[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by Zippy

wiki

In 1999, Martin, a bachelor, was living alone at his farmhouse in Emneth Hungate, Norfolk, nicknamed Bleak House, which he inherited at age 35 from his uncle.[2] He claimed to have been burgled a total of ten times, losing £6,000 worth of furniture. Martin also complained about police inaction over the burglaries. The police reports state that multiple items and furniture were stolen such as dinner ware and a grandfather clock.[citation needed]

On the night of 20 August 1999, two burglars – Brendon Fearon, 29, and Fred Barras, 16 – broke into Bleak House.[3] When confronted, they attempted to flee through a window. Shooting downwards in the dark, with a pump-action Winchester shotgun he owned illegally, Martin shot towards the intruders. Fearon was hit in the leg, and Barras in the back. Barras escaped through the window but died at the scene.[1]

On 10 January 2000, Fearon and Darren Bark, 33 (who had acted as the getaway driver), both from Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, admitted to conspiring to burgle Martin's farmhouse. Fearon was sentenced to three years in prison, and Bark to 30 months [3] (with an additional 12 months arising from previous offences). Fearon was released on 10 August 2001.[3] Fred Barras, the dead youth, had accumulated a lengthy criminal record, having been arrested 29 times by the time of his death at the age of 16, and had been sentenced to two months in a young offenders' institution for assaulting a policeman, theft and being drunk and disorderly. On the night he was killed, the teenager had just been released on bail after being accused of stealing garden furniture. Barras' grandmother, Mary Dolan, stated: "It's not fair that the farmer has got all the money and he is the one that took Fred away.[4]

This is a huge problem IMO. And part of the reason some take the law into their own hands(rightly or wrongly)

Basically, police are useless and all they seem to care about is keeping the paperwork up :/