Many of us would do nearly anything to protect our homes, our property . Whether it be against crime or general nuisance, we want to keep our homes a serene, safe place.
Last year one farmer made the rounds online as a video showed him defending his home in a rather extreme manner, with many thinking he’d gone too far. However, the course disagreed, as he was recently acquitted of all charges.
In June of 2020, a video went viral.
A video of a man using a tractor to forcibly remove a car that had parked on his property. The video shows him flipping the car right over a short stone fence and pushing it back onto the street.
The man in the tractor was Robert Hooper, a 57-year-old farmer from Upper Teesdale, England.
He hadn’t wanted to call the cops when he saw the car on his property.
Hooper claims he’d been the victim of burglary eight times in the past and considered the police too slow to respond, so he took matters into his own hands.
He was charged with dangerous driving and criminal damage and recently went on trial at Durham Crown Court, but was acquitted of all charges.
This ruling came thanks to one key phrase.
“An Englishman’s home is his castle and my castle starts at that front gate.”
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His barrister, Michael Rawlinson, told the court that that phrase could be traced back to 1604.
“This whole case is about an Englishman’s home being his castle and his right to lawful self-defense of himself and his property,” he explained.
The court also got to hear the full backstory that many people who saw the video didn’t get.
Elliott Johnson and Charlie Burn were the ones who parked the Vauxhall Corsa on Hooper’s land after it had suffered a double blow-out as they were trying to head home. They were among many young people who had been traveling to Low Force Waterfall recently, with many rural citizens complaining that this influx of visitors brought garbage, noise, and chaos to the area.
Hooper approached the two and told them that their car was blocking access to his field, the one he’d been working in when they arrived.
He claimed he tried his best to be civil about it.
He told the court, “I said, ‘Now then lads, can we have this car moved, I need to be in and out’.”
“Instantly, Burns was right in my face. […] He was on edge and agitated and full of himself.”
So, he asked again.
And Burns replied, “I’m not [expletive] moving this car.”
“With that he punched me in the face, which rather shocked me,” Hooper continued, “I said I was only asking him to move the car. “
Afraid that Burns might have weapons, Hooper got into his telehandler.
And that’s what he used to flip and push the car back out onto the street. He hadn’t intended to flip it, but it caught a gate post as he was pushing it, which sent it up and over.
And that’s where his self-defense stance came from.
One that stood up against the jury and the courts, though that may not be surprising given the amount of support Hooper had.
Karen Henderson, Hooper’s partner of six years, said , “The support of his local community and also people from afar has kept him going through these last eight months of hell, which have been terrible.”
Though it’s been tough, they’re both grateful it’s over now.
Fellow Upper Teesdale farmer William Wearmouth said, “Robert Hooper is a decent, honest man, the hardest working man in the Dale and the jury got it right. He did nothing wrong, he was under attack and he did what he had to do to protect himself and his property.”
“It’s been wonderful to see so many people from the Dales come to support him, that really means a lot,” said Henderson.
h/t: Yahoo!
