consequence and foreseeability that personal injury was caused. Even if the intruder were able to prove that you owed him a duty of care (and although i can't find any cases directly on this point, I have found some Court of Appeal and House of Lords cases on liability to trespassers because of the state of the premises where the courts seem to be supporting the landowner), I rather suspect that putting in a defence of contributory negligence would reduce the damages to 0 - assuming of course you went no further than was necessary under the circumstances.

[terambulan]

Easy if your female.....shout rape as your defence.....if kids are in the house slash him bobitt in the course of their protection.

[gouldc]

I'm lucky in that if it ever happened to me, I am a fairly adept martial artist, and due to doing my house out, have a large quantity of hefty tools very close to hand in my bedroom.

I would hope that the scenario would play out thusly:

1. wake up to the noise
2. sneak up on said scumbag
3. smash him over the head with something heavy, causing him to fall down hard
4. tie him up with cable ties
5. drive my car around the back lane
6. put aforemention scumbag in my boot (it's not very big)
7. drive scumbag to the top of a nearby mountain
8. push him off the edge

I think I'd be happy to not report the break-in to the polcie, and I'd probably pay for the property damage myself.

Oh, and I'd wear one of the all-in-one white CSI suits, dust mask, and rigger gloves that I have lying around from my renovations - I'd also put the scumbag in a few rubblesacks to avoid forensic transfer of fibres, etc.

I don;t sleep much, so dream these things up : )

[Stu Dent]

Hmmm, Gouldc. You are obviously what the police might call 'forensically aware'. You should be watched. :-)

Agree with Barmaid on 'contributory negligence'.

[Angelbones12]

gouldc

You've been watching too many episodes of "Dexter" mate. Superb series ended a couple of weeks ago. To the uninitiated, Its about forensic guy working with LAPD who is also a serial killer unknown to anyone else, difference being he only literally chops up genuine bad guys who've escaped justice on a technicality. Watch it when it returns.