Homeowners 'cannot be expected to act rationally when confronted by burglars'
– The Lord Chief JusticeThe householder is not in a position to exercise calm, cool, judgment.
You're not calmly detached, you're probably very cross and you're probably very frightened, a mixture of both.
And your judgment of precisely what you should or should not do in the circumstances cannot - as another predecessor of mine said, Lord Lane - you can't measure it in a jeweller's scale.
You have to face the reality of how people are and how people react to these situations, and justifiably react.
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