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Dr. Palmer: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Pound: Yes, because I am probably wrong.
Dr. Palmer: I fully agree with the commitment of the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) to animal welfare and other issues. He made the point that it would be no excuse if the person breaking in were on drugs or mentally ill, but he does not appear to have considered the possibility that the occupier could be on drugs or mentally ill. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a serious consideration?
Mr. Pound: If one opens the door to hell, one cannot define what comes out of it. The state of mind of someone breaking into a property should be taken into consideration, but it is not a justification—it is something that we should consider after the act. When a person is killed, they lose the right to consideration of their state of mind, which is the danger with this Bill.
Matthew Green: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being generous with his time. May I suggest another example of how odd the Bill is? If members of the intelligence services entered a house, which is legitimately occupied by people engaged in drug dealing, organised crime or terrorism, in order to place devices to obtain intelligence, and they were shot in the process, the Bill would apparently let the occupiers of the property off, because a person had entered and they felt afraid. The occupiers could legitimately shoot a police officer or member of the security services in those circumstances.
Mr. Pound: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's intervention. The nomenclature for the Bill should be the Kenneth Noye Bill, not the Tony Martin Bill. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, do not need reminding that Kenneth Noye is a convicted gangster and road-rage killer who was involved with some extremely serious criminals. He shot and killed a person in the garden of his house, and the man whom he shot and killed was a police officer. Kenneth Noye's defence was that an Englishman's home is his castle, that he saw someone skulking in the shrubbery in the middle of the night, and that he killed them. I am sorry, but if we are to come down on anybody's side, I am on the side of the police, not Kenneth Noye. The minute that we open this Pandora's box, we will get those sorts of problems.
I genuinely find it difficult to understand why the hon. Member for North Thanet is promoting the Bill, but I respect the sincerity of his emotions. Clause 1(2) states:
"not guilty of an offence by reason of any act",
and I cannot go down that road. This is not permissive legislation; this is blank cheque legislation. One could boil someone in a basement—that is an act. One could cut someone's throat—that is an act. Under the Bill, any act is permissible.
I cannot believe that any hon. Member can support in their heart or in their head a Bill that says that anyone can do anything to anyone if they feel that that person is entering the premises that they currently occupy, whether they are dealing crack cocaine, keeping an eye out for plain clothes policemen, running a racket or simply squatting in a property. The reference to "any act" is simply not on.
The fundamental point, which I alluded to twice, concerns perception. The hon. Member for North Thanet said that people perceive that the balance has shifted in favour of the criminal and away from the householder. If that is so, we have a duty to do something about it, but we are not obliged to give a knee-jerk response, which is what this Bill represents.
Let us think through the logic. In response to the idea that it is not merely permissible but desirable for us to defend our homes with shotguns, I would have to say that 98 per cent. of people should not be let anywhere near a shotgun. I think that most people would share that view. It may be all very well for people such as Robin Baker-White, who is a man of exemplary background and good character, but if we authorise the shotgun defence for one or two people, be they former high sheriffs or not, we are turning our backs on the truly weak and vulnerable people—the elderly pensioners who are shivering behind their doors in fear in my constituency and in many others. It is not good enough to say to an elderly pensioner, "You may be terrified of crime, but don't worry—get yourself a shotgun, and if anything happens, use it." That is reprehensible and despicable.
The defence of everybody in this country—high sheriffs and pensioners alike—requires a proper, efficient, responsive police force backed by the Crown Prosecution Service and supported in Parliament: a mechanism that in its totality punishes the malefactor and defends the innocent. We should be working towards better, stronger and more efficient policing to defend everybody. The shotgun defence will not work for my weak pensioner constituents. They cannot defend themselves with knives, cudgels or knuckledusters—they need the police.
Were we eventually to agree to the Bill, we would immediately send out one signal above all: the rule of law no longer runs and confidence in the police has disappeared. That would be not just a return to the politics of the caveman era, but a move towards the law enforcement of Texas, Tombstone and Dodge City. I cannot believe that we really want a nation in which the standards of Texas are applied; I would find that appalling, as, I hope, would many others. We need a public defence force—a police force—to defend and represent us. We should be directing our efforts towards further supporting and enhancing their role, not towards vigilantism and defending a man—Mr. Martin—who is at best eccentric and at worst a murderer.
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Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): The hon. Gentleman knows how much I respect him, but he is wrong to try to defeat the arguments by constantly referring to Mr. Martin. If he reads the Bill carefully, he will see, as I do as a lawyer, that it would not have protected Mr. Martin, because it makes it clear that one has to be acting in self-defence or in defence of one's property, and the intruder was running away at the time. The hon. Gentleman should forget about Mr. Martin and deal with the contents of the Bill.
Mr. Pound: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; I would not have mentioned Mr. Martin had he not been mentioned by the promoter of the Bill.
Mr. Pound: I shall just finish replying to the hon. Gentleman. I agree that the Bill probably would not have applied to Mr. Martin. That makes it all the more imperative that we recognise that the existing common law defence applies. We would do that no favours were we to enact the Bill, because it would not only muddy the waters but corrupt a stream of jurisprudence that has flowed for thousands of years. It may not be perfect, but it is probably the least imperfect way of resolving such situations.
Dr. Palmer: I believe that Mr. Martin would have a defence under clause 1(2)(b), whereby he does not have to show that he is acting in self-defence, merely that the person against whom he has acted "is, or . . . would be" a trespasser, as Mr. Barras was.
Mr. Pound: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but as I am one of the few Members of Parliament who is neither a barrister nor a solicitor—in fact, my only acquaintance with the law has been from the defendant's perspective—I am simply unqualified to comment further on that point.
Mr. Leigh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Pound: I will certainly give way to someone who knows far more than I do.
Mr. Leigh: I very much hope that we can clear this matter up during this debate. It is clear that, in order to be protected by the Bill, one of the people concerned would have to be a trespasser and the other would have to be acting in self-defence or to protect their property.
Mr. Pound: I thank the hon. Gentleman not just on my behalf but on behalf of the House. That was extremely interesting and a very good piece of advice. I am a little worried that I might now get a bill for 200 guineas—[Hon. Members: More!"] I am reminded by those who know more than I do that it should be 2,000 guineas.
Mr. Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD):
It is being argued that the Bill does not deal with the Tony Martin defence. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should direct himself to the provisions in clause 1(2)(a)(iv) and (v),
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which state that one has only to believe, reasonably or not, that one is apprehending B or otherwise preventing crime to be justified in going ahead and shooting.
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