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If I was driving a car, saw a chainsaw wielding person…

stevec67 said:
It's not a slam dunk, unless you foolishly say that you intended to kill him. The intent was to stop him from murdering the police officer, which it was clear to you that he intended, and you did the least that you could do to prevent it. You are obviously distraught that the man has unfortunately died, you only wanted to stop him. Now get a good solicitor and no pictures in the Daily Mail of you standing triumphantly atop the damaged car saying "I got the bastard, and I'd do it again!"
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Doesn't matter what you say. A murder conviction comes down to whether the court believes you had intent and premediation. Both of which are fairly easy tests in this scenario I'd have said. It's pretty hard to argue that you didn't intend to kill if you ran in to the assailant under full acceleration. The investigation will estimate the speed of the impact from the damage to the body, and if it turns out its a speed where they believe any normal person would reasonably believe death is a possibility you are done. Intent is clear as you obviously swerved off the road to hit the person, or didn't make any attempt to avoid doing so if they happened to be in the middle of the road etc.
 
gez said:
I highly doubt you'd have a chance in hell of successfully convincing a court that using a car to run someone over is "reasonable force".

Actually, thinking about it. As you used a car, it may be considered a motoring offence: death by dangerous driving.
That said, I don't think that works if the prosecution can prove intent.
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If a man were machine gunning a crowd, using a car as a deadly weapon to stop further killing * is* reasonable force. Just as armed police shooting dead a terrorist murdering people with a knife has been proven to be reasonable force. Look at the hero who battered the murderer with a narwhal tusk. If you kill someone with that, or any other club, whether derived from a marine mammal or otherwise, without good cause, it's murder. However he was quite rightly released and called a hero.
 
sec 3 criminal law act 1967:

A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large.

Almost certainly ok until you reverse over him!
 
gez said:
Doesn't matter what you say. A murder conviction comes down to whether the court believes you had intent and premediation. Both of which are fairly easy tests in this scenario I'd have said. It's pretty hard to argue that you didn't intend to kill if you ran in to the assailant under full acceleration. The investigation will estimate the speed of the impact from the damage to the body, and if it turns out its a speed where they believe any normal person would reasonably believe death is a possibility you are done. Intent is clear as you obviously swerved off the road to hit the person, or didn't make any attempt to avoid doing so if they happened to be in the middle of the road etc.
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of course it matters what you say. That's your statement of mens rea. It also matters what you do. If you hit him at 50 mph while accelerating, yes you intend to kill. If you hit him at a lesser speed that might offer some chance of survival, you have a defensible position. You then have to convince the court that this was the least that you could do, faced with a murdered policeman or a possibly dead apparent murderer. This is what armed police do every day. If they think that I have a weapon and to only way to stop me is to shoot me, shoot me they will. With justification.
 
IF you could convince the court that you'd already seen the assailant kill people, then maybe. Otherwise I still believe you'd struggle with the reasonable force argument.
 
stevec67 said:
of course it matters what you say. That's your statement of mens rea. It also matters what you do. If you hit him at 50 mph while accelerating, yes you intend to kill. If you hit him at a lesser speed that might offer some chance of survival, you have a defensible position. You then have to convince the court that this was the least that you could do, faced with a murdered policeman or a possibly dead apparent murderer. This is what armed police do every day. If they think that I have a weapon and to only way to stop me is to shoot me, shoot me they will. With justification.
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Yes it matters what you say, clearly it's your defence. What I meant though is that if the evidence etc leads the court to disbelieve what you've said then what you said counts for nothing. In that sense it wouldn't matter if you said "I never intended to kill him your honour".

Sure, if you tapped the person at 10mph you'd have a chance. In my original statement I was presuming Tony was meaning if one were driving down the road at a normal speed (eg. 25-30mph) and saw an assailant attacking a police officer and you just swerved to hit the assailant. So I was presuming the hit would have been notably above 20mph.
 
twotone said:
This actually happened last Friday in Cardonald, Glasgow.

Apparently there was a guy running down Paisley Road West from the direction of Paisley wielding a chainsaw and followed by a load of police cars.

www.ndtv.com

Man Chases Police Officer With Chainsaw In UK, Video Goes Viral

Two police officers have been injured in an incident in Renfrewshire, where a man was seen running with a chainsaw.
www.ndtv.com www.ndtv.com
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He's running pretty fast for a guy carrying a big chansaw. Must be quite fit. Left-handed grip too. And his top half looks too big. Is he wearing a stab vest? What a crazy situation.
 
gez said:
I would be murder, as it was both premeditated and there was intent to kill.
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Premeditated is a bit of a push, it's not like you've set out that morning with the intent to run over and kill someone, a bit different from a spur of the moment decision to incapacitate someone chasing a copper down the street with a chainsaw.
 
The OP has already alluded to murderous intent above which would compromise his defence.

As to the particular situation, if someone reasonably believed that a man with a chainsaw was chasing someone with intent to do physical harm, then using a car to prevent that attack would, probably, result in no charges being brought.
 
stevec67 said:
If a man were machine gunning a crowd, using a car as a deadly weapon to stop further killing * is* reasonable force. Just as armed police shooting dead a terrorist murdering people with a knife has been proven to be reasonable force. Look at the hero who battered the murderer with a narwhal tusk. If you kill someone with that, or any other club, whether derived from a marine mammal or otherwise, without good cause, it's murder. However he was quite rightly released and called a hero.
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The narwhal wielding guy didn’t kill the terrorist though, he was shot dead by the police.
 
Bob McC said:
The narwhal wielding guy didn’t kill the terrorist though, he was shot dead by the police.
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Yes, I remember. That's why I said "if". The thing is though that without there being a reason, which there obviously was, it's still assault with a deadly weapon or even attempted murder, and it does of course depend totally on the circumstances. As in the case above, the police shot him because they had no alternative, as they considered at the time, based on what they knew at the time, that this was the least that they could do to prevent further innocent deaths. Not cut and dried though, and of course thoroughly investigated by the PCC or whatever the appropriate authority is.
 
Bob McC said:
The narwhal wielding guy didn’t kill the terrorist though, he was shot dead by the police.
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Even if he had, I doubt he would have been charged with anything. The test in such cases is whether the force used is reasonable. Knocking someone down with a car probably is; reversing over them to make sure probably is not.

Consider narwhal man and Tony Martin for example. (not directly comparable obvs)
 
Not only was he not charged, he was pardoned and released from the murder conviction he was out on license from…
 
wulbert said:
He's running pretty fast for a guy carrying a big chansaw. Must be quite fit. Left-handed grip too. And his top half looks too big. Is he wearing a stab vest? What a crazy situation.
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Quite often such people are very high on cocaine, maybe as part of a cocktail.
 
twotone said:
This actually happened last Friday in Cardonald, Glasgow.

Apparently there was a guy running down Paisley Road West from the direction of Paisley wielding a chainsaw and followed by a load of police cars.

www.ndtv.com

Man Chases Police Officer With Chainsaw In UK, Video Goes Viral

Two police officers have been injured in an incident in Renfrewshire, where a man was seen running with a chainsaw.
www.ndtv.com www.ndtv.com
Click to expand...
No mention of the chainsaw man being Muslim?
 
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