Here's a brief overview of the Law of Self-Defence, but knowing what to do if you are arrested is perhaps more important. We can help you with that. Please get in touch.
UK law allows you to use “reasonable force” to defend yourself or someone else, or to protect property, but how much force is 'reasonable force'?
There is no clear cut answer. It depends how much force is reasonable in the circumstances. Common sense is often the best guideline.
Essentially, a court will decide whether you honestly believed you were in real and immediate danger of physical harm, and whether you responded to that perceived danger proportionately. The law accepts that you “cannot weigh to a nicety” the exact amount of force needed, but your response should be “commensurate with the degree of danger created by the attack”. You can't 'use a sledgehammer to crack a nut'.
It doesn’t matter if you were mistaken about the danger you were in, as long as your mistake was an honest one, but you cannot rely on a mistake you made because you were drunk or high on drugs.
It is not always necessary to ‘retreat’ first to try to avoid a physical confrontation, although you should if you can, and you should always try to demonstrate, by your words and behaviour, that you don't want to fight.
It is not necessary for you to warn an aggressor of your skills before defending yourself if you are trained in self-defence, martial arts or any similar skills. Nor must you refrain from using your skills (there would be no point in training if you can't use what you know). The law treats all people equally, although it always remains open to a jury to find that your actions were not reasonable in a particular situation.
The court may take into account your physical characteristics and your gender in determining the reasonableness of your decision to use force to defend yourself, e.g. if you lack the mobility to escape, perhaps through disability, weight, or age relative to your attackers. It is accepted that a woman facing a violent man will often be at a disadvantage in height, weight, strength and aggression levels.
You can legally act in self-defence if you confront a person, or argue with them, and they then attack you, but you cannot deliberately start a fight and claim that you acted in self-defence when you hurt the other person because they fought back.
There is no legal power to carry a weapon in case you need to defend yourself, but you can use any article as a makeshift weapon if the degree of force inflicted with it is justified in the circumstances and you either had it with you for a lawful purpose at the time (e.g. an umbrella in bad weather), or it happened to be close to hand in your moment of need.
It can be legal to strike first, rather than having to wait to be attacked: “A man about to be attacked does not have to wait for his assailant to strike the first blow or fire the first shot. Circumstances may justify a pre-emptive strike”: R v Beckford (1988).
In practice, you will have to show that you honestly believed you were in real and immediate danger of being attacked and injured if you didn’t take the initiative in defending yourself by striking first. But you cannot just hit someone and then claim that you thought he was about to hit you. You will have to justify it.
The police can use reasonable force to uphold the law or arrest a suspect, and door supervisors, security officers and ordinary individuals can also use reasonable force when making a ‘citizen’s arrest’ or assisting a police officer to detain someone, for example. A person may legally chase someone and use reasonable force to retrieve property, under this principle.
The Law v Reality:
Although a thorough understanding of the law is useful, it probably won’t be the most pressing consideration in your mind when you are about to be attacked.
It is therefore helpful to have a conditioned set of behaviours that are both legal and practical, rehearsed until they are automatic. We can help you with this.
We can also help you to understand what will happen to you if you are arrested, and what you should do about it. At the very least you should ALWAYS exercise your right to consult a solicitor, but there are other important factors to consider to protect yourself. Please get in touch now and learn what to do, before it happens to you.
Phil Lyons: 07985 22 66 56