Monday
(0)This is both good news and bad news:
Farmer Tony Martin has accepted an offer from a burglar whom he shot and wounded to drop a claim for damages.The aborted attempt by Brendan Fearon to sue Mr Martin for compensation is likely to cost the public around £50,000, a friend of the farmer said.
Mr Fearon last week offered to halt his compensation claim if Mr Martin agreed to abandon his counterclaim for compensation for damages suffered when his home was broken into.
Mr Martin today gave his lawyers formal instructions to accept Mr Fearon's offer.
The good news is that this absurd and fraudulent legal threat from "Mr" Fearon now looks as if it will cease. The bad news is that this deal accepts not only the equality before the law but also of legal outcome of a householder and his burgling attacker. Maybe (maybe), Fearon has suffered enough for what he did to Tony Martin, although I doubt if he has suffered nearly enough for what he has done to lots of others. But Tony Martin has certainly suffered far too much. If this deal makes his life easier and happier, then I'm for it, and of course he knows his own best interests. But the law should never have put him in the absurd position of having to negotiate with this thieving little apology for a man in the first place, just to stop any further predations.
Sting in the tail of the Telegraph piece already quoted from:
Mr Fearon was claiming legal aid for his court bid.
But of course.
Going off at a bit of a tangent, I posted some news yesterday afternoon and last night over at White Rose of another bit of broadcasting done by Sean Gabb, whose efforts on behalf of Tony Martin were featured here in two recent posts, this time on the subject of Identity Cards. I didn't hear the broadcast, but Sean apparently did very well, with much phoned-in and e-mailed support.
ID cards will do nothing to stop the likes of Fearon in their criminal rampages. ID card forgery will merely be another crime for criminals to commit and another pointless governmental expense, as Britain seems about to learn, and as Nigeria, apparently, already knows. There, the forgeries came several weeks before the real things themselves!
Tony Martin made a terrible mistake in wounding Fearon...
... he should have killed both of them and buried them in the garden.
Posted by JonT at September 22, 2003 06:24 PM
Jon T - Of course he should! And he didn't even need a garden. He has a farm! But Tony Martin is a victim of the state. He has grown up thinking fuedal. Obey the liege lord - in this instance, the police. This is what an ancient society does to people. Folk memories linger. The police are an arm of the state and therefore are there to be obeyed. In the US, the belief is that the police are there to preserve the rule of law, not a powerful state. Fine distinction, but those days in England are long gone.
Posted by Calamity Jane at September 22, 2003 07:35 PM
That's terrible Mr. Martin dropped his suit! I wonder if he's been threatened by the 'extended family' of Mr. Fearon and that's why he did?
Posted by Chris Josephson at September 23, 2003 05:22 AM
