19 year old girl fined 500 British pounds for defending herself; old news but gives a peek into mind

edinburghnews.scotsman.com...

This is old news yet gives insight into the legal system. Also not picking on the Brits or Scotts even in America when the threat stops you stop your aggressive defense...However the 19 year old girl who was able to defend herself on her own property and IMO her fine of 500 was not nice if I got the story right.

When this happened I posted the article on another forum and several people (states) took up a collection to help pay her fine. They were all dirtbag gun owners who believed the individual has the right to self protection, so what do you expect.....

19 year old girl fined 500 British pounds for defending herself from masked attacker. Attacker was not fined if I read this right! Her problem was she continued to kick the man when he was down. Revenge is not an option ( in America either) in a self defense scenario even though the man was able to get up and walk away. glad he walked and did not continue the attack or come back later....Oh the cops had him by then.....

A TERRIFIED teenage girl has been fined £500 for knocking unconscious a masked stranger who stalked her home from a nightclub in what lawyers have called an "exceptional" case.

After Docherty was thrown out of the Bathgate nightclub he returned at 2am to wait for Burleigh to leave, then followed her and her boyfriend home.

The article does not say what part the boyfriend played; (maybe he ran away as many seem to suggest??) or he did an assist in stopping the threat. Article did not go into a blow by blow description.

Could you supply the source, please, so the rest of us can read the entire article? It helps in promoting discussion if we have as much info as you do.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
Could you supply the source, please, so the rest of us can read the entire article? It helps in promoting discussion if we have as much info as you do.

Man you are quick or I am slow, sorry was getting it as you typed!!

It's a funny concept some of us UK inhabitants have called "proportionate response." I'm not sure if it's shared with other groups, but it goes like this - if someone punches you on the nose, and even continues their assault, if you somehow as a result of your battling abilities manage to gain the upper hand, you aren't entitled to kick them to a bloody pulp just because you believed your attacker meant to do that to you,. People who want to beat anyone who has the effrontery to attack them until they are no longer moving, are dangerous sociopaths. As would be someone who wanted to shoot someone until they stopped wriggling, even though they had an opportunity to flee the moment a target had hit the floor and dropped whatever weapon they may have held.

reply to post by IvanAstikov


I understand your point, but if I was attacked and got the upper hand, I would want to make sure my attacker was staying down. Why? Fear that he would get up and come after me again.

I'm not advocating killing the person or beating them to a pulp. There would come a point, I think, when it would be obvious if I had done enough damage to get away.

I just wonder...could she have been thinking the same thing?

reply to post by smyleegrl

It's possible, but I'd need far more information regarding the incident than we have here. For instance, her boyfriend could have been holding her attacker on the floor while she took free kicks and stomps, and that is simply not cricket in our green and sometimes very pleasant land.

Originally posted by IvanAstikov
reply to post by smyleegrl

 

It's possible, but I'd need far more information regarding the incident than we have here. For instance, her boyfriend could have been holding her attacker on the floor while she took free kicks and stomps, and that is simply not cricket in our green and sometimes very pleasant land.

Nor should it be.

reply to post by 727Sky


well, the masked attacker that was beat up by a teenage girl doesnt need to be fined. forever he will be known as the guy that got beat up by a teenage girl.

but for the girl, that sucks being fined for defending yourself

Funny thing is, if I had to place some money on who the likely owner of a balaclava is when the choices are a 21 yr old man, and a 40+ yr one, I wouldn't stake my bank on it, but I'd stick something on the younger man. Let's hope the police at least had the decency or professionalism to check that it had ever been on his head, eh?

If someone attacks and threatens, or attempts to do bodily harm. The defensive response should not stop until they are either, unconscious, dead, or they willingly surrender and comply.

Even if someone is on the ground, they should not be considered harmless if he does not have his hands outstretched above his head. A person on their back may reach behind his back and pull a gun on you.

When they surrender, their compliance should be absolute. If they make any sudden moves, that may allow them to reach for a weapon, or attack, then shoot to kill.

reply to post by Mr Tranny


Indeed. If a man doesn't want to suffer any harm, he really shouldn't scare the bejeezuz out of someone in the dark. You pretty much need to be ready to take responsibility for that. She could have been the victim of some previous crime that left her somewhat hypersensitive about such things. Would she have been responsible then too?

And why must a person allow themselves to be harmed before they can defend themselves? Seems a bit of a wonky standpoint to me. Sounds like you have to ALLOW the harm to come first, which seems like a bad plan at the best of times. When someone is already at a discernible disadvantage, I would think that taking your best opportunity would be the way forward. Looks like the legal system doesn't work in the right direction there - or anywhere else, really.

This is not an isolated incident. I don;t have much time and hence can't go and find all the references but these were can all be found on the Daily Mail website [even though it's a tabloid, these stories also featured in other papers].#

- A shop owner who broke a burglars back [yeay] after they started stealing his stock of those 4 wheeled bikes [whatever they are called], got sentenced whilst burglar went scott free. Even though the stock is worth thousands and had he let them get away, he couldn't have even got compensation from the insurance. So he would have lost everything. As for being too violent, if someone comes on my turf, trying to steal my lively hood, I can do whatever to that scumbag.

- Just the other day a pub owner caught some shi**y little urchins trying to steal barrels of his beer from the cellar. He closed the cellar doors and locked them in. Whilst calling the police, the little to**ers had already called their parents and the police telling them that they are being held against their will. They got a caution as burglary in this case was only a 'minor' crime. However the owner was questioned and treated like a criminal. Since when is burglary 'minor'? Where is the deterrent?
Those chavs are getting away with anything and they know it.

In Britain, the victim can not do anything whilst the criminal is treated like a victim.

There's a solution to this.....Don't call the police, beat the living # out of the barstewards and dump them in a ditch. It's not like most of us bother to report crimes these days anyway. What they going to do go to the police and tell them they were burgling your house, you got the better of them and left them in a ditch full of cow #? Most of em would be too embarrassed to say anything and they'd have to prove it.

The police won't bother....They'd have to do some work. It's easier just to nab you for defending yourself the minute they show up when YOU'VE rung them.

Just goes to show you that there's no point bothering with the "justice system." It's only there to protect the rich from the poor. That's why there are so many of these cases.
The sensible thing to do is beat the burglar/assailant unconscious, then have a mate help you drop them off in the country.
If the cops turn up its an easy matter to deny you caught a burglar/were somewhere else.

There is no justice- there's just-us.

Edit- Beaten to it by Suspiria.

There is a point when a defener must stop.

I have a friend who owned a bar. One night as he was closing three men with guns came in and robbed him. He was outgunned so he gave up his till. He was then shot twice (after giving up the money). He fell behind the bar and came up with his legal pistol. He shot and killed two of the attackers in the bar, the third one ran out the door. My friend made it to the door and shot the third guy in the parking lot. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison for the guy in the parking lot, no charges for the two in the bar.

Once the threat is over, the defense should be over too.

It is bad that she was fined and I am happy to hear that she was not harmed. However, a law is a law is a law.

'19 year old girl fined 500 British pounds for defending herself' No, she wasn't.

Originally posted by 727Sky

A TERRIFIED teenage girl has been fined £500 for knocking unconscious a masked stranger who stalked her home from a nightclub in what lawyers have called an "exceptional" case.

This gets so tedious.

Her problem was she continued to kick the man when he was down.

No, not even that.

However, she went too far by continuing to kick her attacker on the head even after he was knocked unconscious.

Is the argument. Why do you Need to frame it otherwise?

Sheriff Donald Muirhead told Burleigh she was entitled to hit Docherty to protect herself. But he added: "You lost control. You kept on kicking him when there was no longer any need.

I don't even want to defend the fine and I know that the 'Girl fined for fighting back at masked man ' headline is misleading but come on ATS. I think the mitigating circumstances completely negate the petty 'letter of the law' justification upon which the fine must stand and debacles such as this are why the legal system finds itself in such a mess in relation to ever decreasing public confidence.

Read the article fully though, complain about the headline and the fine but be thorough.

She was not fined for defending herself. She was fined for going too far, her actions strayed from being viewed as self defence to being viewed as gratuitous violence.

"You lost control. You kept on kicking him when there was no longer any need. In all the circumstances, it seems to me that I can deal with the matter by way of a financial penalty."

Just to reiterate and avoid any "So you agree then...." ignorance: There are mitigating circumstances as I said and I think they are totally valid and demand attention in such cases. If the spirit of the law were considered instead of the petty, out of context letter of the law then absurdities like this would be avoided. So I shake my head at such decisions but let's shake our heads for the right reasons otherwise we are not going to get anywhere.

At this point what should be legitimate outrage at genuine idiocy can drift into being unfocused and impotent to anyone paying attention. Come on ATS be better than this.

The headline Girl fined for fighting back at masked man Is at best an accidental misunderstanding fostered by lazy/sensationalist journalism offered by a sensationalist, morally ambiguous press who jumped the shark long ago in the eyes of many. The headline 19 year old girl fined 500 British pounds for defending herself offered here could be seen as a purposeful, quite apparent misrepresentation offered to support a personal agenda.

I'll say it again: Come on ATS be better than this.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by Mr Tranny

 

Indeed. If a man doesn't want to suffer any harm, he really shouldn't scare the bejeezuz out of someone in the dark. You pretty much need to be ready to take responsibility for that. She could have been the victim of some previous crime that left her somewhat hypersensitive about such things. Would she have been responsible then too?

On the information available, I'm going to guess that any witnesses to this event only saw the latter part of this altercation, where the allegedly attacked woman was stomping Mr Evil Balaclava Wearer's head. Knowing she was with her 21 yr old boyfriend at the time, does it not even raise a little suspicion in your mind as to what might really have happened here? It's alright saying "Sounds like he got what he deserved, to me!" but I'd wager there's more to this than meets the eye, if the police were really that arsed about investigating savages beating up low-lifes.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by Mr Tranny

 

And why must a person allow themselves to be harmed before they can defend themselves? Seems a bit of a wonky standpoint to me. Sounds like you have to ALLOW the harm to come first, which seems like a bad plan at the best of times. When someone is already at a discernible disadvantage, I would think that taking your best opportunity would be the way forward. Looks like the legal system doesn't work in the right direction there - or anywhere else, really.

You don't have to be harmed to defend yourself, an attempt to harm you just has to be made AND continued. If someone throws a punch at you, misses, and runs away, the attempted assault doesn't justify you running after them and making them pay for their mistake.

Good job Docherty was'nt a Muslim, the girl would be dead by now.........

Why are some people so ready to believe the story as presented? The incident occurred in a small town with a population of about 15,000. All involved seem to live in the town, and I'm making an educated guess the nightclub they went to was likely to be the only one, so it isn't exactly highly improbable that they knew each other. Isn't there a slight possibility that that guy who got beat up by a girl was pressured into saying he started the encounter? It doesn't seem to mention anything about the man ever being charged with trying to force a young woman into her own home and do who knows what, had he been successful, as far as I've seen, so how seriously could they have took the allegation?

From the very first time I came across this story there was a stench to it, and anyone trying to tout this as a "Feisty lass beats the # out of bad guy and gets fined!" kind of tale needs to take their deductive powers into the shop for a MOT. .

Sou rce

Livingston Sheriff Court heard the pair had got into an argument at the Dreadnought nightclub in Bathgate and Docherty was kicked out by bouncers. He admitted he was “fuming” about this and returned to the club with the intention of following Burleigh and her partner Christopher Twaddle home. He had pulled on a “military style” balaclava and rushed at the pair outside Burleigh’s Atholl Terrace home. But the court heard the woman “lost control” and assaulted Docherty by kicking him on the head, knocking him unconscious, and continuing to kick him as he lay there. Depute Fiscal Sarah O'Gallagher said Docherty had admitted being the initial aggressor and was angry after being asked to leave the club. She said: “The complainer headed home but was fuming and wanted to confront them. “At 2am they left and started to make their way back home but the complainer followed them wearing a balaclava. “By his own admission he was the initial aggressor.

Maybe you could trust in a little more info before condemning people in certain neighborhoods.

Anybody follows me around in a balaclava, even here in the frozen north, and I will most certainly be on my guard. At 2am, even more so. He had some pretty premeditated behavior for someone so innocent.